How do people find understanding and spiritual sustenance during times of calamity and doubt? David Woo answers that question in Divine Fire with poems that transition from private life to a broader world of upheaval and renewal.
This collection of poetry begins in the most personal space—a bedroom—where the chaos of adulthood revitalizes the perplexities of childhood. Readers will appreciate how the perspective expands from the intimacies of love to larger issues of race and class inequality.
The book’s final part focuses on the search for meaning, both revered and profane. Readers see the poet trying on different personas and sensibilities before reaching a compromise with the frightful and the magnificent. The divine fire of lovers fading in memory becomes the divine fire of a larger spiritual reckoning. In his new book of poems, Woo offers an astounding vision of the world right now through his assessment of timeless themes: love, isolation, art, the body and death.
