MESSIAH

by Anne Babson, Ron Starbuck (Cover Design)

MESSIAH , a post-modern bop through our culture set in diverse elements of the American landscape-- from a Manhattan subway station, to mills of rural Louisiana, to the mean streets of Detroit, to the wilds of the American Northwest, to Yankee Stadium, to the hills of Bellaire -- writes back to the Bible passages with which Handel composed his Messiah Oratorio without challenging their theological meaning but setting them, as most sacred art does, in the contemporary. Anne Babson's poetry isn't "churchy," but it is replete with passionate exhortation, delighting in Americans in their imperfections and calling for a subversive conspiracy of love and a new era of compassion. The book is set to a soundtrack of American music, where the rapture trumpet is blown by Louis Armstrong, where the angels sing in doo-wop chorus, and where Handel's " Hallelujah" turns into a Southern Rock anthem. The work is about us and our needs, our playlist, our delights, and the possibility of radical forgiveness and a return to hope.

108 pages, Paperback

Published November 15, 2019

Reviews

[Stephanie Katz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had the pleasure of seeing Anne Babson perform her poetry earlier this year before the COVID-19 pandemic. I hated poetry and was 100% intimidated by it before I heard her read her poems, so clever, so cheeky, so profound and sometimes profane. This collection of her poems is all that and more as she uses scriptural groundings for each poem to make a statement on the world. I probably didn’t understand half of what she intended, but I so appreciated the beauty of her language, and several poems in particular made me stop in my tracks to ponder the urgency of their meaning. Highly recommend!