Georgia poet Byron Herbert Reece is almost unknown yet he was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in poetry. His simple ballads and poems struck a cord with post- World War 11 audiences. Lauded by well- connected critics in New York and Boston, Reece enjoyed a brief walk in the literary limelight.

When he attended Young Harris College he lived in the "workhouse" with other students who worked on the college farm, milking cows, plowing fields, and other chores for tuition. Reece never graduated from college, unwilling to study math or French, he alternated between farming and teaching elementary school to make a living.

He continued to write poetry and submit them to magazines. In 1943, Kentucky writer, Jesse Stuart saw one of Reece's poems in a magazine and marveled at its simple language of "understandable genius.” He persuaded his publisher E.P. Dutton, to publish a book of Reece's verse. The collection was called,” Ballad of the Bones. It appeared in the fall of 1945 and propelled the farmer into the world of poetry. “It was as if our eyes were opened to something as big as the Appalachians" John Gould Fletcher wrote in a review in the New York Times. Editor Ralph McGill of the Atlanta Constitution wrote; “In Reece, Georgia has, I think, one of the really great poets of our time, and one to stand with those of any other times.

His poetry never proved profitable and he was often treated as an idiot savant, a quiet mountain farmer with a gift for verse. He was tall, stern, and flinty as the hardscrabble farm his family owned and worked. Except for scholarships from various colleges he was never more than a mile away from the farm. The farm was outside Blairsville, Ga., a hand hewn cabin on Wolf Creek, in the shadow of Brasstown Bald. He spent his days hoeing corn and potatoes. At night he wrote his poetry, turning his eyes to the seasons and its cycles for inspiration.

He had a ramshackle writers shack in the back yard he called Mulberry Hall, not because it was grand but because it was painted a purplish red paint that a friend had given him. He furnished it with a desk, lamp, typewriter, and a cot where he wrote poetry and took catnaps throughout the night.

Sickness and hardship were never far away. Reece never married. His parents both died of tuberculosis, and while caring for them he contracted the disease. Finely on June 3, 1958, at the age of 40 he took his own life with a bullet through his diseased chest.

"Daddy" fuses Sylvia's thoughts or raw emotions about her husband and her father. The end of "Daddy," I can't help but read "They always knew it was you" as Sylvia saying directly, "I always knew it was you" or "I always knew it was true," in regard to her husband's infidelity which he always deny.

"Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through" could mean she had either given up on her marriage or more seriously, her life. That she was at her wit's end. That she can't go on anymore. The word "through" portrays both resolve and despair.

In Poppies in October, the setting can be interpreted in many ways: a woman tending to a patient, or a woman fighting for her life. There is a strong reference to woman in the poem. Nature, being one of them. A love gift is another. "By a sky, palely and flamily
Igniting its carbon monoxides,". This part holds the key to the unraveling of the poem. Carbon monoxide is pollution caused by automobiles. Plath's mention of carbon monoxide could mean she was referring to the poisons or toxins in either her life or society. That she was in the midst of some form of negativity.

”Lady Lazarus” is about death, and her love-hate relationship with it. The narrator seemed to grow stronger towards the end of the poem. When Plath called Lazarus a crowned "Lady" could mean an association with female power. Lazarus was a tale from the Bible. He is the man raised by God from the dead. Plath could be referring to a sense of empowerment she felt as she wrote has risen on her own "out of the ash", from the dead, without help from God or the doctor, like a pheonix with her "red hair". She coined "eat men like air" to refer to the women's growing wield of influence as supported by the fact that she named the poem "Lady Lazarus". The Holocaust interpretation could be a powerful theme of this poem. Since she was German, this poem could be a tribute to the helplessness and powerless of the Holocaust victims. It is Plath's attempt to overcome the horror of human trauma.

The most frequent color in her poems is red. Love and heart are often associated with red. Reds of lighter tones often represents feelings of lust, anger and rage. Deeper reds, on the other hand, could mean love, passion and heat.

