The Mortal Angels

"The Mortal Angels" is a book of formal poetry. The author has long been fascinated by the Metaphysical poets, with their sinewy, searching style in pursuit of an extended metaphor or argument; and their influence on Eliot and the other early modernists, who found in them much to borrow, when confronted with their own unsettled and disturbing times. We are facing such times again and the poems in this book use a neo-Metaphysical style to conduct a series of meditations on mortality and the examined life. It has been said that every poem should reveal something about the poet's interior life and the world. Mortality is used here as a lens through which life--in all its physical, emotional, political, philosophic and spiritual vibrancy--is witnessed in full.

After a four decade career in the law, first as a trial lawyer then as a juvenile court judge, James Cronin in retirement returned to earlier interests: teaching, literary studies and writing. He has taught a course on the art of the short story for more than twelve years at a lifelong learning nonprofit, The Second Half of Fall River, MA. He has published dozens of op-eds on national issues in local newspapers. His first book of poetry, World of Shadows, was published in 2018 by The Poetry Loft press of Cranston, RI.