To the Green Man: Poems

by Mark Jarman

Book Overview

This collection leaps into the dangerous currents where poetry and reli-gion meet, and enlivens the lexicon of traditional American Christian belief by testing its doctrines and language against contemporary experience.

"Beyond the wonderful music of his lines . . ., what makes To the Green Man such an important and memor-able book is its enactment of a spiritual struggle to be at once at home in the world and astonished by it."--Alan...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1932511032
• ISBN13: 9781932511031
• Release Date: July 2004
• Publisher: Sarabande Books
• Length: 88 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.0" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

A Passionate New Collection

Mark Jarman's new collection picks up where "Unholy Sonnets" left off in exploring and questioning the Christian faith, simultaneously rejecting dogmatic doctrine and upholding orthodoxy. "To the Green Man" takes art (specifically paintings) as its overall subject, including poems that explore not only how painting interpret scripture, but also how certain paintings retell biblical stories. The book also includes some narrative excursions, as well, including a wonderful piece about the poet's grandfather, Ray. Buy this today and keep a look out for Jarman's new collection of prose poems.

Swimming up to the surface...

I agree with your first reviewer. Three years ago I lost my aunt and uncle on a pleasure cruise. We were extremely close, and I plunged into a terrible grieving cycle. A friend gave me a copy of Mark Jarman's Questions for Ecclesiastes and a copy of his Unholy Sonnets. Those poems, more than anything else in my life, repaired my life. If it's possible, this new book is even wiser, gentler, better--if that's possible.

Jarman should win the Pulitzer Prize

Mark Jarman's new book is a brilliant continuation of the themes for which he is so admired. Is there a poet writing today with a more keenly developed, complex spirituality? These are poems our culture needs, perhaps now more than ever. They are so readable, so thought provoking, so memorable. Treat yourself and your friends to this volume.