From a Lost Gospel of Mark

[Louie Crew <lcrew@andromeda.rutgers.edu>]

You might enjoy a new chapbook released today by 2River:  Peter
Weltner's FROM A LOST GOSPEL OF MARK. 
 
The publisher describes it:   In each of its eighteen poems, a
different voice or perspective re-visions Mark's narrative from
advent to tomb, interweaving the "then" of the first century with the
"now" of our own time. Missing from the biblical narratives, these
lost voices~Wa young Southern farm boy, for example, a freed Roman
slave, a Vietnam vet, a cursed fig tree~Wall express the mystery of
suffering and justice and evoke questions as fundamental today as
they were two thousand years ago when Mark wrote at the end of his
gospel, "They were afraid." [end of publisher's comment]
 
I read all the poems aloud to myself.   The poems mingle biblical
particulars with details of several hard lives .     They are
refreshingly free of sentimentality.
 
In my first reading the biblical detail seemed almost subordinate to
the extra-biblical detail; in later readings I suspect the
subordination to reverse, as the extra-biblical detail becomes as
familiar to be as the biblical. 
 
You may access the book at
http://www.2river.org/chapbooks/weltner/inside/inside.html.  That
site also mentions audio access to Weltner reading two of the poems,
but I cannot yet find a hot link to the audio.
 
Louie, L1 Newark
 
Louie Crew, 377 S. Harrison St., 12D, East Orange, NJ 07018
973-395-1068
http://queereye4lectionary.blogspot.com/  Queer Eye for the
Lectionary