Defining and celebrating "a life within a life," the poems in Bare Ruined Choirs lead the reader to the spiritual roots of our relationships, exalting the capacity of the human spirit to unify the diversity of our experience to the wisdom of an integrated life. "Tom Kepler's poetry is like a magic fountain discovered in a shaft of light deep in a forest of enchanting sounds. Whether you are a reader or a crafter of words, Tom Kepler's poetry will renew your appreciation for the beautiful." --Rustin Larson, author of Crazy Star and The Wine-Dark House "Tom Kepler's poems are imagistic, sensual, full of a wisdom that comes in 'a tangle of shadow and afternoon light.' He writes poems of a deep tenderness and a generous heart, 'glowing like an ember or an infant star.' His poems have a reverence for the natural world, 'orioles flitting among shagbark, ' . . . 'an owl sleeping among juniper berries.' The way the inner world meets the outer world in these poems is extraordinary." --Diane Frank, author of Blackberries in the Dream House