Slender Warble: Poems
Ebook
Within the bewildering paradox of suffering and beauty, we often miss the Invisible One. Never quite what you'd imagine, the nudge of his Presence can be mind-bending. More often, the Almighty gives no more than a slender warble. This collection is about finding the presence of God in spite of and because of the trappings that make us most human.
“A rich chorus of paradox, Susan Cowger’s Slender Warble
harmonizes the weather of fear, faith, and flight. By bee, hawk,
gull, and the wide wings of the Spirit; by the alarm of accident,
groan of grief, ‘caesura / between worlds,’ or full-throated song
of glory, we soar on these poems, hover, plummet, rise to soar
again.”
—Marjorie Maddox, author of True, False, None of the
Above
“All of the poems in Slender Warble by Susan Cowger are
fully engaged in the search for God: attempting to know the
unknowable, trying to grasp the intangible in our always-failing
human hands. We teeter between the daily paradox of suffering and
beauty, all too often unable to see or sense God in the struggles
of our quotidian lives. . . . Highly recommended.”
—Barbara Crooker, author of The Book of Kells
“In Susan Cowger’s deeply satisfying poems, spirit infuses the
flesh of things to renew our love for the ardency of the given
world. Even in simple actions, like peeling and eating fruit,
everything is always at stake, at once present and ultimate. . . .
A back becomes a landscape, then the shape of breath, and finally
the shape of a promise—these poems enact the transfigurations of
imagination and celebrate the distinctness and shared life of our
experience.”
—D. S. Butterworth, Professor of English, Gonzaga University
“In her Note to Readers, poet Susan Cowger reminds us that ‘the
presence of God reliably resists being pinned down.’ The pages that
follow illuminate that tension with breathless beauty; not only the
natural imagery, but the poems’ unpunctuated open spaces echo his
powerful yet inscrutable ways. Cowger paints alongside him with
‘Thunderheads / [that] blossom between mine and Thine’s / lines,’
songs that call us closer to the deep.”
—Tania Runyan, author of Second Sky and What Will Soon
Take Place
Product Details
- Title : Slender Warble: Poems
- Author: Cowger, Susan
- Publisher: Cascade Books
- Publication Date: 2020
- ISBN: 9781725251694
Susan Cowger is a poet and artist whose lens to the world is image. Her poems have appeared most recently in In A Strange Land: Introducing Ten Kingdom Poets (Cascade, 2019), Ekphrastic Review, Windhover, Perspectives, Crux, McGuffin, and Presence. Publication also includes the chapbook Scarab Hiding. Susan is founder and past editor of the journal Rock & Sling. Connect with her on Facebook and at www.rockwoodwire@blogspot.com.