Mark Jarman is the author of seven books of poetry, including The Black Riviera, winner of the 1991 Poets' Prize, and Questions for Ecclesiastes, winner of the 1998 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. He is a Professor of English at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.

About Unholy Sonnets:

"Unholy Sonnets continues the work that Jarman began in Questions for Ecclesiastes. This new series of poems strives to create a devotional poetry written against the grain, without assumptions about faith or a shared belief. That is why these sonnets are called "unholy." The poems in this collection aim to avoid piety, while also testing the limits and conventions of the sonnet form.

What began as a response to Donne in Questions for Ecclesiastes, the poetry in Unholy Sonnets explores more fully the relationship between what the soul desires and what creation allows. These new poems investigate the nature of prayer, incarnation, judgment, and grace, while trying to imagine a God large enough to care about individual yearning and gratitude, suffering and joy."

Praise for Questions for Ecclesiastes:

"In 20 'Unholy Sonnets,' [Jarman] takes up matters of theology directly and so appositely for these times that some of them may become pulpit as well as anthology staples."
—Ray Olson, Booklist

"In his sixth collection, Jarman, a preacher's son, continues his impressive probe into the meaning and pretenses of holiness. With a biblical cadence, he devotes carefully articulated attention to the life around him."
—Library Journal