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Opening King David
Poems in Conversation with the Psalms
by Brad Davis
Series: Emerald City Books
Imprint: Resource Publications
The human experience is an intimate, tough, and, at times, hilarious conversation with what is familiar and what is mystery. Poetry at its best turns this conversation into art and teaches by example how to employ language creatively and courageously--even coyly--in exploring the full range of human response to whatever life may deliver. Certainly the biblical Psalms set the highest of standards in this regard. In Opening King David, Davis takes aim at making contemporary poems in conversation with the Psalms; his personal, cultural, and natural surroundings; and the wonder and mess of his own soul. As a painter with all colors at his disposal, Davis writes with the full spectrum of his available vocabulary, sometimes reaching for the glorious ineffable, at other times bluntly telling it like it--darkly--is. Neither devotional nor inspirational nor religious, these human poems take God seriously and honor our common struggle toward what Saint Paul calls "the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ."
Brad Davis has taught at the College of the Holy Cross, Eastern Connecticut State University, Pomfret School, and The Stony Brook School. Winner of an AWP Intro Journal Award and the Sunken Garden Poetry Prize, he has had poems published in Poetry, The Paris Review, Image, Michigan Quarterly Review, Tar River Poetry, Ascent, Chautauqua, and elsewhere. He is the author of four books of poems from Antrim House.
"Davis is that rare artist who can deal with religious themes without concealing his humanity or feeling the need to protect his Lord. Indeed, the integration on display here is something to behold; no crevice of human feeling or experience goes unexplored - and while the language is beautiful, it's also unassuming and funny (and, thankfully, never pious), which is hard to do, especially when you're addressing themes as serious as the ones Davis is, e.g. death, faith, doubt, beauty, alienation, love, sex, etc. In other words, his work is very much in line with the psalms from which he's drawing inspiration. That is, if King David had a sense of humor… which he must have had?! Here is the sort of accessibility (and wisdom) that it takes years to hone, and I couldn't think of better summer reading. Even if you're not a "poetry person," take a chance - this is as close as we're going to get to an Mbird laureate."
David Zahl
Editor, Mockingbird blog
www.mbird.com
"Like a Rabbi opening the sacred text, then toiling further yet to open every word therein, Brad Davis has pored over both the scriptures and our common circumstance to prod, to raise our wits, that we might glimpse how every challenge, every adversity might be met with grace."
--Scott Cairns
author of Compass of Affection