Dear friends,

Each week I write to you, all my anxieties dissipate and I feel I have better & better reasons to be excited. First, we got a few plants for our place & that lifted up my spirits. Me & the plants have been listening to Tchaikovsky all day. Second, our poet this week is the venerable Christian Wiman!!! I’ve been reading & imposing his work on friends for many years. Some of his stuff could compete with the most potent of balms. We have 6 poems alongside an interview. You do not want to miss these poems. I’m not going to say anymore because I want you to go read the poems right now.

Seriously, go do it.

All good things,
Karan

Christian Wiman

Christian Wiman is the author, editor, or translator of more than a dozen books of poetry and prose, including two memoirs, My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer and He Held Radical Light: The Art of Faith, the Faith of Art; Every Riven Thing, winner of the Ambassador Book Award; Once in the West, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist; and Survival Is a Style—all published by FSG. He teaches religion and literature at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music and at Yale Divinity School.

Our Only Savior Is Failure

in conversation with Christian Wiman

"Art is a means, not an end. If it’s a means to something trivial, then the work will be trivial. So you really do have to figure out what your ultimate concern is and whether your art serves that. The paradox (and mercy) is that art can reveal an ultimate concern. But then it—and you—must change." Read the full interview →

Send us a portfolio of poems that'll make us lose our minds. Submit now to the $2000 Bob Hicok Fellowship. Open to all poets writing in English, living anywhere in the world. All submissions are considered for publication. Final judge is Bob Hicok himself. Winner receives funding + year-long support for their writing & career. Full guidelines details here