If a Clod Be Washed

Bill Gillard's book If a Clod Be Washed is a lyrical story of one man's journey through life. This verse novel tells a complete story with poignant descriptions of the inside and outside world of the main character Bell. A beautiful mixture of engaging story told through well-crafted verse, this poetical mosaic fits together just right. I often found myself pausing to reflect on the beauty of Gillard's words and how they related to my own life. I highly recommend spending time in this world of a bucolic Benedictine high school.

-Tom Cannon, author of Shattered

Hauntingly intimate and ruggedly local, Bill Gillard's verse-novel, If a Clod Be Washed, rings the changes on a variety of themes in the life of Bell, teacher-protagonist at a Benedictine Abbey high school, his daughters, his wife, and various colleagues and students. Out of touch with the world of iPhones and FaceTime, "he ... likes his letters stamped and sealed by hands and / tongues and penmanship." One poem, "The Biologist and His Daughter," imagines an encounter with a beloved child. "Ora et Labora" mimes the Last Judgment, and "Indifference" is a biologist's invective against extinction. With images and allusions sufficient for the industrious reader, If a Clod Be Washed may arrest or annoy, but will certainly make one pause to consider this spiritual adventurer's world.

-Ed Block, author of Banners of Longing: New and Selected Religious Poems and Emeritus Professor of English at Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

If a Clod Be Washed is a verse novel that draws you into the world of Bell, a middle-aged biology teacher at a Benedictine boys' prep school. Like Joyce's Ulysses, the story consists of Bell's thoughts over a single day as he searches for purpose. Bell looks to his students, colleagues, baseball, and even the local swamp he uses as an outdoor classroom to lift him from fecklessness and failed family relationships. He searches for guidance in his dreams. Bell's personal struggle and ultimate salvation are universal and relatable, and Gillard's perfect word choice and vivid imagery make this poetic journey a joy to read.

-Fredric Hildebrand, author of Under the Dust of Stars

If a Clod Be Washed delights readers with a winsome wariness-Bill Gillard's narrative in masterful poetry offers a break-away format. John Donne's title-inducing Meditation 17 holds the capstone bearing vibes of Goodbye, Mr. Chips. Rather from a student, Bell companions with its readers a poetic narrative, confessional, open-hearted, therapeutic with its mea culpas. Bill Gillard, as does Bell, counsels and prods readers and writers to bare who they are in "the main."

-Michael E. Belongie, author of Embracing the Moment