Nancy J. Coombs

The Audition digs deep: its fresh, heartfelt poems enchant, challenge, and uplift while conveying our yearning for connection and reconciliation. They explore, in three parts, Longing, Limbo, and Restoration. The poetry's driving, musical quality has an evocative urgency and is immersive with a touch of the absurd. Hopeful in tone, The Audition takes us on a journey and, with the concluding poem, "Unrestored," we have both arrived and are on the way to a higher place. Influences that can be felt include poets Guillaume Apollinaire for his melodic patterns and Emily Dickinson for her elevation of the quotidian, as well as lay theologian William Stringfellow's reckoning with alienation. Moses Maimonides, Dante, and Gaspara Stampa get mentions, as do John Milton, Christina Rossetti, and Aldous Huxley. "The Bridge Hears" recalls Paris, and "The Handshake" pays tribute to the poet's meeting Queen Elizabeth II, while "Rupture" is a homage to Black Elk at Wounded Knee.

Resource Publications

The Audition: Poems of Longing, Limbo, and Restoration

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