Vox Angelica

by Timothy Liu

In Liu's text the ascent, the ecstatic apprehension of the divine (he is a religious poet, there are no two ways about it, though perhaps there are twenty) can be effected only by a demonic insistence upon abjection, upon the descent. He shrives himself, and his poems show the marks of the lash--they are the lash--and his vision is naturalized to a degree that would astonish his predecessors, that astonishes us. This is a shocking poetry, and the shock is not of recognition, but of estrangement. It makes an unfamiliar claim upon us, the claim of apostasy. --Richard Howard, from the forward

Genres: Poetry, LGBT, Gay

72 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

Reviews

[Joseph Dante · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enigmatic poems. Curious. I kept feeling like there are perhaps allusions here that I wasn't getting (beyond the obvious religious and art references). This makes several poems difficult to access. When I read that Liu is into occult esoterica, I wasn't surprised. Spiritual and opaque - I need a decoder, or perhaps a dowsing rod?

[Alexis · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were poems I enjoyed, poems I want to return to, but overall, I was not inspired. I was confused, but not moved.

[Jason Li · Rating 4 out of 5]

so many poems i can't stop re-reading.

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some devastating, good poems in, but for many others, I found the form a little too constricting and distancing.