Deep Light is not a poetry collection,
if collection implies a mere gathering of similar objects.
Nor is it a chronological compilation of work from the author’s
previous books.
The poems in Deep Light have been selected and arranged to create a continuous,
unified text. Like McClanahan’s description of gray doves “tipping
across the gravel/ their shadows pumping before them,” the poems move forward
in an alternating dance of light and shade.
In the brightest places of our world, suggests this poet, grief and loss cast
their shadows. But even in the darkest places, light makes its way.
Related interview: A Conversation with Rebecca McClanahan
On genre crossing, violent revisions, and writing from joy- the last taboo.
--from
The Kenyon Review online
