Brian Volck*

Brian Volck is both a pediatrician and a poet who has recently relocated to Santa Fe, New Mexico. He still teaches, however, at the Ecumenical Institute at St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Baltimore, Maryland. His first poetry collection Flesh Becomes Word was published in 2013 (Dos Madras Press).

His new book, Chora has just appeared as part of the Poiema Poetry Series from Cascade Books. I am pleased to say I worked with Brian to ready this book for publication. Paul Mariani has said about this new book:
----"Brian Volck's Chora is a brilliant collection of poems, covering all
----seasons, often month by month, and so many splendid locations,
----from Baltimore and Cincinnati to the American West — especially
----among the Navajo nation — to Europe and Greece. He's a deeply
----philosophical thinker, versed in the Hebrew scriptures and
----especially in the Gospels, offering one new insight after another.
----Then too there is the way he keeps returning, with the help of his
----wife and muse, to the beauty right there before him, as women so
----often see it first. Yes, and there is of course, being the physician,
----pediatrician, and teacher that he is, the reality of human suffering
----and the deep loss of our loved ones. Page after page offers us
----another insight, a new sense of reality that only the poem can
----offer: the elegiac, yes, but then too the bounty of blessings we
----have been given."

The following poem is from Chora (Poiema/Cascade, 2026)

Treasures of TANAKH Hebrew: Hineni

I am not ready, my mind a beehive
of regret for blunders past redemption
and fear for my—and my children’s—future.

I am not ready, my heart beleaguered
by contrary loves, frayed fidelities,
what is dearest to me most neglected.

I am not ready, my body weary,
muscles slackened from wonted indolence,
flesh scarred by the cudgels of compulsion.

Do not compel me yet to the mountain
of trial nor demand more sacrifice
from the plundered household of my hope.

Late have I turned, invoking your name,
trusting you to shepherd my wayward mind
and drive the darkening clouds from my heart.

Open, then, my mouth that I might utter
in your presence the words I long to say:
Here I am, Adonai. I am ready.

Posted with permission of the poet.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Brian Volck: first post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of six poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Poiema/Cascade), plus three anthologies — available through Wipf & Stock. His new book The Role of the Moon, inspired by the Metaphysical Poets, is now available from Paraclete Press.

Brian Volck

Brian Volck seems to lead two lives ― at least two lives. In one manifestation he is a pediatrician who has served at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, has provided pediatric care at the Indian Health Service hospital on the Navajo Reservation, and brought medical teams to Central America.

He is also a writer whose poetry collection Flesh Becomes Word (2013) was published by Dos Madras Press. Scott Cairns has said of this book, “These are poems of deep humility, of wide and deep learning, of abiding and strenuous faith—and pervasive joy.”

Volck’s passions for writing and healthcare come together in his published essays, in Reclaiming the Body: Christians and the Faithful Use of Medicine (2006, Brazos Press) which he co-wrote with Joel Shuman, and his memoir Attending Others: A Doctor’s Education in Bodies and Words (2016, Cascade Books).

He received his MFA from Seattle Pacific University, his MD from Washington University in St. Louis, and is currently completing a Master’s degree in theology from St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore. All of these connections now draw him to divide his time between Cincinnati, his home in Baltimore, and the landscape he loves in the American Southwest.

The following poem is from Flesh Becomes Word.

Having Crossed the Sea

(Exodus 15)

I have seen them, dead along the shore,
their bloated faces still ripe with hate.
And there was one I stopped at to kick—
kick him fiercely and hard in the face
the way they kicked my now dead husband
who wept at making bricks without straw—
but I found no joy in what I did.

Yesterday, we had cause to rejoice,
seeing Israel’s enemies crushed
between walls of leveling water
cast on them by our great God’s right hand.
But as we sang praises to heaven
in sight of their still floating corpses,
the cloud column swelled, grew darker, and
the rain fell: softly at first, and then
in great salt drops, so like tears, I wept
to learn one might mourn enemy dead
who were, after all, God’s children, too.

Posted with permission of the poet.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about Brian Volck: second post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.