At the Bottom of the Year

<p><span style=color: rgba(34 34 34 1)>Each Advent season is new. Those most recent have been tumultuous: COVID bitterly cold snows visionaries speaking frankly of a coming apocalypse. But other things as well: our own issues the creeping age factor the death of loved ones. Advent like a creaking old metal gate corrects us every time. It lets us know that only one thing matters: the stable that little crib where cows chewed hay. Children and childlike adults still find all the consolation they need there. We wait for a Jesus who only does joyous endings whose glory is in that star in snowy fields--in those who have passed on and in those who will. These poems celebrate the sweetness of His coming His presence. We must learn to be still to wait for and with the One who gives us Life. Praise Him.</span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(34 34 34 1)> </span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> </span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>David Craig's poetry--full of life spontaneity and God--has always brought joy to my heart. But </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>At the Bottom of the Year</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> opens up life in a way that scatters God like shards of light through a fallen but hopeful world. Warm human and seasoned by a puckish sense of humor this volume of poetry could not have arrived at a more auspicious moment. Drink it to the dregs.--</span><span style=color: rgba(192 0 0 1)>MICHAEL MARTIN</span><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> editor of </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>JESUS THE IMAGINATION: A Journal of Spiritual Revolution</em></p><p>                                                               </p><p><br></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>David Craig has done it again this time giving us a fascinating collection of Advent poems in the tradition of the ancient ghazel but with a sense of the dailiness of life in our moment as husband father and now grandfather. And here's the thing: it's a dailiness sparkling with the sacramental alive with the presence of Jesus the King walking or gliding past the modest homes and Kentucky Fried Chicken diner in a dream world we inhabit in all its sadness and disappointment but also its brilliant wit and yes that mysterious sense of heading home on the journey each of us walks.--</span><span style=color: rgba(192 0 0 1)>PAUL MARIANI</span><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> poet biographer author of </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Ordinary Time </em></p><p><br></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>For David Craig God is in the details. His world is beautifully sacramental and so is his poetry. In his poems frost-covered blades of grass convey grace as do metal casings pinecones in the snow other people (especially those close to him) and every carefully-chosen word. Expecting the wondrous is what Advent is all about and so is every one of these poems. David Craig has a gift for seeing the infinite ways in which matter and spirit are intertwined and how expectations of redemption fill every moment. A wonderful and poignant celebration of the Word made flesh perfectly laced with humor.--</span><span style=color: rgba(192 0 0 1)>CARLOS EIRE</span><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> historian author of </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Waiting for Snow in Havana </em></p>