A hymn to mercy and love, “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World” springs to my lips when my heart is quiet. I teach it as often as I can for my introductory poetry students. 

Because this house is a dandelion gone to seed. Fragile and full of possibility.

We often don’t recognize our influences until much later. It’s the things we’re closest to that we have the most trouble seeing clearly.

Willard Spiegelman’s probing biography, 'Nothing Stays Put: The Life and Poetry of Amy Clampitt,' describes how she rose to meteoric heights in the poetry world relatively late in life.

Micheal O’Siadhail’s ‘Desire’ and Angela Alaimo O’Donnell’s ‘Dear Dante’ are collections designed and erected meticulously in an ancient style that an avid reader is unlikely to see in much contemporary poetry.

A poet and a woman religious whose work often appeared in America, M. Madeleva Wolff, C.S.C., is known for much more than her verse. She was also a pioneer in Catholic education in the United States.