Shadow of Heaven: Poems

NY: W W Norton & Co., 2002. 1st. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. Hardcover in a bright dust jacket with publisher's silver sticker. A follow-up to the author's highly acclaimed Kyrie, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, offers an intimate exploration of the obstacles and joys of modern life. Voigt's disciplined poems are scrubbed clean, exact in their forms, and calm in tone, refined distillations of deep feelings and long meditations on nature and life as seen flourishing in wondrous manifestations right in her own backyard. These are classical works, and Voigt lays her cards on the table by paying homage to Horace and his odes, models of balance and precision. Like her mentor, Voigt is aware of death hovering in the wings, and, indeed, illness, injury, and age work their bent and burdened ways into her poems; yet the poet remains undaunted, continuing to take profound pleasure in gazing at trees and flowers, gardening, and participating in various kitchen activities, from careful conversations between adult sisters living very different lives to the affectionately aggressive banter among men happy to sit down to a good meal. Deceptive in their hominess and welcoming clarity, Voigt's poems are thoroughly considered creations in which every word, no matter how humble, is worth its weight in gold. Clean copy. Record # 384991