A preview of Anthony Joyette's For Judas Iscariot in Heaven and other poems.

Anthony Joyette's For Judas Iscariot in Heaven is his second book of poetry. In this new collection, the poet extends his view of the relationship between God, humanity and the rest of the universe. There are several dichotomies that are established in the poems: separateness and yet oneness of God and man, condemnation and redemption, hope and lost, light and darkness, good and evil and life and death.

Joyette creates a new belief system through his blending of opposites to fashion something new, something unique. I am inclined to believe that this approach is influenced by his artist's eye, but more pointedly his private vision and philosophy of the world. He demonstrates that contrarieties are evident in all things and must exist to create the whole, rounding out the image so to speak.

He contends that Judas is both victim, chosen to betray Jesus, and a redemptive figure whose life creates new possibilities for errant man. In other words, Christ's power to save mankind is intricately linked to Judas's betrayal, the crucifixion, the resurrection and ascension and the prospects of the second coming. From an inherently evil act, good emerges.

Joyette has an ingrained passion and fascination with pursuing the links between identities and selves. He constantly forges new identities and new selves in his personas which are reflective of his need to define who he is and his purpose as a writer, an artist and a human being. In the poem Feminist discourse (the eighties), he writes:

   Child ...
   God is not a bad woman
   It is man who is a bad God. (p. 15)

The subversion of the received notion of the attributes of God is characteristic of the poet's challenges and tensions that are evident in his writing. The Holy Bible in My favourite childhood book brings out those contrasting and opposing states noted earlier. It is a book that teaches "'love and hate,' and produces 'legends of good and bad, / life and death/and the story of her/giving birth to pain."

Besides the opposite states, there is also a sense of gloom and darkness, tinged with light that colour many of the poems in this collection. The final poem 'Sister,' is apocalyptic. The tug-of-war in the poem culminates in a quiet watch:

   Sister
   this is the night
   of your Gethsemane.

The poems in this book will force the reader to rethink how humanity fits into the grand scheme of things in the universe in the "wilderness of time."

This book will be published by AFO Enterprises Reg'd in the fall of 2005