Awakening and Visitation

This remarkable collection is the clearest manifestation yet of the spiritual posture that has influenced Wally Swist's work for decades. Both visionary and mystical, the book centers around a sonnet sequence regarding a shared awakening with his partner and their consequent experience with angelic visitation. There are also individual poems, such as "Angels" and "Inner Prayer," that offer examples of the meditative quality of the work and from which his political poems provide a taut counterpoint, providing a tensile strength and balance to the book as a whole. Swist's adaptation of Li Chu's Wen Fu, or The Art of Writing, which is permanently archived on the Buddhist Poetry Review's website, and the co-translation of "The Postcards of Aneyakoji Street" are projects that took some years to complete and are laudable additions to the recent work included in this collection. Overall, this is a book of lyrical poetry that reveals a maturation of discipline and vision through the matrix of active spirituality and aesthetic practice.