“Luminous. . . . Each reading reveals the tug of opposites, and in this tension the poet shows her brilliance.”—Library Journal, starred review Rash yet tender, chastened yet lush, Headwaters is a book of opposites, a book of wild abandon by one of the most formally exacting poets of our time. Animals populate its pages—owl, groundhog, fox, each with its own inimitable survival skills—and the poet who so meticulously observes their behaviors has accumulated a lifetime’s worth of skills herself: she too has survived. The power of these extraordinary poems lies in their recognition that all our experience is ultimately useless—that human beings are at every moment beginners, facing the earth as if for the first time. "Don’t you think I’m doing better," asks the first poem. "You got sick you got well you got sick," says the last. Eschewing punctuation, forgoing every symmetry, the poems hurl themselves forward, driven by an urgent need to speak. Headwaters is a book of wisdom that refuses to be wise, a book of fresh beginnings by an American poet writing at the height of her powers.

Eschewing punctuation, forgoing every symmetry, the poems hurl themselves forward, driven by an urgent need to speak. Headwaters is a book of wisdom that refuses to be wise, a book of fresh beginnings by an American poet writing at the height of her powers.

This is Rowan Williams' third collection of poems, poems of subtlety and complexity - and passion. They range widely in subject, place and mood. The poet visits a martyrs' memorial and a prison in Uganda. He meditates on the story of St Serafim of Sarov at the rock where 'at night Serafim knelt on the same rock, three long years'. He hears Bach's St Matthew Passion and is 'exhausted with new grief, old treacheries, the view without prospect'. He watches the 'black eyes fixed half-open' of Piero's Jesus and waits, 'paralysed as if in dreams, for his spring'. He celebrates - and translates the work of - the contemporary Russian poet, Inna Lisnianskaya. In several poems he reflects on the rivers of life, from their headwaters to the sea, and on landscapes and townscapes.

"You want to what?" Barb regards her husband with incredulity at the prospect of paddling down the entire length of the mighty Mississippi River in their recently completed tandem kayak. Paddle for a Purpose sweeps the reader into a journey of faith and personal discovery, as Barb and Gene feel called to volunteer with charity organizations in quaint river towns along one of the most scenic and powerful river systems in America. Against a backdrop of picturesque settings and the river's changing moods, exciting and often humorous accounts of adventure and mishap intermingle with inspiring stories of healing, renewal, beauty, compassion and trust in God.

Headwaters is the sixteenth collection from a widely revered poet writing at the height of his passions.

“Careful, attentive, sometimes consoling, heartbreaking or plangent where no consolation can be found.” —Stephanie Burt, New York Times Book Review A monumental celebration of “one of the most significant poets writing today” (David Baker, Los Angeles Review of Books). In eight extraordinary volumes spanning five decades, Ellen Bryant Voigt has created a body of work distinguished by its formal precision, rigorous intelligence, and meticulous observation of nature, history, and domestic life. From the subtly evocative images of Claiming Kin (1976) to the mosaic of sonnets and voices conjuring a prescient narrative of the 1918 influenza pandemic in Kyrie (1995) to fierce encounters with mortality in the National Book Award finalist Shadow of Heaven (2002) and the propulsive inventions of Headwaters (2013), the evolution of Voigt’s astonishing creative and technical mastery is on full display. This definitive collection showcases the brilliant career of “a quintessential American elegist” (Katy Didden, Kenyon Review). From “Apple Tree” O my soul, it is not a small thing, to have made from three, this one, this one life.

"Searing, poignant, and downright funny, What Falls Away Is Always brings together more than thirty writers of both prose and poetry to reflect on the experiences of aging and writing they share, along with the possibly more daunting question--what next?"--