Jesus Said
Poems by Patrick Donnelly
Design by Hildegarde von Bingen (1098–1179),
suggesting she may have experienced ocular migraines.
Contents
Jesus said to me Did you mean
Jesus said Will someone
Jesus said There’s a story
Jesus said A program
Written on the mirror in steam
Jesus asked
Jesus said You will not
Jesus said, “Buddhas of limitless light”
Jesus said God
Jesus said Don’t
I dreamed that Jesus bid me go
Jesus said Papa
Jesus said Just when I think
I told Jesus When I was afraid
I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say
Patrick Donnelly is the author of The Charge (Ausable Press, 2003, since 2009 part of Copper Canyon Press) and Nocturnes of the Brothel of Ruin (Four Way Books, 2012). He is director of the Poetry Seminar at The Frost Place and an associate editor of Poetry International. With Stephen D. Miller, Donnelly is co-translator of the Japanese poems in The Wind from Vulture Peak: The Buddhification of Japanese Waka in the Heian Period (Cornell East Asia Series, 2013). The Vulture Peak translations were awarded the 2015-2016 Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature from the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture at Columbia University. He is the recipient of a U.S./Japan Creative Artists Program fellowship, an Artist Fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and an Amy Clampitt Residency Award. Website: http://www.patrickdonnellypoems.com.
Acknowledgements: Five poems from Jesus Said (“Jesus said to me Did you mean,” “Jesus said A program,” “Jesus said God,” “Jesus said Just when I think,” and “I told Jesus When I was afraid”) were published in
American Poetry Review, July/August 2015 issue.