This Gift Card Has Already Been Redeemed Poems

In his new collection, Mischa Willett negotiates with the vibrant voices of recent contemporaries, from Robert Frost, Pablo Neruda, and Denise Levertov to W.M. Ransom, David Lee and Fleda Brown. The poems in This Gift Card Has Already Been Redeemed navigate faith, prayer, and church, but also disappointment, displacement, and deep reading. 

As Willett observes in a poem engaging with Marvin Bell, 

“It isn’t doubt when suffering seizes the hilltop of your 

heart or when the fireplace of ashes misses the heat that 

made it—when in the traffic you simply can’t hear a thing 

or the way is unclear—none of that is doubt.

It’s faith, when you come to it, that asks of us everything, 

that empties and empties until we are full, that fills the 

gnaw in the gut, dispels the cloud of mind, that runs out 

the money-changers in the forecourt, that names.”

Both referential and reverent, this striking and deeply moving collection balances humor with the profound seriousness and abiding joy available at the heart of human life.

Details:

Format: Paperback

Page Count: 112

Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0 (in)