Forth a Raven

I don't envy the poetry editors who have to read hundreds, even thousands, of first books. First books aren't often as polished and wise as Christina Davis' though, and this book is masterful. Alice James frequently publishes books by poets who are practitioners of spare, lyric meditations, and Davis is one of these, but she knows exactly how to combine the personal with deeper concerns--so much so that the poems in this book seem profoundly prayerful and engaged with the most difficult questions about love, the spirit, humanity and family. (The book, in fact, relies much on questions, which says a lot about Davis' aims.) There is something almost koan-like about some of these poems, but they are never puzzling or solely an intellectual exercise--these are poems of real tenderness toward the world and of linguistic care. Davis is not a poet who woos with verbal pyrotechnics, and this is a relief: her stripped style makes the impressive mind and soul beneath these poems all the clearer.