Dark Gospel: Figure of Descent

This book of poems is commended by poets and Christian thinkers:

    "In Dark Gospel Christine Perrin has given us a book of wonders, natural as well as cultural, secular as well as spiritual, and their presence in artwork (mostly medieval and Renaissance) that lifts us toward a Platonic persuasion somewhat rare in American poetry these days. Formally adventurous (rather than “experimental”), she shapes her poems beautifully and with a hard-earned clarity. For the dedicated poetry reader, the wonders do not cease, and the ultimate reward is pure aesthetic pleasure on the highest level."

- B.H. Fairchild, author of nine collections of poetry including Art of the Lathe

    "True poetry, which is rare, says something new. There is newness here, and beauty. Christine Perrin offers us poems that, if attended to, teach us how to live aware; she offers them, one by one, as if they were ripe black raspberries picked from different bushes. Her bold claim holds: “Each bush has a singular taste”. Sober inebriation results. Even in the face of harsh realities, ever honestly named, the poet enables, somehow, joy. What gratitude I’ve felt on reading this collection!"

- Bishop Erik Varden, author of six books including Towards Dawn: Essays in Hopefulness (2025), Healing Wounds (2024), and Chastity: Reconciliation of the Senses (2023)

    "Christine Perrin’s poetry takes us by the hand and walks with us down into the dark places we all experience—where pain, loneliness, and fear abide. But in these elegantly wrought poems we also discover that it is also in darkness where life begins—and hope and perhaps even redemption. Perrin’s gift, the good news that she pours out so liberally, is her ability to harness the power of imagination to bring us out of the dark into “the grace of created things.'”

- Gregory Wolfe, publisher of Slant Books