The Persistence of Faith
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Synopsis:
The Persistence of Faith is a fresh strong rethinking, reknowing, of our religious truths. Scott Owens' love for these materials is fierce and true, and out of it he brings poems fierce and true. Here is one to read joyfully and admire plentifully.
Fred Chappell, Poet Laureate of North Carolina
If, as Paul Eluard suggested, "there is another world but it exists in this one," then Scott Owens' poems offer definitive proof. Transformative and surprising, The Persistence of Faith is the excellent debut of a new voice in American poetry.
Stuart Dischell, Author of Good Hope Road, Evenings and Avenues, and Dig Safe
Whether he is speaking as Veronica or the widow of Saint Sebastian, or imagining the Creator Himself at his labor, Scott Owens is never unaware of the ambiguities of his several voices, all the while keeping his gaze firmly fixed on that "something" that "knows the moment / of sunflower, the time of crow's open wing, / the time of moss growing on rock, / and water washing it away."
Kathryn Stripling Byer, North Carolina Poet Laureate
Book Excerpt:
God, Creating the Birds, Envisions Adam
Detail from the North Porch of Chartres Cathedral
No feathers, no fins. Each thing he wanted
to outdo the last. How now could he
surpass these flowers of the air, his mind
already tired, his hands sore, his body
spent from shaping. Nothing less than himself
would do, he thought. His own image
in miniature, puppet, mannequin, mirror
that moves. Important now to forget the early
mistakes, jellyfish, plankton, platypus,
to focus on this final act of creation.
In the darkness he saved from his own
restless hands he drank the wine he’d created,
his only company the quiet angels of his mind.
He will have no wings. That night he slept
the troubled sleep of dreams. He saw faces
that mocked his own, fingers that picked
his skin apart, mouths that spat in the hands
that made them. His teeth will be like white
soldiers, angry and hard.
Early the next day, his eyes barely open,
his head still humming from the night before,
he scraped the flesh from his own face,
opened a mouth, pressed his thumb hard
into the wells of eyes, pulled up ears
and nose, stretched out torso, arms, legs,
fingers, toes. He worked for hours shaping
the supple curve of back, rounding the buttocks,
pinching the tight cup of prick and balls.
His hands will be like these, clumsy and precise.
At last he draped it over the white sticks
he cherished, dredged the life again
from his lungs, spat it into the mouth,
called it man, son of God, keeper of earth,
dropped it headfirst, naked, crying,
bruised and bloody to the ground.
Reprinted from Charlotte Poetry Review
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Original Publish Date:
June 30, 1993
Formats and associated ISBNs:
0963539124
Formats:
Paperback
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