From rough folk-verse to high-flown poesy, from a nine-line rhyme to a six-hundred-line epic, both the style and genre of the poetry in this volume cover a broad range of poetic possibility. This is the first volume of John Julian’s poetry ever published, revealing an important new American poetic voice. “Poignant, full of grit and edge and those occasional bolts of energy that tear words into their primal elements and then radiate light.” —Mark S. Burrows, poet, professor, translator of Rilke "John Julian is of a long and noble line, that of the Priest-Poet. He is the bearer of the somewhat weighty mantle that has been carried by Herbert, Donne, Hopkins, Merton, R.S. Thomas and Roseliep. In these poems he truly gives life to Rilke’s definition of what a poet does: he praises!" —Jamie Parsley, poet, Episcopal priest, author of Fargo, 1957 "Sometimes he sings with the bleak elegaic clarity of a somber monk, but then catches like a sob in the throat with some sharp-poignant word. Savor this banquet, bitter and sweet." —Tobias Stanislas Haller, BSG, Vicar of St. James, Bronx, New York
