Some Heaven
(Michigan State University Press, 2007)
Todd Davis writes poems that are spare yet eloquent, poems with an appealing simplicity that belies their insight and consequence. They are rooted in the firmament of nature's frequently bruised bounty, yet grounded by our all-too-human experiences on this planet. With the eye of a naturalist and the wisdom of a sage, Davis reveals scenes of our lives that we might have otherwise missed. His poems are like the best kind of snapshot; they show us the details that deserve more attention. With disarming directness, he connects nature to family, landscape to community, and earth to faith. He urges us to see—not to take a quick look, but to really see—frost on goldenrods, the qualities of dirt, the color of air. Underneath, of course, these are poems about universal themes: love, loss, life, death; but in Davis's skilled hands, they appear to us to be more akin to wild strawberries growing along the field’s edge or apples discovered in an abandoned orchard: something fresh, unexpected, and thankfully welcomed.
Praise for Some Heaven
“Some Heaven is a considerable book of poems. Many poets feel that they know the natural world, but Todd Davis has absorbed this world fully into his heart and mind. He is a fine, rare poet.”
—Jim Harrison
?In Some Heaven’s title poem, Todd Davis imagines “a warm October day that need never end,” and asks, “What more should heaven be?” But the operative word here is should, and his remains a precarious balance between faith in Whitman’s “primal sanities” and the knowledge that the sky “holds no answers.” This fine book’s undersong is a fusion of faith and muted longing that evokes the deepest feelings in us. In the end, Davis earns what comes to be the entire last section of his memorable “Prairie Liturgy”: “Amen.”
—William Heyen, author of Shoah Train, 2004 National Book Award Finalist
Here are surprisingly plain-spoken poems of place and the middle of a man’s life hung on the horns of the millennium. This book speaks from silent spaces—forests and struggling family farms, inarticulate anger and raw fear. Subject matters here, and the language is necessarily transactional, haunted by all kinds of violence, though never totally without hope. As such, these poems will be of use in our troubled times, like the “Snow Angels,” which Davis describes, that vanish “like a blessing to be endured.”
—Julia Kasdorf, author of Sleeping Preacher and Eve’s Striptease
Buy Some Heaven
(Michigan State University Press, 2007)
Todd Davis writes poems that are spare yet eloquent, poems with an appealing simplicity that belies their insight and consequence. They are rooted in the firmament of nature's frequently bruised bounty, yet grounded by our all-too-human experiences on this planet. With the eye of a naturalist and the wisdom of a sage, Davis reveals scenes of our lives that we might have otherwise missed. His poems are like the best kind of snapshot; they show us the details that deserve more attention. With disarming directness, he connects nature to family, landscape to community, and earth to faith. He urges us to see—not to take a quick look, but to really see—frost on goldenrods, the qualities of dirt, the color of air. Underneath, of course, these are poems about universal themes: love, loss, life, death; but in Davis's skilled hands, they appear to us to be more akin to wild strawberries growing along the field’s edge or apples discovered in an abandoned orchard: something fresh, unexpected, and thankfully welcomed.
Praise for Some Heaven
“Some Heaven is a considerable book of poems. Many poets feel that they know the natural world, but Todd Davis has absorbed this world fully into his heart and mind. He is a fine, rare poet.”
—Jim Harrison
?In Some Heaven’s title poem, Todd Davis imagines “a warm October day that need never end,” and asks, “What more should heaven be?” But the operative word here is should, and his remains a precarious balance between faith in Whitman’s “primal sanities” and the knowledge that the sky “holds no answers.” This fine book’s undersong is a fusion of faith and muted longing that evokes the deepest feelings in us. In the end, Davis earns what comes to be the entire last section of his memorable “Prairie Liturgy”: “Amen.”
—William Heyen, author of Shoah Train, 2004 National Book Award Finalist
Here are surprisingly plain-spoken poems of place and the middle of a man’s life hung on the horns of the millennium. This book speaks from silent spaces—forests and struggling family farms, inarticulate anger and raw fear. Subject matters here, and the language is necessarily transactional, haunted by all kinds of violence, though never totally without hope. As such, these poems will be of use in our troubled times, like the “Snow Angels,” which Davis describes, that vanish “like a blessing to be endured.”
—Julia Kasdorf, author of Sleeping Preacher and Eve’s Striptease
Buy Some Heaven