Part Darkness, Part Breath

There is much to admire about Edward A. Dougherty's "Part Darkness, Part Breath," not least of which is that there are precious few poets who have, as Dougherty clearly demonstrates throughout, the courage and wisdom to confront our most brutal acts through such healing gestures as spirituality, marital love, community, nature, and - as if in conscious defiance of Auden - a language that makes something happen, that "receives such suffering / and responds with hospitality." In poems that range from the tragedies of the atomic bomb to the passion of domestic love, Dougherty, against our most destructive impulses, offers habits "of attention." Phil Terman, author of "House of Sages" and "Rabbis of the Air"