Easter

<p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>This is a book of joy an Easter of jubilation. Holiness infuses these poems: holy flights of imagination holy laughter holy living in the everyday and holy resurrection hope. Even the punishing season of winter is 'a glass of chilled champagne.' And angels everywhere-materializing to sing a Bach mass in the middle of the night on an empty street or maybe dropping in for a summer swim. The energy the down-to-earth reverence-is all of a piece creating an abundance of blessings for any reader fortunate enough to step inside the world David Craig writes and lives.-</span><span style=color: rgba(192 0 0 1)>JILL PELÁEZ BAUMGAERTNER</span><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> Poetry Editor </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Christian Century</em></p><p><br></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>With his immediately recognizable voice-wry but reverent-and uncommonly deft prosodic skill David Craig's new poems serve to resurrect the beauty of formal structures bearing uncontainable and exultant spirit into view.-</span><span style=color: rgba(192 0 0 1)>SCOTT CAIRNS</span><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> author of </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Slow Pilgrim</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> and </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Anaphora</em></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> </span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> David Craig's infectious new collection </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Easter</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> celebrates the being and becoming of the 'unlikely people' with whom 'God hangs out' (oh may we be among them!). It is impossible not to revel in its joyful faith. The collection brims with verses that merit meditation ('Jesus waits to realize Himself in the flesh of this world./It was what He was born for') as well as countless expressions of sheer happiness derived from a life that is 'changing imperceptibly toward the good.' Craig's gift is to gather the fruit and the fracas of our dailiness and raise them in oblation without attempting to conceal our rough edges which are God's to smooth. </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Easter</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> is poetry to carry with us from laughter to prayer from trial to praise.-</span><span style=color: rgba(192 0 0 1)>SOFIA M. STARNES</span><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> Virginia Poet Laureate Emerita</span></p>