Emotions such as distress and sadness are important to the Plath's poem. Most of her poems revolved around these emotions which everybody can relate to. Hence, the popular appeal it holds to both scholars and general readers alike. Plath seemed to extol the virtues of distress. And instead of repelling it as we wont to do, she enjoins to enjoy the fleeting moment when you are in distress.

Sylvia Plath's abilities as a writer enable her to amalgamate so many elements: intellectual aspect of learning, personal emotional experiences and general human experiences. All these she imbibed in her poetry. To be able to entwine these disparate elements to her poetry is a testament to her abilities as a poet which intrigue and fuel the imagination of scholars and general readers alike.

• He is a pig
• He can stand on 2 legs
• Because he is a pig, he has more privileges than the other animals
• He has the ability to write very good songs and poems

Personal and Mental Traits

• He is very expressive; as all song writers and poets are
• Towards the end, Minimus starts to act like a human
• He is very loyal to Napoleon

Importance in the Novel

Minimus composes 2 songs that replaced "Beasts of England". The songs are entitled "Animal Farm" and "Comrade Napoleon". Napoleon approves of both of these songs. Besides this, Minimus is also one of the pigs that can walk on 2 legs.

Connection to Major Themes

One of the major themes of this story is that sometimes with power you can become what you hate. This theme is greatly associated with Minimus. Like all the animals, Minimus hated the humans, but as he received more privileges, he began to act like a human. He even starts to walk on 2 legs, and carries a whip. He has become what he hated

Direct Quotes

• “In its place Minimus, the poet, had composed another song which began: Animal Farm, Animal Farm, Never through me shalt thou come to harm!” (Page 77)
• “The general feeling on the farm was well expressed in a poem entitled "Comrade Napoleon", which was composed by Minimus.” (Page 80)
• “Napoleon approved of this poem and caused it to be inscribed on the wall of the big barn”

The first 2 quotes show that Minimus did compose the songs "Animal Farm" and "Comrade Napoleon". The last quote shows that Napoleon approved of both these songs.

In Plath's poem she displays a forceful hate for her rule abiding father who had "no god but a swastika" showing he is a tyrant and a law abiding fascist. However she also shows an affection for her father as she tried to get "back, back, back" to him. This phrase shows how she might be missing him in the grave but also sounds pretty violent like a sort of stabbing movement, with the three strong syllables. Larkin in his poem shows that even though he can connect to his parents he is unwilling to be similar to them to avoid the "misery" being passed on to him. Plath however is unable to be like her father who passed away when she was a child. She blames him for his own death which leads her into writing such forceful poetry.

'Digging' by Heaney shows us the separation of the generation but he does not resent it but respects it. He writes as if digging was something he was not good enough at as he has "no spade to follow men like them", showing respect for the older generations and that they are too good at their job to follow in their footsteps. He also seems to come across as more important than his father as he "looks down" from his bedroom window as if digging is a peasant's job, contradicting the pride that he shows in his heritage. You also notice the separation between father and son when he mentions about his fathers "straining rump" as if he feels sorry for him and affectionate that he is doing all the work while he is still relaxing in his bedroom. However he worships his father and respects him largely telling us that "by god, the old man could handle a spade" showing his pride in his heritage and appreciation for his father and his job.

With Larkin his parents represent a generation which you cannot get away from. His grandparents, in the next generation above, are also represented irrespectably with "old style hats", making them sound stupid and odd as if it is something to be ignored. He also thinks of his grandparents as "soppy stern" which gives us the idea of characters which live by petty rules, restricting their children of freedom. The parents are not looked upon respectably, as they hand on "misery to man" through the generations. Showing that he has no concern for his parent's situation, thinking that all they represent is monotonous. The fact that he does not believe in having children contrasts with the traditional view of the meaning of life bewilders some people. With his advice to us, "to get out as early as you can" and to live an exciting but short life so you can get away from the idea of becoming parents and polluting your potential children's minds.

