{"product_id":"with-the-dogstar-as-my-witness","title":"With the Dogstar as My Witness","description":"\u003cp\u003eOrganized around the canonical prayer hours beginning in the evening and moving into morning (vespers compline vigils lauds) and set in an ethereal South Texas landscape the poems in John Fry's debut collection \u003cem\u003eWith the Dogstar as My Witness \u003c\/em\u003e wrestle with theological and deeply personal concerns in language that is wrenched almost to breaking but which holds after all and forms a tapestry of (sometimes tortured) prayer.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eJohn Fry\u003c\/strong\u003e received an AB in English from Davidson College in North Carolina and an MFA in Poetry from Texas State University-San Marcos. He is the author of the chapbook \u003cem\u003esilt will swirl\u003c\/em\u003e (New Border 2012). His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in \u003cem\u003eColorado Review West Branch Blackbird Tupelo Quarterly Bellingham Review Washington Square Ruminate\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eWaxwing\u003c\/em\u003e among other places as well as in the anthologies \u003cem\u003eNew Border Voices \u003c\/em\u003e(Texas A\u0026amp;ampM UP 2014) and \u003cem\u003eImaniman: Poets Writing in the Anzald\u0026amp;uacutean Borderlands\u003c\/em\u003e (Aunt Lute 2016). Fry is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Texas at Austin where he is writing a dissertation on medieval English literature.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"\u003cem\u003eWith the Dogstar as My Witness \u003c\/em\u003eis a document of terrible longing that we are born for so many hearts \u0026amp;lsquopromised benediction our goodbyes \/ blackened our altars.' In poems spread across the page-syntactic breaks in breath and hope-Fry suggests that we are never truly content with divine absence. He looks not for substitute but salves. He travels the wilderness the desert of desire.\" -\u003cstrong\u003eNick Ripatrazone \u003cem\u003eThe Millions\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"In the tradition of the literature of the spirit one hopes to find both breath (spirit) and matter (body) rather than an old and exclusionary divide between what in the human can be admitted to the divine. John Fry's poems like the lyrics of Fanny Howe or Jean Valentine seem committed to this light unlacing of truths from traditions place the experience of the spiritual with the individual life not with a canon of law or institution. Doubters are saintly and certainty is dispersed in this wise warm book.\"-\u003cstrong\u003eKazim Ali\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"When Flannery O'Connor wrote \u0026amp;lsquoI have been reading Mr. Kafka and I feel his problem of getting grace ' she wrote it in a prayer. With John Fry's impressive debut comes the call to join with the voices he embodies where the possibility and history of grace might touch. Do touch. The view is celestial: literal stars actual God. From inside these poems we sense pressure at the mouth in lines often made with necessary brevity engaged with silences as they are. His sumptuous enjambments insist on inquiry as the highest unfurling gesture and the body as its most reliable source. These poems are earthly tender wounded and sharp as they contend with spiritual pain and its redress undress.\"-\u003cstrong\u003eKathleen Peirce\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Perhaps the promises of Christianity-forgiveness redemption everlasting life-are felt most keenly by those from whom they are withheld by orthodoxy. And though \u003cem\u003eWith the Dogstar as My Witness\u003c\/em\u003e describes the inevitable painful estrangement felt by a queer raised in the church Fry's beautifully wrought lyrics refuse to let go of the faith. Built in part from repurposed Biblical language and narrative they articulate a theology of want populated by startling images that capture \u0026amp;lsquothe loneliness of limestone's \/ memory of water.' Rejecting the orthodox assumption that queers are prodigal Fry persists as a rightful pilgrim who places desire at the center of a prayerful language fashioned from ecstatic ravishing embodiment. Like any ritual done in good faith these poems offer up the starkest needs of a soul that never stops expecting a blessing.\"-\u003cstrong\u003eBrian Teare\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"John Fry's debut collection of poetry movingly recounts the peregrinated process of holy reencounter as a walk through the watches of the night into a dawn light of acknowledgment. These poems wrestle their way through a series of new names-Eve and Lazarus Mary and Judas and others-in order to produce a new physicalized credo: breathing itself as a manifestation of spirit \u0026amp;lsquolistening with \/ my whole skin.' Such work in Fry's playful music honors how entwined are \u003cem\u003ebewilder\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003ebelieve\u003c\/em\u003e.\"-\u003cstrong\u003eKimberly Johnson\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Itasca Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54526322802963,"sku":"9781949039207","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0948\/3521\/2563\/files\/img_proxy_bb22f04e-eea0-4b2c-9d39-b4e04d3da556.jpg?v=1785850835","url":"https:\/\/danuc.net\/products\/with-the-dogstar-as-my-witness","provider":"Danu's Wardrobe","version":"1.0","type":"link"}