This Far: Poems

by Kathleen O'Toole

Overview

This collection offers a rich harvest taken from one season in the poet's creative life. Like movements in a musical composition, these poems share leitmotifs ̶ grief and the desire to honor those "saints" who have passed on; the sacramental power of nature; and, how works of art illuminate and console as they do. They point to the tension between the practice of monastic silence and the urge to bear witness, interrogating faith in the light of crises facing the earth and our human community. At the same time, the poet celebrates encounters that offer blessings of hope, inviting us to join her in a pilgrimage that leads us, with her, "this far," and gestures to what lies beyond.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781640602625
Publisher:	Paraclete Press
Publication date:	10/01/2019
Series:	Paraclete Poetry , #1
Pages:	114
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.27(d)

About the Author

Kathleen O’Toole has braided writing and teaching poetry into a professional life, in community organizing and faith-based social change. After receiving her MA from Johns Hopkins University, she taught writing at JHU and the Maryland Institute College of Art. Her poems have been widely published, and have received special recognition from Hunger Mountain, New York Encounter/IMAGE Poetry Contest (2017), Northern Virginia Review, Smartish Pace, and Cape Cod Outermost Poetry Contest (2019). She is a Benedictine oblate of Emmanuel Monastery, and the current Poet Laureate of Takoma Park, Maryland.

Table of Contents

Introduction vii

Mindful ix

I Their Voices

Medium 3

Reliquary 5

Half Italian 7

Terrestrial 8

Trousseau 10

From Birdsong 12

Their Voices 14

Teresa, Crossing Over 15

Sustenance 16

Pruning the Rhododendron 20

Conversation, Interrupted 21

The Work 23

Requiem at Compline 25

Waking Heaney in Edgartown, MA 26

II Lumen de Lumine

Twilight, Ardgroom 31

This Far 32

Lumen de Lumine 35

The Gleaners 38

At the Mariner's Chapel, Auvillar 39

Illumination 40

Museum of Divine Statues 44

Roots, Exposed 45

Fault Lines 47

Irruption 49

Heist 51

Christ Crucified at Our Savior Church in LA 54

Riff: what it takes 56

Walking the Elements, Beara Peninsula 58

III What Kind of Silence

At the First Canonical Hour 63

On the Feast of St. Francis, Transitus 64

Parable 65

Bop: The Truth and Nothing But- 66

Halim, Waiting 67

Lauds, Aberdeen Creek 68

Starlings 69

Witness 70

Rebecca 72

Sarah, Siren 73

Terce: February 74

Corinthian Baptist: First Sunday 75

Among the Martyrs 76

Beyond Doubt 78

Plenty 79

Angels of Korogocho 81

Nones: Manna in the Desert 82

Gîte 84

Revisiting the Parable of the Sower on Martha's Vineyard 86

Vigil, Day Three 87

Mi-Carême 88

Vespers, Hunting Creek 90

Notes To The Poems 93

Acknowledgments 95

Editorial Reviews

Anchored by the grace she discovers in nature, in fine painting, in her God, and even in the ‘sound of cows munching,’ O’Toole’s exquisite poems explore the universe of beauty and of loss.” —Jill Pelaez-Baumgaertner, poetry editor, The Christian Century; author of What Cannot be Fixed
 
“O’Toole’s visionary poems explore the boundaries between light and dark, past and present, life and death.” —Michael Simms, poet and publisher, Vox Populi and Autumn House Press
 
“Distinctive images from nature and the ancestral past shape Kathleen O’Toole’s unique voice, sustaining a compelling image of the poem as a reliquary that holds the treasures we cherish at turning points in life.”  —Kathleen Staudt, author of Waving Back: Poems of Mothering Life  
 
“O’Toole proves that she is not only a master of poetic form, but a seasoned pilgrim whom we can trust. Here is that rare thing: a voice acutely attuned to the world of pain through which we pass daily. What an incredible observer and naturalist she is, deeply contemplative and mindful and at the same time deeply elegiac.” —Paul Mariani, poet, biographer and memoirist; author The Mystery of It All: The Vocation of Poetry in the Twilight of Modernism
 

From the Publisher