On the CrossDevotional Poems by Dallas Wiebe |
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"On the Cross is powerful, vivid, and astonishing. As we might expect of a first-rate poet who protests that 'artsy-craftsy people have made Christ into a fashion statement,' here are no stale, lip-service pieties. Wiebe writes a moving elegy for his wife, contemplates a cross-shaped scar left on his chest by surgery, frankly confronts the hard demands of cross-bearing. He makes a large contribution to devotional poetry in our time, one that deserves to last far into the future." - X.J. Kennedy, Author, The Lords of Misrule: Poems, 1992-2001
As Paul Friesen has written in regard to crosses he created for the United Methodist Church of Hesston, Kansas, these poems are "not decorations, but for provocative meditation, inviting you to confront Him who is Life, Light and Love." These poems - augmented by John Leon's line drawings of the Cross based on Paul Friesen's crosses - fit into a long tradition of meditations on the Cross articulated in poetry, prose, painting and music.
About the Author
Dallas Wiebe, Cincinnati, Ohio, taught literature and writing at the University of Wisconsin (Madison) 1960-1963 then moved to the University of Cincinnati until retiring from teaching in 1995. His publications include the Mennonite novel Our Asian Journy (1997), a book of minimalist poetry called The Kansas Poems (1987), and four books of short stories.