Pattiann Rogers, at 61, has been writing poetry for 30 years. The book jacket of this anthology contains praise by Richard Howard, Naomi Shihab Nye, Scott Russell Sanders, Rick Bass, Terry Tempest Williams, and Barry Lopez. There is a spiritual undertow to her poetry worth celebrating. In a recent interview in Image: A Journal of the Arts and Religion, Rogers says: "My poems are prayers. . . . It may be impertinent of me but I believe that when human beings perform creative acts of imagination and do so with reverence and joy, they are praying. They are bestowing honor."
"Watching the Ancestral Prayers of Venerable Others" was selected for Best Spiritual Writing, 1999, and Rogers is a frequent contributor to U. S. Catholic. Many of the 40 new poems in this volume explore the dynamics of faith, belief in God, and a respect for the vast mysteries of the universe. The poet moves easily from the ecstasies of the erotic ("The Center of the Known Universe") to the pleasures of mystic unity ("Duality") to a keen curiosity about the natural world ("For Passions Denied: Pineywoods Lily").
Three of the most profound and amazing poems in this collection, which spans over 500 pages, are "The Possible Suffering of a God during Creation," "Trinity," and "Animals and People: 'The Human Heart in Conflict with Itself.' " These inimitable creations all demonstrate poetry as a prayer — an immense yearning to appreciate the mysteries of God, "a patient and prolonged happiness," and a desire to draw closer to members of the animal kingdom. Let the prayers in this devotional work wash over you.