The Third Renunciation by Matthew E. Henry
Review by Nidhi Gandhi
New York Quarterly Books, 2023
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Matthew E. Henry’s The Third Renunciation is an ethereal book that contends with Blackness, suffering, and faith by putting a supposedly all-merciful God on trial. Henry opens the book by writing, “if I rise on the wings You call Your love – / were I to trust Your breezes – will I fall”.
This opening indicates a cautious trust in God and dares to ask questions that most people at some time in their life think about – including why do bad things happen to good people? Most of the poems begin as premises: “Say three slave narratives compose the heart of/Matthew 24 and 25,” “Say satan and God walk into a bar,” “Say she solely persists by the belief / that suicide is a sin,” etc.
In “Say three slave narratives compose the heart of / Matthew 24 and 25,” Henry creates a scenario where the servants and virgin brides in the biblical story were really house and field slaves and God was the White slave master. Do these slaves deserve their fate because they are God-loving and God-fearing? Furthermore, how can we – the collective we, as if implicating the readers themselves – accept and consent to the abused bodies just because we love God? Even if the slaves loyally do their duty, “sleep deprived, they must / remain ever watchful of His return”, they must remain cautious because “even the best intentions can be damned.” This comparison of God to the slave master emphasizes that no matter what Black bodies do, “good” or “bad,” there is the possibility of suffering from racial injustice.
In “Say justice is a dream deferred,” Henry alludes to the iconic poem “Harlem” by Langston Hughes which questions what the “dream is” and if it’s even possible to to achieve. In relating Tamar’s story, Henry writes,
will the Father
who allowed her slaughter remain silent
as the one who sent her? will we be left
festering—bereft and bleeding—able
only to count on His complicity?
Henry concludes that justice is a trap, an illusion, and the Father’s silence at his complicity isn’t just a metaphor “but is exploding, right now, everywhere.” Justice is juxtaposed with the idea of Hell in the poem, “Say Hell’s reserved for those who…” In this scenario, we, ourselves, “play God,” as we smite those who vex us (people who don’t replace toilet paper rolls or place new ones besides the holder, the people who cut us off in traffic, our middle school bullies, people who vote or don’t vote for X, and even those who don’t believe “correctly” in God). According to Henry, we design our own Hell in two ways: one, the person who we curse to go to Hell for not following society’s rules as we see them and two, we, ourselves are in Hell by being subjected to the other person’s boorish behaviors.
The book also presents faith as a conflict. It is often said that religion is supposed to “feed your soul,” offer some semblance of solace and comfort. However, “no / screaming has ever paid [the] rent”. This trial of God is ultimately held in “Job 41:35-42” where Henry writes, “I will demand, You will answer.”
when
the foundations of Auschwitz were lain—stretched
around necks like wire on parapets—,
when millions of mourning stars sat shiva
in a mirrorless room, where were You? when
the Hannibal and Zong set sail—holds shut
like cattle cars, ovens—, when Black bodies
plunged chained into the Deep, why did the frost
of Your hoary affections leave faces
unable to scream? how have You so failed
to perceive the vast breadth of Your expanse?
can You only be heard in heaven, earth
a dominion lost?
These questions exemplify the frustration we, mere mortals, often ask, specifically, if mercy even exists?
However, Henry’s view of God and faith is dialectical. God isn’t all bad and sinister, even though we may often feel that way. According to the author, “Grace is a Twinkie or a cockroach— / something that never goes bad, can survive / anything the cold world throws.” By mentioning “grace” instead of mercy, Henry defines God as showing grace, something that is freely given with kindness and compassion instead of as a form of absolvement by someone who has the power to punish. Furthermore, Henry equates the love of God to an addiction, something we seek like “a mid-morning caffeine fix,” to help us get through the lulls of the days and in “red rover red rover,”
Heaven is like the gymnasium
of your elementary school, padded
in plastic gold, smelling of chocolate milk,
fresh baked cookies, and Ellio’s pizza—
incense lingering long after each lunch
The Third Renunciation offers a three-dimensional view of faith. In reality, faith is absurd, like ourselves. Just like humans have the capacity to be incredibly cruel and incredibly kind and generous, God is perhaps the same way. Furthermore, the book ends with the idea of greed and attachment. Tempted by desire, we tend to reach for more and more, higher and higher, “Father forgotten” and then we fall, “awake with a shudder—arms flapping sheets, / covered in sweat.”
Henry’s work is skillfully filled with contradictions, provocation, humor, aggression, and ponderance. Be prepared to sit down with your own self and allow yourself to question your faith and the absurdity of life as you read these vividly powerful poems. Each time you read them, you’ll find new wisdom.
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Nidhi Gandhi (she/her/hers) is a writer, rhetorician, co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Marbled Sigh, a poetry journal by emerging writers for emerging writers. She is a graduate of The City College of New York’s MFA Creative Writing program. Her poetry has appeared in Up the Staircase Quarterly, Lean and Loafe, 433, and Honeyguide Literary Magazine.
ID: Cover of The Third Renunciation by Matthew E. Henry.
Psaltery & Lyre 