SOURCE: "From Irony to Lyricism: Galway Kinnell's True Voice," in Critical Essays on Galway Kinnell, New York: G.K. Hall & Co., 1996, pp. 218-25.

In the following essay, Taylor traces Kinnell's "poetic evolution, " from a Christian theology to a sacramentalism that elevates "numinous moments,".

To read the poetry of Galway Kinnell is to witness a poetic evolution. The Kinnell canon includes nine volumes of poetry and offers a paradigm for the present-day romantic struggling to free himself from his Christian inheritance yet to affirm that the world contains order, meaning, and the sacred. Kinnell's poetry begins with an attempt to reconcile Christian theology, particularly the resurrection, with human mortality and suffering. As this effort proves futile, he surrenders explicitly Christian references in favor of a natural theology that views the world as sacramental and emphasizes immanence over transcendence. Natural theology does not define the Absolute as a Being. Instead...