Opening Ritual

G.C. Waldrep is the author of several previous full-length collections of poetry, including feast gently (Tupelo, 2018), which won the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America, and the long poem Testament (BOA Editions, 2015).  Waldrep’s work has appeared in Poetry, Ploughshares, Paris Review, APR, New England Review, New American Writing, Harper’s, Tin House, Verse, and many other journals in the USA and abroad, as well as twice in The Best American Poetry and in the second edition of Norton’s Postmodern American Poetry.He has received prizes from the Poetry Society of America and the Academy of American Poets as well as the Colorado Prize, the Dorset Prize, the Campbell Corner Prize, two Pushcart Prizes, a Gertrude Stein Award for Innovative American Writing, and a 2007 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Literature.Waldrep lives in Lewisburg, Pa., where he teaches at Bucknell University and edits the journal West Branch.

"In the excellent conclusion to his trilogy on chronic illness, Waldrep (The Earliest Witnesses) probes the nature of pain, art, faith, and the possibility of transcendence with philosophical rigor. . . . Those who have experienced chronic illness or disability will be particularly moved. Waldrep demonstrates in dazzling fashion how life, even amid hardship, is a gift."