The Grace of Distance

<p>In <em>The Grace of Distance</em> his poignant far-traveling new collection of poems Matthew Thorburn explores the ways in which we try to close the distances we experience in modern life--between doubt and faith between cultures between ourselves and those we love. He seeks to name and find that elusive essential sense of connection humanity hungers for. In one poem a boy places a bell in the hollow of a tree so someone might find it. In others an overworked baker wishes for an annunciation of her own while a man calls down into a well until another voice calls back. Set in China and America in the present and the distant past Thorburn's poems examine both Eastern and Western ideas of spirituality looking closely at the ways we can lose faith then sometimes find it again. The poems also confront the unbridgeable distances we must live with and the perhaps surprising grace they can provide--a greater sense of perspective understanding and peace--even as our lives move in the only direction they can away from the past.</p>