Shadow of Heaven: Poems
Dominated by mourning and memory, Voigt's grave, accessible sixth book of verse excels her previous work while building on its strengths. The stark poems that open the volume examine dreams, apple trees, winter fields and (perhaps most impressively) the Himalayas, in a ghazal which is also a tribute to the contemporary poet Agha Shahid Ali. All these glimpses and points-of-view bring into relief Voigt's concentration on illness, dying and grief. Voigt (a National Book Critics Circle finalist for Kyrie) grew up in the South, and her natural details have always linked her to an older tradition of Southern American verse  "the deep South a clearer paradigm," as her new sonnet sequence explains. Her everyday details balance abstract, pared-down emotional insights, general truths that recall Louise Glick. "The dead shut just shut up," begins one memorable poem, "High Winds Flare Up and the Old House Shudders"; another considers "our lucky/ or unlucky lost, of whom/ we never speak." More casual work near the back of the book includes translations of Horace's Odes and long considerations of backyard animals, as well as a long, talky elegy for the poet Larry Levis. The well-made, soft-spoken free verse in these final poems will please aficionados of Voigt's early work. Readers will return more often, however, to the clear voice in the first sections: "Calm came into the dream, unburdened as snow./ It sugared the rocks, the rock-encircled trees."Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.