Phoenix Poets
2 total works
This collection of poetry faithfully moves from the private to the publ ic, from individual experience to civic responsibility through an elegy for the 1960s and the world that has become our own. The meditative analysis is expanded, from introspection to the troubled psyche of Vietnam-age America. In poems like "La Pastorela" there is an overlay of classical and popular echoes, heightening personal reminiscences.
In Love and the Soul's title poem, a male speaker asks "not to believe/that what lights up the world from within is always the wrong thing" and is answered by a female speaker midway through the book who says "I don't think men and women/are meant to have relationships any more." Between these poles, Williamson's powerful collection explores the enormous burden of expectation that our culture has placed on love and its gifts to the soul.