Paul J. Willis

A Radiant Resurrection

Bible Studies & Devotionals

Foreword

(wrote a foreword)

Drawing Close, Encountering Joy

Prayer & Spiritual Formation

“Janice Kirk sweetly remembers her family trips to the furthest reaches of the West in poems and passages of praise. Hers is a voice of appreciation and invitation that will make you want to find not only such a place as the hidden campsite of Marmot Spring but also the hidden source of living waters that provide for us a resting place, now and forever.”

Gold

Arts & Literature

“In the woods and gardens of Barbara Crooker's poetry, 'the leaves go presto chango,' and so will you. I return to her poems for their magic of comfort in times of loss, for assurance that sweets remain and grow. She is the bird that stays to sing throughout the night when all the others have left for the winter.”

House of 49 Doors

Fiction

“In the memorable voices of her younger and older selves—Kid Larkin and Eldergirl—Laurie Klein beautifully reckons with the ghosts of her family past. Shakespeare said, ‘Give sorrow words,’ and that is what Klein has done with elegiac excellence. Until, in her words, ‘all that was liquid, in the beginning, / resurfaces somewhere: / the rivers of Eden, the tears of Christ.’”

In a Strange Land

Arts & Literature

“This satisfying miscellany of ten emerging poets of faith is, in their own words, both ‘musky with moondark’ and a ‘deep taproot of fluent light.’ You will find illuminating voices here that are well worth your time and pleasure. And, in just a few years, you will be able to say that you read them here first!”

Mending a Tattered Faith

Bible Studies & Devotionals

“Who's afraid of Emily Dickinson? Not me, when I've got Susan Emily VanZanten at my side. Precise, elegant, and evocative, VanZanten guides the reader through the spiritual tangles of Dickinson's verse in ways that enlighten and refresh the soul. This is a book to keep and to treasure.”

No Gathering In of this Incense

Arts & Literature

“Mark Rhoads writes a kind of poem that pays attention to holy moments in earthly places: gardens, basements, battlefields--and, even, the upheaving breasts of a trio of cheerleaders on a sideline. He gives to each a richness and a dignity of the human reaching toward and beyond itself. In these pages you will meet a good man speaking good words. Settle in, listen, and let your heart reply.”

Occasions

Arts & Literature

“Occasions is a grand occasion for celebration. Or, rather, a steady and quiet gratitude, a welcome ‘speaking of small things / with great love.’ Marilyn McEntyre wrote these glad poems for particular individuals, but I could swear she wrote them all for me. And maybe even for you as well.”

Second Bloom

Arts & Literature

“Underneath the bees and birds and blossoms of this fine collection, Anya Krugovoy Silver reveals the stings and flights of joy—the transience of this our life and the tender hope of a life to come. Her eye and ear find beauty in the darkest places. To read her is to know firsthand the meaning of the word redemption.”

The Eightieth Year

“In The Eightieth Year, Don Thompson graces us with perhaps his most ambitious and accomplished poem. Unfolding the seasons in fifty-two segments, one for each week of the year, Thompson beautifully juxtaposes his present reality with that of his early childhood, both occurring in the rural reaches of the San Joaquin Valley of California. Like Wordsworth, Thompson has now written his own autobiographical prelude. This is a fine poem to savor. It reads like a story and sings like an aria. Taste and see.”

The Lure

“Bill Vande Kopple's tales are lyrical, warmhearted, and wise. They will catch you up wherever you happen to be hiding and release you into a sparkling current.”

These Intricacies

Arts & Literature

“This collection of elemental Kentucky poems will land 'like starlight in your throat.' You will want to sing Dave Harrity aloud to find that 'words have wombs,' that what he calls the dusk in our bodies, our 'cairns of guilt,' still birth and mark dim paths of light. These Intricacies will clear a way into your own and leave you grateful for each twist.”

Things Not Seen

Arts & Literature

“Playful and earnest, these lucid poems will concentrate your attention 'the way a magnifying / glass // gathers the mild sun / to make a point / so heated it can start / a blaze.' In poem after poem, Things Not Seen gives evidence of faithful perception. For here they come, like daffodils, 'green / nails bursting / through the snow.'”

Trespassing on the Mount of Olives

Arts & Literature

“Sometimes clever, always thoughtful, and, on occasion, glorious, Davis’s poems shine with a unique sensitivity to the Gospels. They are filled, quite simply, with belief. Reading them softened me to the possible presence of Jesus in my wayward life.”

Twisted Shapes of Light

Arts & Literature

“From a mud-wracked farm in southern Ohio to a small gray college in western Oregon, Jolliff carries with him the shadows of the poor in spirit cast by 'twisted shapes of light.' Few other poets can so evoke the wretchedness of our human experience and yet, at the same time, intuit its hidden spiritual comforts. Read him for a shock of dire recognition and come away with hard-earned hope.”

Where the Sky Opens

Arts & Literature

“In Where the Sky Opens, Laurie Klein poses an implicit question of location. As it turns out, that sky opens in the reader's heart, crossed by flights of love and loss in poems that sing like red-winged blackbirds on the edge of a northern marsh. With a deftness of image and patience of faith, the poet reminds us to 'let grief be, with every breath, a readied womb.'”

Your Twenty-First Century Prayer Life

Arts & Literature

“In his trustworthy sincerity, his rich and considerate earnestness, Nathaniel Hansen reminds me again and again of none other than George Herbert. Both poets share a hidden-in-plain-sight artistry that kindles in me a new devotion. Here is a book that above all is about ‘the posture of the heart,’ a heart that reverberates ‘the beautiful ache of belief,’ even as ‘your elbows smart, bone against old wood.’”