Reading God's Handwriting: Poems
What a singular pleasure this book is! Reading God s Handwriting espies the word of God in everything and translates it into beautiful and wise poems whose precise images often startle us into thought. John the Baptist has an unshaven voice. The Divine wears a smile of many colors. Faith is the love affair / between your soul and God s will. We the people are adjectives [s]eeking the only noun that counts, the Word. These are poems that reimagine and revive, that seek to rescue the world. --Kelly Cherry, author of The Retreats of Thought: PoemsPhilip Kolin's new collection of poems, Reading God s Handwriting, is a work of deep faith. Drawing on Scripture as well as the cycles of the liturgical year, these poems give voice to biblical prophets and saints while also celebrating the impact of prayer in the lives of ordinary folks, including monks in Lectio Divina and an aged Russian woman in Praying the Icons, two evocative portraits among many. Reading God s Handwriting grants a vivid sense of the poet s great desire to find God in all spiritual experiences and in the many lives and moments that mirror His creation. --Dr. Stella Nesanovich, author of A Brightness that made my soul tremble: Poems on the Life of Hildegard of Bingen and Vespers at Mount Angel: PoemsIn Reading God's Handwriting, Philip Kolin has hammered out for us a bracelet of tight, hard gems like one of those old rosary bracelets, the solid nub of each bead prompting thoughts and prayers and spiritual insights. These are solid, shining poems, each one a jewel and stopping point in contemplation of this curious world in which the human and divine so strangely overlap. --Joseph Bottum