{"id":8790,"date":"2023-12-11T22:05:47","date_gmt":"2023-12-11T22:05:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/?p=8790"},"modified":"2023-12-11T22:05:51","modified_gmt":"2023-12-11T22:05:51","slug":"zero-at-the-bone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/2023\/12\/11\/zero-at-the-bone\/","title":{"rendered":"Zero at the Bone"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Not Extinction, But Exchange<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Wiman\u2019s latest resists our tendency to idolize its writer, embracing instead a lively debate both with others and with his own ideas.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Review by Whitney Rio-Ross
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Titles are everything,\u201d a poet recently told me when discussing her award-winning collection. I tend to agree. If I find a book\u2019s title mysterious, beautiful, or delightfully weird, I can\u2019t resist reading a few pages. Christian Wiman consistently nails his book titles, but when I first read about Zero at the Bone<\/em>, its subtitle intrigued me most. \u201c50 Entries Against Despair\u201d sounded like quite the task, especially because I didn\u2019t understand what it meant. According to Wiman, \u201cBy \u2018against\u2019 in the subtitle of this book I don\u2019t mean to imply a \u2018position\u2019…. In fact I\u2019m sometimes very much in favor of despair when it\u2019s a realistic appraisal of circumstance…. But despair, like most human qualities, can be both sinful and salvific.\u201d Wiman never quite defines what he means by \u201cagainst.\u201d (Are any words more perilous than prepositions?) After reading the book, I still can\u2019t tell you what \u201cagainst\u201d means, but I can say that the phrase feels<\/em> right\u2014a poet\u2019s typically insufficient explanation.<\/p>

Wiman\u2019s fifty entries come in several forms\u2014literary analysis, theology, personal essays, his own poems, and collections of quotes from other writers. As with My Bright Abyss <\/em>and He Held Radical Light<\/em>, other poets\u2019 work also makes a significant contribution. Zero at the Bone<\/em> addresses those topics for which Wiman has become so well-known: suffering, faith, doubt, love, poetry, and, of course, despair. Knowing the themes at hand from a promotional summary, I felt simultaneously pleased and nervous\u2014pleased because I always enjoy reading Wiman\u2019s thoughts and poems, nervous because of how some readers approach Wiman\u2019s words and might place their despair in his all-too-human hands.<\/p>

With every book published, Wiman has gained more readers and devotees. Say the name \u201cChristian Wiman\u201d in certain churches or writing workshops, and you\u2019ll be met with slow nods, closed eyes, and hands on hearts. I always feel uncomfortable when invoking a non-divine name leads to reverent gestures. The reaction might not indicate full-scale idolatry, but it does betray a troubling approach to a beloved writer\u2019s new book: writer as spiritual guru and text as scripture. I understand the awe Wiman inspires. An award-winning poet with a startling scope of theological knowledge and imagination, he also possesses the wisdom unique (though not guaranteed) to those who live with death. Who wouldn\u2019t accept his statements as sacred?<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u201cConversion, like creation, is ongoing,\u201d he writes. This book is the \u201congoing.\u201d<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Well, for starters, he wouldn\u2019t. Wiman is far from settled on what he thinks about God, faith, or poetry. Along with confessing doubt in general (which he admits can become a comforting idol), Wiman calls attention to his particular uncertainties. He makes his fallibility transparent by highlighting his struggle to articulate what he thinks. Rather than correcting himself by deleting all of his mistakes before publication, he leaves in blunders and corrects himself later with a \u201cno\u201d or an acknowledgement that his turn of phrase is inadequate or that he has used \u201cprecisely the wrong verb.\u201d This move not only resists the temptation to write quotable axioms but also gives the words a human voice, a classic poetic move. The poet Scott Cairns says that the best poems show a mind at work; apparently the best theological essays do the same. Additionally, Wiman owns his inconsistencies. After reading one entry, I wondered if the essay\u2019s thesis directly contradicted a previous chapter. I might have been wrong, but I felt some relief when I soon read an entry written as an argument with himself. The conversation is witty, biting, and all-too relatable. What a comfort to hear another great poet grumble, \u201cVery well then, I contradict myself.\u201d<\/p>