Plath refers to her father as a "brute" maybe due to the fact that he was part of the fascist regime, something she remembers bitterly. She also remembers him by the picture of him at the black board with the "cleft instead of a foot" showing that he was like a devil to her and also like a burden which thrived on rules and oppresion. The references to her father being like a vampire who "drank her blood" also shows that she thinks her father was an evil superhuman which lived off of her and ended her love for life. He adored not "god but a swastika" showing his Nazi and Aryan purity and rule abiding ego that he could not leave. The black boots that he wore reminds her of the time "in which she lived" like a foot being smothered with protection, discarding her freedom while leaving his footprint from her as if she is just another lost soul. However when she says she makes a "model" of her father it shows something she never had in her life, a role model in a father to look up to and admire.

'Digging' does show that his parents represent the weight of tradition and history. He shows this when he talks about his father digging "just like his old man", with the knowledge and skills of the job have been passed down through the generations. The tradition is remembered by Heaney through the "cold smell of potato mold" which reminds him of his childhood and family heritage. The history and age of the tradition is also described when his father "comes up 20 years away" whilst digging, emphasising the history and time passed as the layers of bog become thinner. His memories of digging are also shown in the poem through his father's actions displaying his influence on his son. If the tradition is going to be passed on Heaney has to be watching and following his father.

In Larkin's poem he says that you should get away from your parents and "don"t have kids yourself', this is taking his views to the extreme, wanting the generation gap to cease its existence. This bold statement is almost so crazy that you could take it as a joke, finding it a bombast kind of humor. Also the eye catching first line of "they fuck you up" could also be interpreted as a bold and uncanny joke, written to draw intrigued readers into the poem which some might associate with a stereotypical rebellious teenager. Although having parents is inevitable he uses them as a role model of what not to become and be like. The last two lines make you think whether he is being serious about what he is saying or if it is just a sincere pun. As Larkin has pretty much done the opposite to what his parents have done maybe we should treat his poem this way, so you should pay no attention to the message of the poem and do what you want.

In the poem by Plath comparisons are made with children's nursery rhymes and suffering which causes a dark and sincere kind of poem. She mentions that she lived like a "foot" in a boot, like the commonly known nursery rhyme, "barely daring to breathe". This almost ironic phrase takes a comforting nursery rhyme and makes it sound bitter and depressive. Plath also mentions that "every woman adores a fascist", showing her bitterness for the oppressiveness of the Nazi rule, again showing irony and extreme sarcasm. Near the end of the poem she communicates her thoughts by saying how she is "through" with her dead father as he did was influence her depressed life. This shows that she has finally had enough of life without someone to guide her like he might have done or even that now she is surrendering herself to him, ready to join him in the grave. This delivers the final punch to the poem like a storm which has blown itself out.

In Heaney's poem he shows a fair bit of humor and irony to assert his argument for why he chose to write, and that it was not the easy way out of the traditional digging. He starts off by saying how he holds a "squat pen" to emphasize that writing is just as difficult as digging. The similarities between digging and writing are also shown when he describes the way you dig, with a "boot nestled on the lug, the shaft against the inside knee". If you imagine how this would look on the spade and compare it to how you would normally hold a pen, the actions appear to be very similar, as if writing has evolved from digging. He also shows some irony when he tells us how he used to give his grandpa milk in a bottle "corked sloppily with paper". The paper in this time was merely an accessory and not needed for many things, but for Heaney in his later life it proved to be a necessity as it is one of the things he is associated with. Heaney finishes off the poem by saying he will "dig with it", referring to the fact that he will write instead.

The generation gap to Larkin, Plath and Heaney was huge; the separation between them and their parents was portrayed at times as if they were nothing like their parents. Larkin did not want to be associated with his, so made the gap as big as possible. Plath was already separated from her father who made her feel resentment towards him as if it was his fault for dying and leaving her suffocating in his wake. Heaney also felt the generation gap. Although he respected his parents a lot he almost looked down on the peasant like job of digging, and did not carry on the tradition passed down the generations.

Throughout this tale, the Green Knight represents nature, and when Gawain crosses the Green Knight, he is in fact contending against the environment. The interactions of Gawain and the other knights with the Green Knight exhibit the Arthurian society's mutual fear and respect for the forces of nature.

