The Crystal Hand reveals a world of reverie and darkness, mystery and joy. Grounded both in the rugged landscape of the Pacific Northwest and in the rich geography of a land not found on any earthly maps, the poems of this collection wed an unforgettable depth of feeling with a mastery of poetic craft. Through Pastor's keen eye for wild nature and instinct for illuminating the unseen, we journey through a flourishing of "vast images," that range from the daunting to the jubilant, from the comforting to the ecstatically strange. All this is in service of a desperate, honest search for the ways in which we are held by a Presence whose love and attention are unfailing, even when hidden.
Featuring riveting original illustrations from acclaimed artist Michael Cook, this glittering new collection further establishes Pastor's unique and invigorating contribution to contemporary American writing. It will entrance both new and seasoned readers of poetry.
PRAISE
Many of Paul J. Pastor's poems have something of the riddle about them, offer something of the riddle's delights. Suffused with the light of faith in the good and the durable, they revel in paradox, bristle with dark sayings. Impeccably crafted, even sleek, they surprise us with their weight. Like the "Filet Knife" whose metal Pastor describes as "so flexible and keen," his wise verses owe their "sharpness to a stone"-the stone of hard thought and experience.
-Boris Dralyuk
Paul J. Pastor's poems wrap around my imagination as neighborly, truth-bearing quilts. They are underground maps of measured words to nurture the breath of our dreams.
-Makoto Fujimura
Here is a fresh collection of delicately wrought, reflective poems, each poem many-faceted like a little crystal. Lift one to your mind's eye and your vision will be clarified; you will see some of the mysteries your prose-mind has missed. Put every love and every loss into the crystal hand of these poems and you will receive them back transformed.
-Malcolm Guite
Paul Pastor's The Crystal Hand brings him into the forefront of American poets writing in the tradition of Herbert and Hopkins. Nonetheless, this book is quintessentially American, even Emersonian as experiences with nature spur intense religious meditation. Pastor's wit and whimsy also help to keep his readers coming back for more.
-A.M. Juster
The poems in Paul Pastor's new collection are dexterous in execution and crystalline in form. "How can I move?" asks one poem, even as the poet answers through graceful, ever-deepening rhymes. Pastor may claim his soul "has forsaken being loud," but the music here demands a hearing. Pastor is always devoted to the art of the line; his poetic and religious seeking harmonize, working and becoming one. Grounded in the poet's life but striving for something beyond it, The Crystal Hand delivers poetry "of earth, yet not of earth."
-Amit Majmudar
Once again, Paul Pastor has created a volume of poetry that hums, sings, sees, and illuminates the everyday world, making the ordinary extraordinary. Each of these poems, in its own way, demonstrates the miraculous power unleashed by words that are as perceptively chosen and as powerfully arranged as are the words on these pages.
-Karen Swallow Prior
The best of these poems, such as "Terrarium," merge hard-won spiritual wisdom with a fresh and earthy music both timeless and all Pastor's own.
-Ryan Wilson