Trouble in the Diocese is a petulant, funny book of poetry. Its contrary protagonist/antagonist, the Apprentice, embraces life in both the large and the absurdly small. At the same time, he emphatically rejects the easy rigidity of doily-headed orthodox Catholics as well as the impulse in the Catholic literary Pixar world that seeks to serve two masters.
Jesus and his Church are lifted up here, but so is the cross. Discipleship necessarily involves dis-ease, purgation, and if we as readers have any sense, we will--more quietly perhaps--do well to listen (with patience) to his rants.


"Here, the profusion of people and things in constant interaction makes tidiness impossible, yet the apprentice--inside us, vital, marvelously human--navigates the world into purgatorial wisdom. These poems mark the way of purification, in the knowledge that 'the whole nameless thing rides on the night.' And in the midst of the daily toss and the tumble, so cadently assembled, we are given this assurance as well: 'how does he get Jesus to take him? / Already has.' In him, with him: these are poems to make valiant the journey."
--Sofia M. Starnes, author of Fully into Ashes

"I love the rollicking piety in this new collection from David Craig. As he says: 'The sun is so bright / it leaves teethmarks on his soul.' Here the timeless and the temporal collide as the apprentice tries on his varied opportunities like costumes. This is kaleidoscopic reading--turn the page and fresh colors and images flash. Brilliant poetry!"
--Luci Shaw, author of Scape

"These are poems in conversation with themselves, they're not ready to clock out until they've done the hard work of seeing each of us naked, fresh in the light of impending mortality, self-contradictory, praise-worthy, and revolting as a flea or false preacher. Nobody is immune from David Craig's razor-sharp humor and fresh excoriations, his dread and his joy."
--Maurice Kilwein-Guevara, author of Autobiography of So-and-So

"As French film director Francois Truffaut mused, 'When humor can be made to alternate with melancholy, one has a success, but when the same things are funny and melancholic . . . it's just wonderful'--as is David Craig's newest book, Trouble in the Diocese."
--Marjorie Maddox, author of Local News from Someplace Else



David Craig has taught Creative Writing at the Franciscan University of Steubenville for more than twenty-five years. It has been his great joy to see so many students grow. This is his twentieth book.