The woman who died in her sleep

This second book of poems by a powerful, compassionate, and fiercely intelligent poet bravely explores the ways in which we humans encounter mortality: the assaults of disease and bodily harm, the cruel inequities of material and psychic well-being, domestic treachery, self-slaughter, failures of mind. Linda Gregerson's work emphasizes the resourcefulness of the human spirit, the intelligence of the body, the abundant beauty of the created world. What readers will love about these poems - many of them centered on young children - is the way they combine straightforwardness and complexity. Gregerson is not an ordinary believer, but the rhythms and icons of faith pervade her work. Readers will also relish the music of these poems and the remarkable use of line breaks and patterns on the page, which give her poems aesthetic as well as moral authority. These are not light verses, far from it, but they are unashamedly poems of praise. Devotional, even celebratory in their cadence, they move with the gravity of high art.