Toward the Beloved by Ellen Jane Powers

“Toward the Beloved immediately pulls the reader into the depths of Powers’ personal struggle: the loss of her brother. However, her profound sadness opens Ellen to an all-encompassing spiritual world, where paradox prevails. She experiences desolation as the doorway into joy, and her grief, fully embraced, transforms into the very consolation that she seeks. This book is filled with loss and wisdom, and the spirit-connection between the two.”

–Nancy Brady Cunningham, Poet, and author of five books of ritual, including: A Book of Women’s Altars, and Snow Melting in a Silver Bowl

Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!]

“This startlingly original collection of poems of grief and longing, Toward the Beloved, exists within the long tradition of pastoral elegies and is at once deeply lyrical, spiritual, and ecstatic. Ellen Jane Powers writes to and of her beloved brother, the brother whose loss leaves the speaker bereft, “As you take refuge/within my lanterned heart”: This emergent image of the lanterned heart encapsulates what it is to be the consciousness that both mourns and comprehends the facets of death and resurgence, of love and mystery. The speaker becomes prophetess, seer, and singer as she evokes that knowledge which seeks to live beyond the capacity of language. Note how, in her poems, adjectival description operates almost as a series of action verbs: “Undraped windows let in dark rays/of unswept hours of longing./In the undarkening of the coming day/I turn.” This series of poems succeeds for the richness and texture of language as much as it does for the subtlety of thought. It is a collection that requires unqualified immersion in order to arrive with the poet at the finale where one asks not for directions from God but to remain in contemplation of “Directions of God.” This is a bravura performance.”

–Helen Marie Casey, Author of Fragrance Upon His Lips; Inconsiderate Madness; and My Dear Girl: The Art of Florence Hosmer

Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!]