He Held Radical Light

"The poems Wiman has chosen are almost all gorgeous, and he explicates them gorgeously . . . He is expert at identifying the exact image or lines where a poet has wrestled eternity onto the page. It's hard to sustain a series of 'moments' like that for very long, but Wiman's gratitude for them, and humility before them, makes this brief book strangely powerful . . . These are achievements of attention, and by gathering so many of them here Wiman trains us to look for them elsewhere. If it were only those close readings, He Held Radical Light would be a textbook; instead, the real joy is how beautifully it melds intellectual labor with humane fellowship, refusing to forget the flesh that made the words. Even the most transcendent art arrives via the transient vessels known as artists, and Wiman knows how to bring both to life on the page."—The New York Times Book Review

"This moving book explores not only those torments, but also the understanding that art can provide."—Kirkus Reviews

"A sense of our own limitations and the struggle to accept them is at the heart of this beautiful, brief book, written in the face of former poetry editor and honored poet/essayist Wiman's own struggles with a rare form of cancer. Weaving an informal memoir of poets and poems and the search for something more than limitations and acceptance, Wiman has wonderful stories to tell, having been at the center of the poetry world for the last quarter century."—Library Journal

"Readers who allow themselves to be swept along by Wiman’s beautiful style and oblique considerations will come away with fresh strategies for unpacking faith in the contemporary world."—Publishers Weekly