Forth a Raven

“Davis brings a psychological acuity and a mythic, laconic approach (reminiscent sometimes of Louise Gluck) to a spare universe of ravens, mountains and purgatorial reminiscences….a head-turning debut.” —<em>Publishers Weekly</em> “The poems in this first collection from Davis…are taut and spare and show an obvious love of language. A fine, compelling collection.” —<em>Library Journal</em> “Christina Davis sends forth a wild bird in her magical first collection, and it carries messages that are at once oracular, urgent, and utterly authentic. She has inscribed a true book of mysteries.” —Edward Hirsch “These poems are so bright they hurt: urgent and necessary, they explode and shatter into original wholeness, reclaiming for Soul its own language—fierce, challenging, and spare. This is a book Emily would have kept by her bedside. About it, she might have said, ‘Here is a newness in the wind to trouble your attention.'” —Susan Mitchell “In the oddity and rightness of these poems, it’s ‘As if there were just one/of each word, and the one/who used it, used it up.’ Out of this economy, the voice that emerges—rueful like Dickinson, wryly charming like Szymborska—pushes the boundaries of