What the Light Was Like: Poems
"This is what a sacramental poetry sounds like," says fellow   poet Paul Mariani of Luci Shaw's new collection,What the Light Was   Like.Shaw holds up both world and words to the light, revealing to us   what has been there all along and teaching us how to see it for   ourselves--with honesty, precision and patience."When William Stafford died, I wondered who there was to carry on in his   spirit--humane, attentive, droll, faithful, one for whom writing poetry was   as natural as breathing. And, readingWhat the Light Was Like,I see   it has been Luci Shaw all along.Mark Jarman,author ofTo the Green ManandBody and Soul:   Essays on Poetry"This is what a sacramental poetry sounds like. InWhat the Light Was   Like,Luci Shaw holds up the world and words to the light, and the   light in turn gathers into a marvelous translucency to reveal what is there   if only we will take the time and effort to rinse our eyes and look. This   is her strongest book of poems yet, page after page gifting us with one   authentic and felicitous revelation after another. Read her. She just might   change the way you see what's there before you."Paul Mariani,author ofThirty DaysandDeaths &   Transfigurations: Poems"I have been reading Luci Shaw's books of poems for thirty-five years or   so, each book a reliable companion in exegeting the word and presence of   God even as I live it. Here's the latest: I turn a page and see a piece of   creation that I had seen but not seen, recognize a soul's syllable that I   had heard but not heard--resurrection poems."Eugene H. Peterson,translator ofThe Message"Luci Shaw's poems are as fresh as today's news and as timeless as the   mountains and waters of her Pacific Northwest. This collection promises and   delivers light, and much more: heart, shadow, nuance, the grace of a world   keenly observed and shared."Michael Wilt,editor, NimbleSpirit.com"In Luci Shaw's poems, which manage the almost impossible feat of being   sacerdotal without being sanctimonious, God reveals himself through nature:   'In the clasp of two/ saber-shaped leaves heaven looked like/ the gaze of   God peering through the eye of a needle'--and often through the landscape   of the poet's beloved Pacific Northwest. But the love is not held in a safe   loop between the God of nature and the poet; it is directed in turn toward   others. 'Remember,' the poet tells us, 'love is made for something   dire.'"Andrew Hudgins,author ofEcstatic in the PoisonandBabylon in a Jar"Lovely, original, deeply felt work from one of America's most thoughtful   spiritual poets. Luci Shaw once again startles us awake with her great   talent and profound insights."Philip Zaleski,editor, The Best American Spiritual Writing series