The Khristos Cantos by Michael Williams

Michael E. Williams shares a set of poems that display a rare spiritual intensity, and a sincere search for meaning and truth, which feels uncommon in contemporary poetry. These are questing, passionate poems, that make full use of the sonic and spatial palettes of the page. The poems in The Khristos Cantos may remind readers of another Williams—not William Carlos, but Jonathan— one of the most inventive of twentieth century American poets, who made poems that looked as interesting as they sounded, and made one feel as deeply as they made one think. Michael E. Williams has made an offering with his poetry, and with such wise observations as “the horizon is the delicious fulcrum of the sky,“ and “the word has taken on the garments of the world,” how can any reader refuse to be moved by The Khristos Cantos?

–Jesse Graves, Author of Tennessee Landscape with Blighted Pine, and Basin Ghosts

Clack!  You can close your eyes, but not your ears: the mallets fall/ clack, spack. Michael Williams employs the musician’s ear with which the best poets are blessed to place us at the foot of the cross, remembering those triumphal echoes of Prepare, Prepare, as they faded into the quiet admonition to Do this, and finally the thunderclap of Finished, rending our uncomprehending hearts. Williams poems march through these pages as defiantly bare as truth, and as necessary.

–Dana Wildsmith, author: Jumping

The Khristos Cantos recounts the crucifixion and the days, even the years, leading up to it with disturbing imagery, but the lyricism in these poems moves readers beyond the brutality of the event to capture a glimpse of the spirit, the urgency, the complex and often contradictory emotions surrounding sacrifice and redemption.
–Blas Falconer