In a 1992 interview with Thomas Gardner, Jorie Graham told him, "I feel like I'm writing as part of a group of poets--historically--who are potentially at the end of the medium itself as a vital part of their culture--unless they do something to help it reconnect itself to mystery and power." Of those poets who are at the forefront of this effort to revitalize and redefine American poetry, Graham and her own writing must be counted among the most mysterious and powerful. She is a composer of deeply searching and skillfully wrought poems that emerge from her firsthand, academic experience of art, literature, history, and religious thought. They are grounded in her concerns with philosophy, society, and the metaphysical aspects of being.

While Graham's work is expressly written for others to read and consider, her verse reminds one of Robert Bly's comment that "The poem is a dance written...