Fear Not

Fear Not is lyrical, political, raunchy, blasphemous, and deeply engaged with ethical questions. Inspired by the Gideon Bible's list of self-help topics each poem is arranged to play off poetic and Biblical forms.

Ranging in subject from suicide to divorce, unemployment to gratitude, Afghanistan to Gethsemane, Fear Not attempts consolation, all the while mocking its own failure to lessen human pain.

Mierau also surveys contemporary culture, skewering our intense involvement with pop phenomena such as America's Next Top Model and Britney Spears. He recalls the formal beauty of the Psalms with refrains that echo the debased commercial speech used to advertise iPods, Kahlua, and Cialis.

“And he said to them, ‘Why are you afraid? How is it you have no faith?’”

—Mark4:40

Winnipeg—Faith and irony are at the centre of Fear Not by Maurice Mierau. The phrase “Fear Not” appears 80 times in the Bible, so it is more than an apt title for a new poetry collection inspired by the Gideon New Testament & Psalms.

Fear Not: Poems “lyrical, political, blasphemous...”

ABOUT THE COLLECTION BY MAURICE MIERAU

I’ve been fascinated with the Bible for a long time. My family background is Mennonite and we grew up saturated in Biblical text. I studied New Testament Greek in college. However, my father was a linguist and a critical reader of the Bible, so my influences were more intellectual than evangelical.

Visit our growing image gallery for Fear Not.