1998 Lenore Marshall poetry prize.

QUESTIONS for Ecclesiastes (Book); BOOKS; JARMAN, Mark; POETRY (Literary form); SPIRITUALITY; GOD

This article presents information on the book of poems, "Questions for Ecclesiastes," by Mark Jarman. In the book Jarman takes on the idea of holiness in an unholy world, of spiritual realities in secular America. The silence of holiness, the silence of the answers in the quest of holiness, the silence at the end of the meaning of holiness, the silence that wells up between the words of the poems. As much as Jarman longs for God, he longs more for the truth of his own existence. Up to now, Jarman and his work have been loosely associated with what has been called the New Formalism in contemporary poetry. Jarman's poems are almost paradigms of what is being looked to, formally organized, strong story lines, traditional methods used in traditional ways, but with a modem sensibility and a very contemporary range of subject matter.