When Bertilak de Hautdesert takes on the form of the Green Knight, he displays his supernatural power with nature as his medium. When the Green Knight makes his appearance in King Arthur's court, the knights are in awe to see the “verdant green” (161) man with “butterflies and birds embroidered” (166) on his clothes, and a head of hair that “to his horse suited” (180). Although the Green Knight is a human, his appearance is at once vegetative and animalistic, as if he had just emerged from the bushes into the human realm.

He is a mélange of all facets of the natural world, representing many types of flora and fauna all coexisting on a human body. The knights of the Round Table do not know what to make of him, so they both fear and admire him in their confusion. When Gawain hits the Green Knight's neck with the ax, the Green Knight “fell not… nor faltered a whit” (430), then picked up his head and left so easily in a way that was “a wonder past compare” (466). Much like a tree, he is able to lose parts of his body without enduring substantive harm.

This regenerative power is fantastical and even frightening to the human world, but a very unexceptional ability for plant-life. The Green Knight could well be described as an evergreen embodied in human form, and represents the intersection between humanity and the natural world. His ambiguity makes him a dubious visitor to King Arthur's court, causing the knights to be uncertain whether he is friend or foe.

The Green Knight further perturbs the knights by challenging their belief that humans are superior to the rest of the natural world. When he appears in Camelot, he does not arrive unarmed: “In his one hand he had a holly barb… and an ax in his other” (206-208). Traditional pagan belief holds the former as a symbol of life and rebirth, and the latter as a symbol of death. By bringing these he is, in a sense, offering the knights a choice between life and death.

He shows them their mortality, reminding them that it is a natural concept that humans can never gain control over. This is further aggravated by the fact that the symbol for life is a plant, whereas the symbol for death is a man-made weapon, implicating humanity in its own death. Whereas the knights display their power by adorning themselves with “fastenings of the finest gold” (577) and diadems “with diamonds richly set” (617), the Green Knight does so with his bold disposition that causes “a swooning silence in the stately hall” (243) of Camelot.

The Green Knight garners his strength from his natural body and mind instead of depending on material luxuries. When he appears, the knights sense that he is more powerful than they are, so they allow him to take control. They are afraid that, even with their steel weapons and all their man-made accessories, they cannot overcome him. The knights are forced to see that the power of nature is ultimately stronger than their own.

However, Gawain's conflict with the Green Knight shows more than just the negative sentiments toward nature; it shows the society's respect for the intrigue and mystery of nature. By introducing an adversary that derives his power from nature, the poet of Gawain can give this character mystical, superhuman powers that cannot exist in the man made world. The Green Knight is “as lightning quick and light” (199) and has plant-like rejuvenating powers.

The society recognizes that this is something impossible for humans, but it is not outside the capacity of other parts of nature. They respect that nature can so easily achieve something that is completely magical for them. The Green Knight also has “a beard big as a bush” (182) to represent his age, whereas the knights of the Round Table are “but beardless children” (280) and “young bloods” (284).

The Green Knight, as the representation of nature, is old as the earth, and brings with him the wisdom of many epochs of life. Although he mocks the other knights for their youthful nature, it does less to insult them than it does to make them revere his age. In the Arthurian society, it is customary to honor elders, and the age of the earth is just about as old as anyone can be. After Gawain meets the Green Knight to complete their deal, he confesses, “Your cut taught me cowardice, care for my life” (2379).

Gawain's final encounter with the Green Knight is much like an alteration in his state of mind. It allows him to transcend his society's values, and understand his purpose in the world in a different light. The dynamic of the society with the Green Knight shows that they accept, albeit reluctantly, nature's superiority over them in its ability to achieve what they can only imagine.

When it is revealed in the end that the Green Knight is in fact just the mortal Bertilak de Hautdesert, this does not diminish the significance of nature in the story, but in fact enhances its importance. The Green Knight finally admits to his real identity as Bertilak and explains that Morgan le Fay “put this shape upon” (2459) him in order to seek revenge on the queen of the Round Table. His initial intentions with this disguise are certainly far from innocent; however, as the Green Knight, Bertilak no longer attempts to frighten the queen, but instead succeeds in teaching Gawain a valuable lesson.

