Holy the Body: Poems Volume 44 - Paperback

by Donovan McAbee (Author)

Holy the Body wrestles with ghosts and shadows, discovers Mother Teresa in a cinnamon bun in Nashville, Tennessee and Jesus's tears in a trick of light. At once dark and humorous, these poems confront the religiosity of the US and explore the experience of faithful doubt, as God himself "goes under the knife." The poems in this manuscript take the reader through the brutalities of the author losing his mother to melanoma and of resuscitating his own father, with "the cracking of sternum beneath my hands." The collection chisels out a hard-earned language for the sacred, one which proclaims that the beauty we find in the midst of uncertainties is itself a solace that, as one of the final poems in the manuscript affirms, "is more than enough."

21st Century Poets, No. 44

Author Biography

Donovan McAbee is a poet, songwriter, and essayist. His work has appeared in The New York Times, TIME, The Sun, The Poetry Review, Poetry London, and a variety of other places. He grew up in Inman, South Carolina, a small town in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. He holds a Master of Divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. in Contemporary Poetry from the University of St Andrews in Scotland. Donovan lives in Nashville, Tennessee with his wife and their two children.