Through a series of dramatic monologues (spoken by Mary, the Angel Gabriel, Paul of Tarsus, and the 'Sidonian archer', Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera), the fourteen poems gathered here give life to the Jewish-apocryphal legend of "Jesus, son of Pantera" - the story that Jesus was sired by a Roman soldier. Having learned of a tomb (unearthed in Germany) bearing the soldier's name, Whitehead spent the last years of his life researching and writing about this fascinating, controversial tradition. In his introduction to the collection, renowned Biblical scholar James Tabor recounts the Scriptural,...

When James T. Whitehead (or 'Big Jim', as friends knew him) passed away in 2003, Fayetteville and the University of Arkansas lost one of its finest poets and beloved teachers. In 1965, Whitehead joined with his friend William Harrison to found the University's Creative Writing Program. He taught in that nationally prestigious program for the next thirty-four years, from 1965 to 1999. He was a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction and a Robert Frost Fellowship in poetry. Whitehead's novel, Joiner (University of Arkansas Press), was listed among the New York Times' Noteworthy Books of...