When Bertilak takes on the powers of the Green Knight, he also takes on his wisdom, and does good deeds where he originally planned on doing harm. After Bertilak is yet again settled as himself and offers for Gawain to “make merry in [his] house” (2468), the spirit of “the knight all green in hue, wheresoever he wished, he went” (2477-2478). This suggests that the Green Knight may in fact be a separate entity that took over Bertilak's body.

If this is the case, this indicates that the embodiment of the Green Knight-or rather, the return to nature-purified Bertilak's initial purpose and caused a moral transformation in him as well. The spirit of the Green Knight leaves Bertilak once his deed there is done. The poet of Gawain corrects sinister intentions by bringing the characters back to the simplicity of nature. This illustrates a broader admiration of the powers of nature even in the part of the poem that seems to diverge from this ideal.

The use of fantastical characters in literature allows authors to present morals and lessons in idealized terms. The character of the Green Knight is an excellent facet for what the poet wishes to demonstrate about the ever-present power of nature in a society that is progressing away from the earth. Their sentiments toward the Green Knight reflect on their sentiments toward nature. The people of the Arthurian society undergo many transformations in which they vacillate between fear and admiration of the natural world. Clearly, this state of indecision has continued long past the time of Gawain.

He knows that God is capable of forgiving sins, but Donne seems to believe that there is a limit to how much or how often God can forgive. He asks God “Wilt thou forgive that sin, through which I run/And do run still, though still I do deplore?” He wants to know if God will absolve him of a sin that he keeps committing, although he feels sorry for doing it.

Donne obviously understands the struggle of recognizing when one is doing wrong and asking for forgiveness. But forgiveness isn't enough to keep him from committing the same sin again! Donne struggles against temptation, and as in his previous poems, is very hard on himself when it comes to the state of his immortal soul. He blames himself entirely for succumbing to the temptation to sin, and throws himself on the mercy of God when he repents.

“But swear by Thyself, that at my death Thy Son/Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore/And having done that, Thou hast done/I fear no more.”

Donne trusts that at his death and final judgment, God the Father will have pity on him and forgive him of all his sins, both past and present, through the intercession of God the Son. Though his earthly struggles pain him, he puts his faith in God's mercy, and hopes to one day be absolved absolutely of his sins, and never to sin again.

In the second paragraph, the narrator says: “Every one a revengeful burst of resurrection.” The word “revengeful” signifies a kind of vendetta the thistles have against “cows and the hoeing hands of men (Line 1).” It says that each thistle carries aggression towards us. The “burst of resurrection” description gives the sense that the struggle is eternal. And since there is no recollection of the origin of the hostility, and only descriptions of current hostility, it gives the sense that the motivation behind the fighting has been lost, or that the thistles and the people have become so entrenched in their battle that the enemy, not the origin, is the only thing important about the fight.

In the fourth stanza, the narrator begins to compare the thistles to men by saying they “grow grey.” Then they are “mown down,” which is an interesting use of the word mown, which has connotations in both war and gardening. He also calls it a “feud,” implying that the aggression is mutual. The mowers aggress against the thistles and the thistles retaliate. It is a juxtaposition of roles. In the beginning of the poem, the thistles seemed to be attacking people for no reason. But now the reader knows it is a feud. And in this case, the thistles are the victim. Then, the narrator says the war starts over when the next season starts.

This poem shows the futility of turf violence. The continual cycle of feuds and wars continues through generations, evidenced by the final two lines of the poem, “their sons appear, stiff with weapons, fighting back over the same ground.” Then going back to the second stanza with the description of the “revengeful burst,” and the feud description shows that the fighting isn't even exactly over the land anymore. It is a fight of revenge. Like the Hatfields and McCoys of Americana, the feud has changed. The original motivation for the fighting has disappeared. Now the fighting is vengeance from all the fighting.

