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# Wriggle and Rest: Lively and Living Language for Faith
- URL: https://mereorthodoxy.com/wriggle-and-rest-lively-and-living-language-for-faith/
- Published: 2026-10-05T11:00:32.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-05T11:00:32.000Z
- Author: Mere Orthodoxy
- Tags: Steven Searcy, Poetry, Books

**Mischa Willett.** [***This Gift Card Has Already Been Redeemed***](https://paracletepress.com/products/this-gift-card-has-already-been-redeemed?ref=mereorthodoxy.com) **by Mischa Willett. Paraclete Press, 2026\. $21.00\. 112 pp.**

Jazz. Opera. Poetry. All dead-end art forms, surviving in the ossified remains of prior eras—or so one might be tempted to think. Avant-garde movements in the 20th century pushed into extraordinarily difficult and unpalatable directions, while the concurrent rise of new media broke the broader public’s connection with these once-popular forms. Though their cultural prominence has diminished, it’s worth noting that excellent creative work is still being produced in each of these modes, by artists innovating and working within established traditions to find vibrant contemporary expressions.

But what does *vibrant contemporary poetry* look like? One might turn to prestigious publications like *Poetry Magazine*, graduate programs like the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, or awards like the Pulitzer Prize. While great work is sometimes championed by such institutions, so much poetry in the wake of modernism has veered toward the esoteric and the prosaic, so that even the most lauded contemporary poets often work within a largely self-contained vortex of MFA students, graduates, and faculty, alienating or ignoring a wider audience. On the other hand, one might turn to the relatively popular volumes of *instapoetry* with line-drawing cover art and fragments of lower-case musings and trite inspirational mantras. Where does one find new poetry with lasting literary merit *and* appeal outside the academy?

An abundance of good poetry is still being written, however, even now. One such laborer is the poet, scholar, and teacher Mischa Willett, whose third poetry collection*, This Gift Card Has Already Been Redeemed*, has just been released by Paraclete Press. Willett is an erudite professor who serves as director of a respected faith-based MFA program (Whitworth Writers’ Workshop in Spokane, Washington). While some of his poems speak directly to fellow poets and students of literature, his work offers plenty to engage non-specialist readers.

Willett writes primarily within the realm of (post)modern free verse, but his lines are crafted with exceptional care. As a scholar specializing in 19th century British literature, Willett is well-studied in the history of English poetry and has full command of poetic technique. Though few of these poems have a regular metrical pulse or conventional end-rhyme, Willett is highly attuned to *sound*, tapping into the rhythmic, aural pleasures that are central to differentiating poetry from prose.

So much poetry fails to achieve (or even attempt) either humor or spiritual depth, but both are hallmarks of Willett’s work. As a preliminary example, consider the book’s title: thoroughly current and quotidian, a throwaway phrase of the Amazon era, which strikes a mildly comic note as the title of a poetry book. But on deeper reflection, this stock phrase is packed with rich spiritual implications concerning *redemption* and *grace*. Like the title, the poems in this collection explore 21st\-century language and experience surprisingly yet seamlessly interwoven with timeless biblical and theological ideas and questions.

An example of this lively, modern twist on biblical language is found in “Psalms Too”:

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/7b/0b/7b0bd699-d78f-4472-8d29-233bd333f048/content/images/2026/10/Screenshot-2026-10-02-at-11.10.33---AM.png)

Willett’s deftly sculpted language borders on disorienting, like the degraded, sin-steeped world he describes. The rich use of alliteration, anaphora, assonance, and rhyme make this poem a treat for the ears, inviting the slow re-reading that illuminates unusual formulations such as the strikingly fresh initial slant rhyme: “Too lots / these lights.” Similar sonic flourishes are on display in other poems, including [“Light, Bulb”](https://farefwd.com/index.php/2026/07/22/light-bulb/?ref=mereorthodoxy.com) and “Life and Limn.”

Many of Willett’s poems use words in this highly flexible, sometimes jarring way—not for the sake of obfuscation, but rather to unsettle stale habits of mind, subverting cliches and drawing the reader’s taxed attention to re-orient and consider deeper meanings beyond pre-baked surface impressions. The opening poem, [“Dead Shall Rise,”](https://northamanglican.com/dead-shall-rise/?ref=mereorthodoxy.com) begins:

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/7b/0b/7b0bd699-d78f-4472-8d29-233bd333f048/content/images/2026/10/Screenshot-2026-10-02-at-11.09.44---AM.png)

an introduction which, at least for this reader, resisted basic comprehension on initial reading. But before long a scene depicting leaf-blowers reveals itself, unveiling the miraculous in the everyday as “leaves just up, / lifted angelic, or anyway, *lively* by / how could they know what?”

For some readers, Willett’s inventive, unfamiliar language will be a thrill, but for those who prefer something more straightforward, a large subset of poems have a more colloquial voice relating anecdotes from daily experience, closer to the playfully plainspoken style of Billy Collins. Yet even this “simple” language is fresh and rewarding, finding significance in mundane settings such as a conversation with a cafeteria worker ([“Hold Up”](https://heartoffleshlit.com/issue-11/mischa-willett/?ref=mereorthodoxy.com)): “he thanks me / and I take my tray of mushrooms / over to the table and say grace / and we both mean it.”

