The Stranger
Palpant's second volume of poetry is a riff off of T.S. Eliot's character in Choruses From "The Rock," the one who knows how to ask questions. In The Stranger, Palpant attempts to answer the most troubling of all questions, "Where has God gone?" These poems offer ancient answers in a uniquely personal and contemporary way, exploring God's divine intrusion into our world in the person of Jesus Christ and his subsequent disruption of our existence. This book is one man's attempt to rise and meet the Stranger. Poetry that points our hearts and minds back to Jesus-sometimes humorously, sometimes fiercely, but always hopefully.
Praise for The Stranger
“Ben Palpant’s poems in The Stranger breakdance through both biblical and literary history, remixing tunes from Tennyson and Gwendolyn Brooks with samples from the pop band Starship and the Divine Office. But those juxtapositions are not this strong collection’s best surprise. Rather, it’s the big quiet after each poem ends in which we mouth both How true and Hallelujah. This book is at once a daring and a tender undertaking.”
—Mischa Willett, author of The Elegy Beta
“T.S. Eliot aspired that each poem he wrote should be an event. Pilgrimaging alongside Ben Palpant’s The Stranger proved to be, indeed, an enthralling event! This stunning collection of poems sweeps as wide as it delves deep: Palpant gives varied and profound voice to the longings, sufferings and joys of faith within the framework of Christ’s own coming, incarnation, death and resurrection.
—Carolyn Weber, author of Surprised by Oxford
“Wry and good-humored, sometimes even fierce. . .these poems are well-crafted works of art: exquisite sentences, taut stanzas, crisp lines that never slacken, and images that surprise and deepen; they present us with multiple layers of meanings. . .These poems will engage, and for that they deserve gratitude and praise.”
—Jennifer Wallace, author of Almost Entirely