Reduction as an action in cooking is heating liquid to evaporate water and concentrate the contents. Reduction in editing doesn’t always carry the same connotation; a shorter version of the same work could lose something potent in the process. Cletus Crow has reduced the sixty-six books of the Protestant canonical Bible into sixty-six short poems. The reduction here is of the former definition. Jesus Freak retains the flavor, the majesty, and the power of the Good Word and, in an impressive act of poetic compression, renders the most popular and influential book of all time into a collection smaller than a Gideon pocket version, but with a complex of metrical suggestions that evoke all 1,200 pages on sight.
“We fuck despite Hell.”
One of the problems with reading the Bible today is that it doesn’t always speak to the common reader. For every book like Ecclesiastes that dispenses perennial wisdom, or a beautiful story like the Gospel of John, there are obscure genealogical logs, bizarre law codes, exhaustive descriptions of temple dimensions and rites. The Book of Revelations and the Song of Songs, for all their poetic acuity, are dense with symbols to the point of being entirely opaque. The life of Jesus is repeated more than three times, with deviations. The Bible is a heterogeneous work, a mix of two traditions thousands of years in the making and, arguably, unfinished or incomplete. It isn’t meant to be read front to back, but back and forth. It resists literary interpretation. Even to read it in worship is a complicated task, and many self-described Christians don’t.
“Eunuchs live longer / but you’d be unhappy.”
This is to say, what makes Jesus Freak such an achievement is that it convinces of the relevancy of the Bible to a modern life. In Crow’s version, Proverbs become advice on how to tell if someone gives good head. The First Epistle of Peter turns into breakfast in bed with porn. Numbers is about being from a long line of people with drinking problems. Joshua focuses on all the circumcision. And Jude, of course, is about how you can’t help but hum the Beatles song. Suddenly the dark mirror is cleaned, and what had always been a tome taking up a space of intimidating, discouraging respect in the home and the mind, is metamorphosed into the rich reference of parable, etymology, and feeling that the Bible is. Using these poems to view the Bible zoomed out, the arrangement of themes in conversation are touching.
“Redemption is conditional / unfortunately.”
These poems balance a healthy paradox of appreciation and criticism of its source material. Crow compliments the metaphors of Exodus, admits Psalms is superior to all poetry to the point of making the effort worthless, and loves John as much as any American. He also compares God’s cruelty to Man’s, wrestles with Jesus like Jacob did the angel, balks at Job, and outright refuses Leviticus. This relationship the author creates with the Bible is exemplary, he allows it into his life and puts his life into the canon. The speaker is in the whale as Jonah was, but the whale of lost love. The Book of Micah is transported to Chicago’s Chinatown, where sex shops are visited and homeless people are the angels. The three Johannine epistles are used to make a clever triptych of poems tracking the progress of infatuation, change, and fear. This concept is used to great advantage, a table of contents that lets the imagination outward and inward to spiritual depths. The themes from Crow’s previous books are all here: sexuality, gay love, scorn, the humor in pity, the disgust in frailty, a certain tenuous position our moment traps one in. The biblical conceit sharpens these into a cleaner focus.
“Shame is a gift I won’t open.”
Christianity was a revolution. Do not forget that. The power of Roman civilization, the height of the idea of empire in its most terrible form, was challenged with not arms, but faith. There are surely more revolutions, perhaps just one if we’re unlucky. It is unclear if the next one will be so civil a disobedience. Faith in Christ hasn’t set in the least, but has cooled off to an uncertain glow in the world’s postmodern interconnected culture. Finally a book of poetry can come that worships the manhood of Jesus in the truest sense of sympathy — to look at someone like you look at yourself. Worship the same clotted, fraught way you love your mom and dad. A sensibility not for dogma or superstition, but common experience, the weakness in a heart that keeps it from calcifying. Jesus Freak rolled a boulder from a cave’s mouth after three days of composition. It’s being carried away into the sky, aloft on wings of praise, and angels are heralding its arrival, the shepherds are clamoring to share the good news: Cletus Crow has returned with another book of exquisitely wrought poems.
Get Jesus Freak here or go to hell.
