Shadow of Heaven: Poems

by Ellen Bryant Voigt

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.

Genres: Poetry

72 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Sidik Fofana · Rating 4 out of 5]

SIX WORD REVIEW: A nice rinse of poetic prose.

[H]

"The summer field, sun-fed, mutable,/ has its many tasks; the winter field/ becomes its adjective" (22)

"thousand last vast blue cloud-blemished skies" (28)

"below the pines in the soft trash of the forest floor" (34)

"The slim, successive cars like vertebrae" (38)

"wrinkle coming toward me in the grass-- no" (49)

"through perfected scorn, cruising the porch where I sat/ hullings in a china bowl-- sometimes/ the world looks back" (59)

"I think thinking is not/ the body's job/ that the body gets in the way" (60)

"mine/ is the one on the left,/ enlarged by superstition/ and music, like my father's more/ myopic eye./ Detachment is my friend's/ discovery, what he commends/ against despair...And the years bring their own correction:/ to see a thing/ one has to push it away" (61)

"clusters of white blossoms/ with yellow throats" (62)

"taking a turn in the light of our attention, T-shirt" (82)

"I'm bringing you a sun, a children's choir, host/ of transient voices, first bright/ splash in the gray exhausted world, a feast/ of the dooryard flower we call butter-and-egg" (87)

[Emily M · Rating 4 out of 5]

This spring, I stopped by to visit my favorite English professor before he retired, and he gifted me several books, including this poetry compilation, when we said goodbye. I've been savoring these poems, a few at a time, during the kids' orchestra rehearsals. I'm not always fond of contemporary poetry, and this is the first Voigt I've read (unless we read her in a modern American lit class 18 years ago, and I'd forgotten). I found this collection accessible and relatable. I found myself gasping with wonder at a few exquisite phrases, and some of her images have been lingering with me for weeks. I would read more of her work.

[Keeley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wide-ranging collection of verse including some translations from classical poetry. Worth a read.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exquisite, gorgeous, knockout poems. The precision of attention and description, coupled with emotional richness/restraint. And the elegy for Larry Levis gutted me.

[Lida · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! I read every poem in this book two or three times just to absorb them more fully.

[Maughn Gregory · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here's a poet I follow.

[Cee Spind · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started this and wasn't feeling it, but picked it up a week later and wondered where my head was the previous week. Like the couplets.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really 3.5

Really enjoyed