From one of the most lauded poets of her generation comes a major new work. Winner of the International Griffin Prize, the Rome Prize, the LA Times Book Prize, Guggenheim and NEA fellowships, among many other awards, Gjertrud Schnackenberg has always put her technical mastery at the service of a sublime vision. In St. Matthew Passion, the poet recounts a speaker's experience of listening to Bach's masterwork and discovering in it a portal to another world, shimmering with mystery. The poet takes the reader with her, crossing over into the music: I need a heart of bronze for hearing this, / And not the lost wax melting off / Beneath a molten pour of sound / When, out of love, / A solo flute appears. The result is a thrilling chef d'oeuvre deserving of a place alongside Eliot's Ash Wednesday.