The collection consists of 18 short poems, none of them written in verse, but mainly subdivided into stanzas of 3 lines each. There are only 5 exceptions to this rule, more precisely in "The God Fit" (p. 40), "The God Coup" (p. 41), "God's Beloveds Remain True" (p. 47), "God's Mother" (p. 48) and "God's List of Liquids" (p. 52). Both in "God's Mother" and "God's List of Liquids", the formal differences seem to hint on the idea of structure and order. Both poems contain a list, which could be interpreted as an allusion to God's habit to organise, to set up a framework or even a divine master plan. "The God Fit" ends in one single line, "The God Coup" is a four line poem and "God's Beloveds Remain True" is not subdivided into stanzas at all. The underlying connection between these three poems is the desperation that lies in feeling abandoned by God. People try "to escape God who is burning" (p. 40, l. 6) while they feel "untended" (p. 40, l. 7). He is described as "a grand heart cut" (p. 41, l. 1) and while "man surges" (p.41, l. 2), he does nothing more than "tarry" (p. 41, l. 4). In contrast to the descriptive address of "The God Fit" and "The God Coup", the voice of mankind expresses itself in "God's Beloveds Remain True", bewailing the status quo. The irony of feeling helpless and forsaken while "Chaos overshadows" (p. 47, l. 1) and not having the option to leave God behind because they "have been instructed to call this His love" (p. 47, l. 29) clarifies the forlorn position of God's beloveds. The term "beloveds" itself bears a sarcastic undertone when the speaker tells about them being "strangled by bitter light" (p. 47, l. 3), even "slit and drained out" (p. 47, l. 20). "The God Fit", "The God Coup" and "God's Beloveds Remain True" form a trilogy of misery, leading from God's infernal terror over God's indifference regarding mankind to God's tyrannical leave-no-options policy.

Another aspect of God is discussed in "God's Woman" (p. 46) and "God Stiff" (p. 46). These two poems ostensibly deal with the role of women in the process of creation. God asks "His woman" (p. 46, l. 1) whether she is "angry at nature" (p. 46, l. 1) without making clear what exactly he means by the term "nature".

The woman replies that she does "not want nature stuck / up between" (p. 46, l. 2f) her "legs on" (p. 46, l. 3) his "pink baton" (p. 46, l. 3). Furthermore, she does not want it "ladled out like geography whenever" (p. 46, l. 4) his "buckle needs a lick" (p. 46, l. 5). The image of God suddenly undergoes a change from supernatural fiend without a cause to a sexist male creator, who formed man after his image but forgot about the humiliating position of women in creation altogether. The idea of devising a reproduction process in which one (the male) has to penetrate the other (the female) in order to soil the female body with the actual semen and, thus, secure the species' population is portrayed as unnecessary and degrading. His possibly uttered excuse does not convince the woman of the necessity of the human spawning procedure and God is cornered with the question "what do you mean Creation" (p. 46, l. 6). This negative image is underlined in "God Stiff" by the fact that for the woman, "His zipper going down" (p. 46, l. 6) sounds like the word "Treachery" (p. 46, l. 6). If God really created man after his image, all negative and sexist behavior patterns of men must originate from God himself. He is part and root of all sexist male behavior.

The portrayal of God is completed in "God's Justice" (p. 49) when the reader is told that "in the beginning there were days set aside for various tasks" (p. 49, l. 1). One of those days was reserved for God to create justice, but instead "God got involved in making a dragonfly" (p. 49, l. 3). Watching his new creation, he "lost track of time" (p. 49, l. 4) and completely forgot about his actual plan to bring justice to the world. In deep fascination, God beholds the dragonfly, every little detail catches his eye and his attention. He is described as the stereotype human male who just found a new toy, be it some sort of electronic entertainment device or some other trivial matter. All his effort and all his devotion rests with something that can, objective, be seen as far less important than e.g. the concept of justice, yet there is no Sign of God being about to take notice of this antagonism. He is characterized as being rather unreliable, and assuming that there are at least 2 million[3] different species of animals on this planet to fascinate him, expectations for justice to be created are sure to be disappointed.

