Passing Over

by Houston A. Baker Jr.

While these poems were born from the rape of the author s wife, the emphasis is on the successful recovery and healing and a stronger marriage. One of the first poems begins, You have come back to me. The title itself enforces the positive, taken from a hymn that begins, The storm is passing over, hallelujah. The book is divided into a number of short sections including a prologue, The Geography of Loving Again, Love s Language Passing, Promises of Kenning, Grave Yards, The House of Life, and the one-poem epilogue, A North Carolina Poem for Charlotte, 1999. While there are poems that deal with places and other subjects, the book as a whole can be considered a series of tender, mature love poems.

47 pages, Paperback

First published January 15, 2000

About the author

Houston A. Baker is Distinguished University Professor and a professor of English at Vanderbilt University. He has been awarded fellowships by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities and has been a resident fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and the National Humanities Center. He has served as president of the Modern Language Association and as editor of the journal American Literature.