The Wound of God: G. C. Waldrep's Poetry

I aim to take account of the perplexing difficulties of Waldrep's poetry and to understand those difficulties—not to explain them—in the context of the intersections of faith, doubt, suffering, and art. The wound of God is a metaphor for Waldrep's incarnational aesthetic. Incarnation presents itself in his poetry as a spiritual embodiment chiefly in prayer, light, language, time, and most sublimely, I argue, in the stained glass of church windows. Incarnation affects not only the life of the poet but the substance of his poems and shapes their form and style.