One intriguing fact is the textual connection between "God's Woman" and "God's List Of Liquids". In the latter, the list of liquids ends with the substantive "Time" (p. 52, l. 16). The context of this list is that "God had the book of life open at pleasure" (p. 52, l. 3) and was arranging terms under the headline "For I made their flesh as a sieve" (p. 52, l. 6). However, the noun "Time" also appears in "God's Woman" when God urges his woman to choose between "Fire. Time. Fire"

(p. 46, l. 8) Taking into account the contents of "God's Woman" and "God's List Of Liquids", it seems probable that God lets his woman choose between pleasure (the term "Time" appears on the page "PLEASURE" of God's book of life) and desolation (the desolation of fire when God "is burning" as on page 40, line 6 of the poem "The God Fit"). It remains uncertain what his woman chose, but the idea of both concepts having the potential to negatively alter the "flesh" (p. 52, l. 6) of man, one by burning, one by aging, leaves the conclusion that even the items considered as pleasure by God carry a foul side effect for his creation.

Carson describes God as not being compatible to the human nature. What God considers a pleasure is considered a curse by man. God is differently minded than we are, and due to this fact, he lost interest in us a long time ago. "Our blind gestures / parodied / what God really wanted" ("My Religion", p. 40, l. 27ff) and God reacted by retiring from his business of taking care and pursued his ambitions and hobbies such as creating more simple, but also more beautiful things such as dragonflies. What for us feels like God's anger or the impression that we were abandoned could just be the frustration and resignation of a God who created a being that is unable to conceive him. Carson appears to pity God and she intends to hold up her faith to support God until "all the people in the world" ("My Religion", p. 39, l. 8) find out just "how simple it would have been" ("My Religion", p. 39, l. 5) to give God "this simple thing" ("My Religion", p. 40, l. 32) that he really wanted. God is not there to help us, he needs our help until we have learned to see and listen, or as Carson says it "my religion makes no sense / and does not help me / therefore I pursue it" ("My Religion", p. 39, l. 1ff).

[1] Carson, Anne. Glass, Irony and God. Introduction by Guy Davenport. 1995. New York: New Directions. New Directions Paperbook, Fifth Printing. "The Truth about God", 39-53

[2] Carson, Anne. Glass, Irony and God. Introduction by Guy Davenport. 1995. New York: New Directions. New Directions Paperbook, Fifth Printing.

[3] Nisimov, Felix. The Physics Factbook. Edited by Glenn Elert. 2003. "Number of Species"

With my heart racing in anticipation, I opened my book…

The first poem, “Turn A Page” touched my soul not only as a Christian, but as an author too.

Seeds of faith are found on each page
Planted in souls throughout each age
Golden pages help us to see
The glory of eternity

The layout of the book is highly unique, yet it works. The book is separated into sections, all to a purpose from the writer. The whole book is well organized and arranged to benefit the reader, and it does. I especially like the fact that each section has a coordinating scripture; and each poem has a scripture that testifies to the inspiration of the author.

Other poems in the book show a different facet to the author's faith, for instance; the poem entitled, Sorry Satan This Soul Is Taken; highlights a Christian with an attitude! A perspective not often enough expressed. I loved this poem, and couldn't wait to share it with my husband (a preacher)!

Get back Satan try something new
My soul's reserved and not for you

Two of the poems were a bit harder for me to understand. The flow didn't seem right and rhyming meter was sporadic. However, only the author knows the state of mind she was in when inspiration hit; and what makes sense to her wouldn't necessarily to everyone. As a writer and a poet, I understand this better than anyone. It is rare that every poem in a book of poetry is loved by the reader.

Overall, this is a book to add to my list of favorite contemporary poetry collections. It is a book that could be used to snatch a quick moment of wisdom, or as a nice leisurely read over a rainy weekend. On a scale of 1-10, I'd give this book a 7. I will enjoy reading this book again in the future and sharing particular poems with friends and family. Julie Pisacane is an author I will be looking for more books from.