What does it mean to prepare to die—and then discover that you need to prepare to live again?

In this conversation, poet Christian Wiman reflects on faith, poetry, love, mortality, and his experience of living for more than 20 years with cancer. 

He talks about his turbulent childhood, how poetry transformed his anger into something creative, and why he believes poems can open us to something beyond ourselves.

The conversation also explores:

• Wiman’s journey from economics to poetry
• What a poem actually is—and why sound can matter more than meaning
• Attention and his idea of “productive inattention”
• Faith, suffering, and writers including Simone Weil and Etty Hillesum

Wiman also reads three poems: Five Houses Down, 2047 Grace Street, and In the Time of Fire.

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💡 The Sacred is produced by Theos Think Tank in partnership with Comment Magazine, and with support from The Jerusalem Trust and Open Society Foundations

👉 See Christian Wiman's Poetry: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/christian-wiman --

👇 Our guests and listeners to our podcast come from all kinds of perspectives and what draws us together is a desire to be self-aware about our own values and curious about other peoples. Comment your reflections below, we read them all.