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Old and New Testaments (Brittingham Prize in Poetry, No 11)
Old and New Testaments - Brittingham Prize in Poetry, No 11 Author:Lynn Powell, University of Wisconsin Press A radiance and clarity suffuses Lynn Powells work.Carolyn Kizer, Brittingham Prize Citation In Lynn Powells poems we rediscover the meaning of the word testament, for they give us a full testimony of a life, a family, a world. Whether writing of grief, or The Rapture, of a junebug or Aunt Roxy at the age of one hundred, she brings us intens... more »e, crafted narratives of selfknowledge, of facts so vivid they are painful, becoming signs and also wonders of life. These are poems of the recovery of spiritual desire. This is an extraordinary book, and an extraordinary new talent.Robert Morgan These direct, loving, sober poems are the change we need from most recent verse. The intensity of the opening poems in Old & New Testaments builds throughout the book until, almost intolerable, it transforms into profound acceptance, the quietness that comes of acknowledging both life and death. These images and rhythms need no persuasiveness beyond themselves, brightening our spirits with the clarity of reality.A. R. Ammons Lynn Powells Old & New Testaments is a reclaiming of spiritual texts and traditions for a womans life in the bodya life of childhood physicality, female sexuality, procreation, and nurturing love. Playful, tender, and wise, Powell brings her gospel learning down to earth. We can hail her poems in an old phrase with a new meaning: they are full of grace.Alicia Ostriker« less