In this rich continuation of Beasley's soul-quest, Gnostic Gospels collide with shaman belief, Buddhist treatises, Schopenhauer's philosophical nihilism, and fatherhood.

Bruce Beasley is the author of seven previous collections of poetry, including Theophobia (BOA, 2012). He is the winner of the Colorado Prize in Poetry (selected by Charles Wright) for Summer Mystagogia (1996), the Ohio State University Press/Journal Award for The Creation (1994), and the University of Georgia Press Contemporary Poetry Award competition for Lord Brain (2005). He has won three Pushcart Prizes, and his work appears in The Pushcart Book of Poetry: The Best Poems from the First 30 Years of the Pushcart Prize. He has won fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Artist Trust of Washington. A native of Macon, Georgia, he lives in Bellingham, Washington, where he is a professor of English at Western Washington University.

The Parts

Torn-to-Pieces-Hood

Part I Thou Must Leave

Report to the Provost on the Progress of My Leave 1

Me Meaneth 4

Reading Jesus Again, with a New Prescription 9


Part II Disorientation Psalm

Tohu Bohu 13

Looking Down the Cliff, with Schopenhauer, on Black Friday 16
The Last Good 19

"I Don't Like My Soul Parts" 21

Reading The Purpose Driven Life, with Schopenhauer 22



Part III Hymeneal

Nuptial Song 26

On Marriage 29

Antithalamion 30

What Do You Think the Poet Is Trying to Say? 33

The Name of the Island Was Marriage 35

Offspring Insprung 39


Part IV The Sixth Dust

Revised Catechism 43

Cleft for Me Let Me Hide Myself from Thee 45

Such and Such and Such and Such 47


Part V The Mass of the Ordinary

Kyrie 51

Embolism 54

Sanctus 57

Credo 58

Fraction Rite 60

Agnus Dei 63

Benedictus 65

Gloria 68


NONORDINARY TO THE POEMS 70