Publisher's Synopsis
"Bursting with energy and surprising locutions. . . . Even the most familiar poets seem somehow new within the context of Joy."-David Skeel, Wall Street Journal
In this revelatory anthology, Wiman takes readers on a profound and surprising journey through some of the most underexplored terrain in contemporary life. Rather than define joy for readers, he wants them to experience it. Ranging from Emily Dickinson to Mahmoud Darwish and from Sylvia Plath to Wendell Berry, he brings together diverse and provocative works as a kind of counter to the old, modernist maxim "light writes white"-no agony, no art. His rich selections awaken us to the essential role joy plays in human life.