Work > Poetry

The Nearer You Stand

Signed copies now available £15  (including postage and packaging)  There is an option within Paypal to pay by card

 

 Roger Wagner's visual world is immediately recognisable- the subtle juxtaposition of the familiar and unfamiliar, Syria and Oxfordshire, ancient and modern, a solitary woman threatened by men with stones and men with cellphone cameras, so often within a landscape of overwhelming radiance, local and unearthly all at once. Here are images woven round with reflective prose and with poetry that that has the same unsettling radiance. A book of transfigurations Rowan Williams

Roger Wagner is a sober and clear poet and a remarkable, perhaps a towering artist …he has the power to create a myth. Peter Levi, Professor of Poetry (1984-89), University of Oxford  

 

Roger Wagner, in my mind, is one of the most important artists working today. The Nearer YouStand captures his immense gift as a painter, and… his adroit integrative power of communication that speaks powerfully into our souls.  Makoto Fujimura, artist

 

 

Roger Wagner is an artist who calls our attention to a world infused with the divine. This is a beautiful and spiritually rich book to spend proper time with.

                                                                                  Mark Oakley, author of The Splash of Words

 

Be prepared to be startled by his profound simplicity. Esther de Waal

 

Although we rarely use ‘truth’ as a value of modern art, it is unavoidable in considering the poetry and painting of Roger Wagner…  perhaps it is the note of quiet conviction that makes these poems, paintings and prints so compelling.                                                                                                    Christopher le Brun, President of the Royal Academy of Arts 

 

Here are paintings and poems which help us to see in a new way, and challenge our habits and assumptions. Modern scenes are re-imagined as alive with biblical resonance, and biblical scenes are brought into new relevance and focus. Roger Wagner, in luminous, often numinous art, and in precise and plangent verse, restores our sense of wonder even as he sharpens our vision.

                                                                                                      Malcolm Guite, poet and writer

https://canterburypress.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9781786222220/the-nearer-you-stand

https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2020/17-january/books-arts/book-reviews/the-nearer-you-stand-poems-and-images-by-roger-wagner

Conversation with Malcolm Guite

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82XwRcviwoc&t=477s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZCPDxqZko0&t=1s

Poetry retreat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC2rq1aC8U8