{"id":166,"date":"2021-09-23T19:44:45","date_gmt":"2021-09-23T19:44:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/simonconstam.com\/?page_id=166"},"modified":"2022-04-10T21:44:57","modified_gmt":"2022-04-10T21:44:57","slug":"a-criticism-of-life","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/simonconstam.com\/","title":{"rendered":"Brought Down"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Characterized by the admission of doubt in God\u2019s desire for a better world, and willing to see Jewish tradition as indispensable, Brought Down<\/em> struggles with daily life as a firm believer and continuing pride in Jewish identity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the great Jewish tradition of holding God to account, and not relenting in anger towards Him, the themes in this book are universal: faith, religious practice, forgiveness, history, and the relevance of belief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “This was a real treat, walking so lightly along the line where the sacred and the profane meet with intelligence, imagination, and lots of charm. I kept being reminded of Ecclesiastes.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n –Alicia Ostriker, author of Once More Out of Darkness and Other Poems<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I’m familiar with many of the things Constam’s poems plangently evoke. . . . Some of the poems remind me, in the best way, of poems by Yehuda Amichai and Nelly Sachs. . . . From time to time, I also was reminded of some of the later poems of R. S. Thomas.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n –Kevin John Hart, Anglo-Australian theologian, philosopher, and poet<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I just love these poems! They are such a wonderful deep dive that pulls me into each experience so evocatively. Overall, what comes through is the wrestling–wrestling with God, with being faithful or not, with being secular yet pulled\/tied\/anchored to this tradition. . . . It resonated with my understanding of the biblical meaning of ‘Israel’ as ‘he who wrestles with God.'”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n –Leonard Freeman, author of Ashes and the Phoenix<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I enjoyed most the combination of a hard, no-nonsense style . . . with restrained lyrical and philosophical flights, passages of insight that are fully poetic and dramatized.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n –A. F. Moritz, University of Toronto<\/p>\n\n\n\n “In Brought Down, Constam appears as . . . a Seinfeld-mode Job, questioning God about his ‘masquerading as the dark.’ God is ‘arbitrary’ and we are fickle; or he is fickle and our intermittent obedience to indecipherably contradictory dicta becomes the real story of each obituary. . . . I thank Simon ‘Agonistes’ Constam . . . for giving us a newfangled Ecclesiastes. Brought Down delivers the goods!”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n –George Elliott Clarke, Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate, 2016-17<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n