Paper Cathedrals: Poems

by Morri Creech

Displaying a range of voices and subjects, from dramatic monologues in the voices of Judas Iscariot to personal lyrics of family, time and loss, the poems in this collection examine the difficulties... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0873387163
• ISBN13: 9780873387163
• Release Date: August 2001
• Publisher: Kent State University Press
• Length: 62 Pages
• Weight: 0.28 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.7" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

transcendent

This book is a gift. Though there are a few nice little pieces about the fragmenting of family life thrown in, the bulk of this collection concerns itself with amazing religious explorations. Clearly the highlight of this book is the section written from the perspective of Judas. Creech shows an interesting charity toward this extremely vilified icon of Christian history. Though he strongly questions religious tradition and symbolism, I see this book as very pro-faith.

One of the best books I've read this year.

Morri Creech, Paper Cathedrals (Kent State University, 2001) Morri Creech's Paper Cathedrals is a deeply spiritual book of poems, but Orthodox Christians need not apply; this is the language of doubt, of turning away. "Though I still grip the pew at the closing hymn and know the short walk down the aisle to the everlasting, I have yet to feel the swell and stir of mercy, the urgent touch, the laying on of hands. And at night I kneel over the difficult words, Our father who art in Heaven, rehearsed since childhood." ("Prayer for My Living Father") Doubt indeed, but it is impossible to deny the beauty of Creech's almost obsessively thematic poems (most every poem for or about Creech's father, for example, tarries over engines and tools with which to work on them, while the religious poems spend a great deal of time considering the plight of Judas). This is excellent writing, laden with image and feeling so intertwined with one another that it is often impossible to tell where one begins and the other ends. This one will almost certainly be on my list of the 25 best books I read in 2009. Pick it up at your earliest convenience and revel in the language. ****

awesome first book

i have to rate this book with addonizio's _The Philosopher's Club_ and Kate Light's _Laws of Falling Bodies_ as my favorite first books. It's a powerful work. Most of the poems are religious/spiritual, which Creech handles with a skill you don't see anymore. even if you're like me and don't particularly enjoy religious poems, you'll like these. i wish i had more space here to go more in depth, but you have to get this book.

A Brilliant New Book

This is one of the most moving and beautiful books of poetry I have read in years. It is a collection of deeply felt, often spiritual--in the best sense of the word--meditations. Creech's language is lyrical, at times even ravishing but always exact. There is nothing slipshod here. It's been many years since a book of American poetry this good has been published. If you love beautifully worked language in service of truly serious and important subjects, then this is a book you will read again and again.