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Rating: 
Summary: A unique and "revolutionary" presentation of spiritual verse
Review: I'm really enthralled by David Impastato's UPHOLDING MYSTERY, which I received from a special friend as a gift. It's a collection of beautiful poetry as well as a wonderful spiritual companion. Don't expect the usual dry academic catalogue. This is an anthology for the soul. I marvel how different the poets are in their style and point-of-view and how each of them adds to the book's spiritual story. We get to know them and their poems like friends, and David Impastato is at our side all the way like a warm and understanding host. His book has really made me see how poetry and my spiritual life go hand in hand. UPHOLDING MYSTERY has been on my bedside table since I got it and will stay there for a long, long time to come.
Rating:
Summary: A truly special anthology for the soul
Review: I'm really enthralled by David Impastato's UPHOLDING MYSTERY, which I received from a special friend as a gift. It's a collection of beautiful poetry as well as a wonderful spiritual companion. Don't expect the usual dry academic catalogue. This is an anthology for the soul. I marvel how different the poets are in their style and point-of-view and how each of them adds to the book's spiritual story. We get to know them and their poems like friends, and David Impastato is at our side all the way like a warm and understanding host. His book has really made me see how poetry and my spiritual life go hand in hand. UPHOLDING MYSTERY has been on my bedside table since I got it and will stay there for a long, long time to come.
Rating: 
Summary: A Cautious, Decorous, But Narrow Selection
Review: The editor of this anthology, David Impastato, presents us with ample selections of his fifteen favorite poets. It is a cautious, careful, unadventurous anthology, whose quality is somewhat impaired by an insufficient diversity of voices being heard. Is it not fair to wonder whether all "Christian poetry" of note can be represented by scarcely more than a dozen poets, all of whom are white middle-class moderate-to-progressive Christians of the Western tradition, all of whom are speakers of English born between 1920 and 1960? Mr Impastato gambles that we will admire his pet poets as much as he does; it is the anthologist's only gamble, and it is not very successful. There is much of value in UPHOLDING MYSTERY, from the elegance of Richard Wilbur, the Dylan Thomas-like combustion of Geoffrey Hill, the fiery radicalism of Daniel Berrigan, the serener and more irenic cadences of the equally radical Denise Levertov, the wry humor and quirky narrative of Kathleen Norris. And so on. But an anthology of this scope should contain twice, if not thrice, as many voices. As it stands, this is a book in which caution suppresses joy, and in which the scarcity of differing perspectives fails to present a true picture of that gloriously mammoth, rambunctious and sometimes cacophonous sprawl that is the mystical body of the Christian faithful. For an anthology of Christian literature, prose and poetry, that does justice to the polyphony of voices in Christianity and other creeds, the interested reader might peruse Anglican bishop George Appleton's OXFORD BOOK OF PRAYER, an adventurous superabundance of holy voices from many different centuries, regions, races, and ecclesial loyalties. But it is with considerable regret that we cannot wholeheartedly recommend Mr Impastato's selection of poems. Elegance and nobility, eloquence and humor, are by no means utterly absent, but all in all, this is an oppressively comfortable assemblage of authors.
Rating:
Summary: A unique and "revolutionary" presentation of spiritual verse
Review: This book is as close to a masterpiece of its genre as an anthology can get. It is perhaps the first assemblage of "Christian" verse that can honestly claim an appeal to both the Christian believer and to the general lover of poetry. Moreover, other anthologies of this kind have simply piled a body of poems into a bucket and let the reader have at it. Impastato has uniquely conceptualized UPHOLDING MYSTERY in two ways. First, he has organized the material by theme, whereby the reader is taken on a dramatic spiritual journey from darkness to light. Second, he has selected fifteen of the top living Christian poets writing in English today (Denise Levertov passed away right after the book's publication) - poets whose work represents what Impastato calls a "revolutionary core" of contemporary verse. The reader experiences this great poetry in depth and we're led to see how each poet explores and brings to life the evolving spiritual adventure that's set before us. The advantage over the everything-but-the kitchen-sink approach to anthologizing becomes eloquently clear as instead we are offered the riches and fulness of artistic vision. Finally, Impastato's commentary is our constant guide throughout, in language that's gracious and insightful. This is a wonderful, unique book - beautiful in appearance - for poetry readers and spiritual seekers of all kinds.
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