Description
“‘Nothing here is innocent, not even delight.’ So begins the gorgeous debut, The Resurrection of the Body, by Kirk Schlueter. This collection taught me a lot about the hungers of autumn and all that is eaten by flame and eaten by shadows. Whether writing about anorexia or poems in the voice of Frankenstein’s creature, these poems remind me that the body is more than wounds, more than shame. These poems are haunted by a God that demands sacrifice, that confuses pain with praise, but even as the speaker learns to ‘live as a predator and sing like prey,’ there’s a pervasive sense of hope, of being deeply in love with the world and all its beautiful and horrible resurrections.” —Traci Brimhall, author of Love Prodigal
“‘Before celebration, there must be slaughter’—the opening invocation of The Resurrection of the Body—invites readers into a haunting yet hopeful meditation on how the world marks and shapes our bodies. In Schlueter’s debut collection, we move through landscapes ‘scratched down to bone,’ landscapes full of men taught to discipline, deny, and ‘destroy their bodies.’ With brash imagery and tenderness, these poems give us a vulnerable look at male eating disorders alongside questions of faith, country, and what it takes to love ourselves. Out of these renderings of hunger and slaughter we are treated to a salvation that shows us how to be ‘in love with this world we could have if we all tried.’” —John McCarthy, author of Scared Violent Like Horses
“The body as glowing hives of bees in winter. The body as deer in rifle sight, and deer cut open under trees, and deer allowed to walk away from human violence. ‘What do you call it when hunger turns to worship?’ asks The Resurrection of the Body by Kirk Schlueter. In spite of anorexia and inherited expectations of masculinity, Schlueter’s poems lead us toward self-acceptance beyond exercise’s self-obliterating mastery. I need to be reminded of this. I need the reckoning that Schlueter’s poems achieve, wherein one’s deep love of thunderstorms and the landscape of home can be extended finally to one’s own body.” —Andrew Hemmert, author of No Longer At This Address
“These poems move like the deer that populate them: gorgeously and powerfully, with their own hunger and bodily logic. They weave trails through what was familiar, darting with vulnerability and insight between classrooms, domestic spaces, hunting blinds, and churches—telling a deeply personal story of male anorexia and grief. Through this keenly-noticed and richly imagistic telling, they illuminate a larger societal truth—that the violence of patriarchy is a weapon that points, with terrifying fury, both inward and out.” —Teresa Dzieglewicz, author of Something Small of How to Hold a River