Willett is attentive to the formal elements of poetry even when he seems to be using them loosely, with the subtle touch of a master craftsman who makes the complex look simple. These poems generally eschew traditional meter, but rhyme shows up not infrequently—sometimes a light sprinkle, sometimes a dense glitter—most often irregular and internal, in the vein of Kay Ryan, such as in “Some Miracles” and “Texas Challenge” (both of which also share Ryan’s wry humor). On occasion Willett uses straightforward end-rhyme, like the cross-rhymed quatrains of “A Valediction in Lieu of Ivy” or the couplets of “And Forth.” Yet even here, after some tidy perfect rhymes (lumber/umber, cement/bent) describing the construction of a backyard swing set, the couplets gradually strain against the form, with rhymes becoming more false and wrenched as the poem crashes to its conclusion, the true rhyme displaced by an assonantal near rhyme as the structure breaks down:

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/7b/0b/7b0bd699-d78f-4472-8d29-233bd333f048/content/images/2026/10/Screenshot-2026-10-02-at-11.09.14---AM.png)

Even in the best poetry collections it’s not uncommon to hit stretches where a few poems don’t click—that was my experience at times, but soon enough the next piece would resonate with some sparkling phrase, vivid image, or compelling insight. As a general rule, the poems or lines that connect with particular readers will be as varied as those individuals, and there are plenty of quality dishes in Willett’s buffet for almost anyone to find something gratifying. Different readers’ mileage may vary when it comes to waiting for the more challenging poems’ Magic Eye blur to come into striking focus, but the payoff is worth it.

More than a third of the book is comprised of so-called “After” poems, in which a certain poet is named in the sub-heading (e.g., “After Robert Frost”), a poetic convention indicating that another poet’s work directly inspired the poem, through quotation or interpolation of specific phrases, or through echoing the poet’s distinctive style in some way. Nearly all the “After” designations are American poets active in the mid to late 20th century, with a heavy concentration of writers born in the 1940s. A few names may be more familiar, such as Pablo Neruda, Denise Levertov, and W. S. Merwin, but one would need to be an avid reader of contemporary poetry to recognize many of the other poets. Fortunately, in most cases it isn’t essential to know the work referenced to enjoy Willett’s original poem. Readers may prefer to think of these “After” headings like footnotes—useful citations for the aficionados or those who want to dig deeper and learn more, but not a roadblock to enjoying the poem on its own terms.

Throughout the book, it’s evident that Willett is a writing teacher, albeit one grounded in the real world, referencing Virginia Woolf as well as Steve Miller Band. Several poems consider the art of poetry and the role of artists. A few poems, some of them grouped in the book’s concluding section, are explicitly addressed to his students. While these are often fine poems, it’s hard to know how they will land with readers who are not themselves immersed in the practice of creative writing. Despite their grand and inspiring spiritual perspective on the nature of art, these pieces feel smaller in scope compared to the many excellent poems that touch on broadly shared experiences, which might have made for a stronger closing sequence.

Willett takes us to the foggy coast of the Pacific Northwest and the scorching heat of the Arizona desert, wrestling lament and wonder from the decay of old furniture, the life cycle of salmon, the delicate balancing act of urban cycling, and an ill-advised nighttime jog. Several poems poignantly probe the agonies and joys of parenthood, from a delightfully affectionate tickle fight to the secondhand motion sickness of watching a kid spinning in the kitchen. [“Price”](https://rabbitroompoetry.substack.com/p/pricemischa-willett) narrates the groggy tedium of fetching water cups and soothing children in the night, before surprisingly swerving to hard-earned gratitude and grace:

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/7b/0b/7b0bd699-d78f-4472-8d29-233bd333f048/content/images/2026/10/Screenshot-2026-10-02-at-11.08.44---AM.png)

The heart of this collection is Willett’s sincere faith in the living God. Throughout he gives us lively and living language for faith, woven through lines that navigate the vicissitudes of life in the now-but-not-yet with refreshing wisdom and humility, speaking honestly about doubt (“when the fireplace of ashes misses the heat that made it”) and finding hope in unexpected places. The church is enriched by new expressions of spiritual realities, such as the closing of the [title poem](https://rabbitroompoetry.substack.com/p/this-gift-card-has-already-been-redeemedmischa) (“Blanketed in blamelessness”) or the surprisingly original take on Christ’s nativity in “Known in Santa Maria.”

In [“Rest,”](https://rabbitroompoetry.substack.com/p/restmischa-willett) a trip to the pool with children triggers old memories of scraped “toes trying to stay up, / to stay un-drowned hugging the edge / which of course I am still / trying to do,” before turning to thoughts of deceased relatives and finally pivoting to a moving vision of eschatological hope:

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/7b/0b/7b0bd699-d78f-4472-8d29-233bd333f048/content/images/2026/10/Screenshot-2026-10-02-at-11.04.31---AM-1.png)

The best poetry can give voice to groanings that feel too deep for words, and Christians can find sustenance and encouragement by engaging with the “inessential” art of poetry. With his latest collection, Willett offers distinctive dirges and marches for weary pilgrims, new songs to take up on the road, once again joining his voice with the “meaning makers, greening the otherwise clear / desert and waste of the world.”