In the Absence of God gathers poems written between 2003 and 2021 with paintings completed between 2011 and 2020. Some of the poems have previously appeared in print, some have been published online, and some appear in this collection for the first time. Most of the paintings have been included in one or more solo or group shows. Paintings and poems (like people) are turned and shaped by the company they keep, so a new collection or a new show makes the pieces of which it is composed new. As I put this collection together, I had the liturgy with which I grew up in mind. The liturgy is the public work of the church, and the rhythm of that work may be apparent in this work to readers and viewers who know it. My work as a scholar began with theology, and, though the church and I left each other some time ago, I return to theology time and time again. Poetry, like theology, dances about what is not there and is still in the presence of what is – in silence, in writing. And painting, it seems to me, is even closer to the "mystics" that led de Certeau to describe writing as a practice of silence akin to walking. It goes without saying that every walk is transformed by the persons (human and otherwise) we walk with, cross paths with, and (sometimes) collide with along the way. Theology, as the teachers who have meant most to me insist, is the second step. What precedes it or, more properly, lies behind it is the creative practice in which we engage together. I look forward to walking with you for a while in this work.
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