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Born of spiritual crisis, I Close My Eyes and I Almost Remember is a collection of poems that wrestle with the complexities of faith through the interrogation and reinterpretation of biblical stories. With an unflinching eye, these poems focus on characters who struggle with their place in the grand narrative: Isaac with the trauma of his near sacrifice, Ezekiel with the staggering costs of his prophecies, Peter with the guilt of his betrayal, and John with the despair of his exile. In doing so, they ask hard questions about what it means to seek the divine in the shadow of a fallen world.
ADVANCE PRAISE
“From the beauty of the first poem, to the brilliance of the final line, Matthew J. Andrews’ I Close My Eyes and I Almost Remember shepherds the reader through a landscape of familiar stories, but deftly removes the scales from eyes whose spiritual ancestry has become rote. Each poem echoes with elemental refrains—the waves, the soil, the flames, the spirit—and in doing so, lay bare the fragility of the human condition as we wrestle with the numinous. They remind us of what we are made and all that we could become if we are “determined, / for once, to be faithful to something.” The insights in this work will leave the reader breathless, pensive, challenged, jealous, and mindful of how good poetry can be good theology.
–Matthew E. Henry, author of Teaching While Black and Dust & Ashes
“Matthew J. Andrews writes like a curious exile. He plants one foot in this lowly world but stands tiptoe on the other, reaching up to seize the flickering promises of a life still to come. Describing all the tenderness, claustrophobia, hope and lovely strangeness of our being, Andrews’ poems undress their readers through a generous act of understanding realized one line at a time.”
–Aarik Danielsen, arts journalist and Fathom Magazine columnist
“At once restrained and grand, practical and transcendent, gritty and gentle, Matthew J. Andrews’ I Close My Eyes and I Almost Remember is an ambitious and sweeping literary feat, recounting the Scriptural narrative through the eyes of those who lived it while remaining refreshingly contemporary. Andrews is a poet to be read, watched, and imitated, as well as a minister to be comforted by.”
–Riley Bounds, Editor of Solum Press and author of Hands of Years
–Matthew E. Henry, author of Teaching While Black and Dust & Ashes
“Matthew J. Andrews writes like a curious exile. He plants one foot in this lowly world but stands tiptoe on the other, reaching up to seize the flickering promises of a life still to come. Describing all the tenderness, claustrophobia, hope and lovely strangeness of our being, Andrews’ poems undress their readers through a generous act of understanding realized one line at a time.”
–Aarik Danielsen, arts journalist and Fathom Magazine columnist
“At once restrained and grand, practical and transcendent, gritty and gentle, Matthew J. Andrews’ I Close My Eyes and I Almost Remember is an ambitious and sweeping literary feat, recounting the Scriptural narrative through the eyes of those who lived it while remaining refreshingly contemporary. Andrews is a poet to be read, watched, and imitated, as well as a minister to be comforted by.”
–Riley Bounds, Editor of Solum Press and author of Hands of Years
REVIEWS
"Andrews causes you to forget what you know, and see these people with fresh eyes. At the same time, he causes you to think deeply on the relationship between God and man, pointing to the struggles and doubts that occur in all of us, and offering no easy answers." - Veronica McDonald
"In reading this collection of poetry, I found that same inkling rising in my own chest: the desire to not just digest the material, but to let it impel me towards a creation of my own. And to be frank, I can’t give any chapbook a great endorsement than that." - Daniel R. Jones (Bez & Co.)
"This poetry stands on a bridge between humankind and God. The poet is crossing that bridge in feeling out his own spiritual path. Each of the poems is a sort of tuning fork picking up the vibrations between the poet and the Spirit." - Patrice M. Wilson (Agape Review)
"In reading this collection of poetry, I found that same inkling rising in my own chest: the desire to not just digest the material, but to let it impel me towards a creation of my own. And to be frank, I can’t give any chapbook a great endorsement than that." - Daniel R. Jones (Bez & Co.)
"This poetry stands on a bridge between humankind and God. The poet is crossing that bridge in feeling out his own spiritual path. Each of the poems is a sort of tuning fork picking up the vibrations between the poet and the Spirit." - Patrice M. Wilson (Agape Review)
INTERVIEWS
"More than anything, these poems were an attempt to take these stories, which have existed for thousands of years and belong to everyone, and make them my stories" - Spirit Fire Review
"In so many of these poems, I dealt with people who wrestled with their place in God’s plan, facing doubt and pain but not getting the comfort they want, and really I was actually expressing the root of my own problems." - Agape Review
"It wasn’t until I looked at these poems as a whole that I understood just how much I was writing about the challenges these characters must have faced, the burden that comes with being compelled by the hand of God." - Bez & Co.
"In so many of these poems, I dealt with people who wrestled with their place in God’s plan, facing doubt and pain but not getting the comfort they want, and really I was actually expressing the root of my own problems." - Agape Review
"It wasn’t until I looked at these poems as a whole that I understood just how much I was writing about the challenges these characters must have faced, the burden that comes with being compelled by the hand of God." - Bez & Co.
