The Various Reasons of Light (Paperback)

by Renee Ashley (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
Ashley's The Various Reasons of Light renders the outer provinces of the spirit world perceptible, and then inviting. These poems shed what was once called "voice" for something more strange -- a tone from the Beyond that nevertheless captures, in a weightless Rilkean trance, more light. -- Judith Hall, author of Anatomy, Errata

In Renee Ashley's remarkable new collection, The Various Reasons of Light , her delicate meditations are lit by the steady - if solitary - flame of the human spirit. These poems celebrate the most ephemeral aspects of human desires and aspirations as the volume moves toward what the poet calls, with typical grace, the profound "generosity of souls". Like a secular prayer book, this collection illumines our apprehensions of the encroaching dark with the fierce exigencies of (divine) light; their conflict, if not mortal, is clearly moral. In this wise and deeply consoling book, every angel grows necessary. -- David St. John, author of Study for the World's Body

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Obsolete Angel
This one can't fly: he's got

stubby wings, he's old
as space or time; he's gone

to fat. And now he even
disregards the omens that he never

should have learned to read
at all: blistered skies,

the sticky secrets
in the bowels of toads.

He's used up his store
of magic, he's half-blind,

but he's crusty
as good bread and willing:

in the moonlight,
he struggles up the shadows

towards god, hears

the wheezing orchestration

of embodied lives
- he always sings low,

his one hoarse note,
always tumbles down to where

we save him again
and again he falls

like a hailstone
from some heaven

and we will save him.

Product Details

• Paperback: 80 pages
• Publisher: Avocet Press; 1 edition (July 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0966107217
• ISBN-13: 978-0966107210
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.3 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,212,678 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful book!, September 3, 1999

By A Customer

This is a lovely, lovely book. I'm not one for new age angels, but the angels in Ashley's poems are something completely different and new. Once I read this book, her angels and her dead inhabited my dreams. There maybe be various reasons for light, but Ashley's poetry is one of the best.

4.0 out of 5 stars lovely collection, August 31, 1999

By A Customer

I first read a poem from this on the Poets Online site and bought the book. It was even better than the one poem led me to expect. Angels, light, dark, resurrection and the soul all come together in these poems. What I enjoyed most is that the entire book reads so well as a book - not just as a collection of poems. Though they were published separately, I would have to believe some careful sequencing went into the book's design (it is in 5 parts) to achieve this. I went back to Amazon later & bought her earlier book (SALT) and hope to find her poems in periodicals.