Along with calling attention to his limitations as a writer, Wiman also shares his everyday life and present-day sins more than he has in previous books. Perhaps it\u2019s because Zero at the Bone <\/em>doesn\u2019t focus on his cancer diagnosis and his conversion to Christianity but the years after what he believed would be end of his story. \u201cConversion, like creation, is ongoing,\u201d he writes. This book is the \u201congoing.\u201d He still circles the topics of his earlier work, but now he locates much of his philosophy, poetry, and despair in the mundanity of a Christian poet\u2019s daily existence. We can romanticize a terminal illness (here\u2019s looking at you, Dickens), but not so much the common experiences of tense family dinners, trips to the gym, and the dumpster fire of American politics. Like his choice to correct his own language, this shift humanizes Wiman in a new way and, in my opinion, gives the book greater emotional heft. While I loved nearly every entry, I found Wiman\u2019s personal essays the most stirring. In a piercing family story, \u201cWhite Buffalo,\u201d Wiman includes both the first version of the essay and a coda written a decade later in which he chides himself for leaning into \u201ca willed death of hope.\u201d In his penultimate entry, \u201cThe Cancer Chair,\u201d Wiman writes a reflection on suffering and Job, but the theology is contextualized in (and interrupted by) a day of cancer treatment full of its frustrations and embarrassments. The cancer chair literally grounds the suffering that we often try to abstract in sermons and poems, and while Wiman might not be able to articulate the pain of cancer, he can relate his less-than-saintly attitude toward treatment.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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While love cannot (should not?) stave off despair entirely, it certainly keeps us from despair\u2019s detached loneliness.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Wiman\u2019s choice to humanize a much-respected thinker doesn\u2019t end with himself. He does the same for other poets and theologians he admires by engaging with their work as an equal, quibbling with their language and perception. While he greatly admires Simone Weil, he strongly disagrees with her view of detachment. He even dips into the metaphysics of modern science, claiming that some scientists draw incorrect (often despair-inducing) conclusions from their work. We know from the rest of the book that Wiman doesn\u2019t consider himself a sage, much less a physics expert. He isn\u2019t attempting to dunk on geniuses but engage them. He believes \u201cthat reality is catalyzed by engagement, not detachment.\u201d With this point in mind, he even forces these voices to converse in entries composed entirely of quotes on a subject\u2014some in agreement and others in conflict. I imagine a few of the poets would be outraged to have their words placed next to certain theologians and vice-versa. To borrow a phrase from Etheridge Knight, a poet Wiman esteems, Zero at the Bone <\/em>manages to \u201cdrop a notch in the sacred shield\u201d of great writers. The book also invites us to join in the conversation. Wiman says that once you have aged (or perhaps matured) past the fetishization of despair that often comes with youth, you soon realize, \u201cIt\u2019s just you, time piled up like volcanic detritus around you, miles and miles of silence.\u201d This book breaks the silence.<\/p>

All poetry is entering a conversation that has been going on for millennia. (That\u2019s another Cairns idea.) This perspective might devastate those writers (theologians, philosophers, novelists, or poets) obsessed with articulating what \u201chas never been said before.\u201d But for those who value company over novelty, it is a gift. Wiman has said before that writing itself is an act against despair. Entering a conversation also keeps us from embracing despair entirely. \u201cA Prison gets to be a friend,\u201d writes Emily Dickinson, but it\u2019s difficult to attend to a lonely cell when pressing your ear against the wall, straining to hear and perhaps eventually wanting to say something of your own. For Wiman, the conversations he constructs\u2014even the combative ones\u2014are a search for truth. It\u2019s community. It\u2019s a form of human love. And while love cannot (should not?) stave off despair entirely, it certainly keeps us from despair\u2019s detached loneliness. Zero at the Bone<\/em> is a humbly honest but daring invitation to put aside our lonely despair to seek truth with Wiman and a hundred other fallible, fumbling, loveable writers.<\/p>

In one entry, Wiman lineates a statement from John V. Taylor\u2019s The Christlike God<\/em>, and I believe it best sums up the project (and accomplishment) of Zero at the Bone:<\/em><\/p>

But when exploration<\/p>

turns to love
the heart longs
not for extinction<\/p>

but exchange,
not for union
but communion.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Whitney Rio-Ross<\/strong>\u00a0holds a Master\u2019s in Religion and Literature from Yale Divinity School. Her writing has appeared in Sojourners<\/em>,\u00a0Reflections<\/em>, America Magazine<\/em>,\u00a0LETTERS JOURNAL<\/em>,\u00a0The Cresset<\/em>,\u00a0St. Katherine Review<\/em>,\u00a0The Other Journal<\/em>, and elsewhere. She is the author of the poetry chapbook\u00a0Birthmarks<\/em> and lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with her husband.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair<\/strong> was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux on December 5, 2023. Fare Forward <\/em>appreciates their provision of an advance copy to our reviewer. You can purchase your own copy from the publisher here<\/a>.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wiman\u2019s latest resists our tendency to idolize its writer, embracing instead a lively debate both with others and with his own ideas. Review by Whitney Rio-Ross<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8792,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"ocean_front_end_style_editor":"no","ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-review","category-newsletter","entry","has-media"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farefwd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Zero-at-the-Bone-3D.jpg?fit=1500%2C1383&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8790"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8798,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8790\/revisions\/8798"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd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