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A review by jbmorgan86
God of Nothingness: Poems by Mark Wunderlich
3.0
I’ve developed a love for poetry . . . when it has rhyme, meter, structure, is familiar, is safe. I’m attempting to cultivate an appreciation for poetry that is none of those things. To that end, I’m reading poem collections that show up on “Best of 2021” lists. This is the first of them.
I had no knowledge of the poet or his background prior to reading this collection. What you have here is a short collection of poems dealing with nature, “ghosts” (literal and figurative), death, nostalgia, family, and identity. Other reviewers have labeled this collection as “comforting.” There was no comfort here for me. I actually felt quite unnerved reading some of the poems (particularly about the poet’s nephew’s suicide).
All that being said, here were a few standout moments for me:
“Haunted House” - A poem about restoring an old house that the locals claim is haunted. By the end of the poem, the speaker settles into his house as the ghost of “Old Dutch Mary” looks on.
“The Prodigal” - The speaker’s family life resembles that of the parable of the Prodigal Son. The final lines stuck out to me:
“And so he returned, welcomed warily by our dwindling clan,
to shake his dying dad’s hand. Here I stand
in the background, frying the fatted calf in grease,
while he weeps for what was lost—for himself—
and with evident enviable release.”
“First, Chill” - I haven’t quite wrapped my head around the phrase “The God of Nothingness” which appears in the title and in two poems. However, these lines stuck out to me:
“I pray to the God of Nothingness
who rules those icy, bluestone peaks,
who hides the world of the living
underneath his coat of snow.
He has taken them from me
and now I will them, coldly, to go.”
I had no knowledge of the poet or his background prior to reading this collection. What you have here is a short collection of poems dealing with nature, “ghosts” (literal and figurative), death, nostalgia, family, and identity. Other reviewers have labeled this collection as “comforting.” There was no comfort here for me. I actually felt quite unnerved reading some of the poems (particularly about the poet’s nephew’s suicide).
All that being said, here were a few standout moments for me:
“Haunted House” - A poem about restoring an old house that the locals claim is haunted. By the end of the poem, the speaker settles into his house as the ghost of “Old Dutch Mary” looks on.
“The Prodigal” - The speaker’s family life resembles that of the parable of the Prodigal Son. The final lines stuck out to me:
“And so he returned, welcomed warily by our dwindling clan,
to shake his dying dad’s hand. Here I stand
in the background, frying the fatted calf in grease,
while he weeps for what was lost—for himself—
and with evident enviable release.”
“First, Chill” - I haven’t quite wrapped my head around the phrase “The God of Nothingness” which appears in the title and in two poems. However, these lines stuck out to me:
“I pray to the God of Nothingness
who rules those icy, bluestone peaks,
who hides the world of the living
underneath his coat of snow.
He has taken them from me
and now I will them, coldly, to go.”