God's Loud Hand: Poems

by Kelly Cherry

Book Overview

If religious poetry may be thought of as a great river fed, in the English language, by two main streams - the devotional tradition, leading in recent times to Anne Sexton and John Berryman, and the contrastingly philosophical tradition, exemplified by William Blake - it is to the latter that this new book by Kelly Cherry belongs. In the poems of God's Loud Hand, Cherry conducts - often not at all devotionally, often with an honesty that precludes...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0807118214
• ISBN13: 9780807118214
• Release Date: April 1993
• Publisher: LSU Press
• Length: 64 Pages
• Weight: 0.24 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 6.0" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

A wonderful book that will inspire poets and readers alike.

"God's Loud Hand" is Kelly Cherry's strongest poetry collection to date. In it she demonstrates a masterful balance between form and content. Her religious/spiritual themes lead the reader toward higher ground, especially "Reasons", "In the Garden By the Sea: Easter", "The Island of Contentment", and "God's Friends Will Wear Rain*bows". They are unique in an era when most poets are still writing about what they see in their mirrors. Cherry's monumental sequence, "Songs for a Soviet Composer," is an example of pure alchemy, in that she turns the anguish of love's longing into stanzas which glint like gold but touch us like flesh which has become Words. Kelly Cherry is a poet who has risen above the rabble.