Strange Angels - Softcover

"Root's poetry looks at the world through the poet's compassionate and ever-inquisitive mind. Root goes underground, down in the dirt, to do real work of poetry, of literature and the arts.... His prolific and visionary work is even better luck for all of us interested in hearing his continued conversations with the peoples and places of the American West." --James Jay, Arizona Daily Sun/Flagstaff Live

In this first major collection in nearly a decade from a revered American poet, William Pitt Root concerns himself with those extremes-spiritual, physical, or both-at which social and cultural forms disintegrate, leaving the individual as an unshielded witness to transitioning miracles that induce a state of awe that cannot be diminished, diverted, or ignored. In poem after poem, Root compels the reader to discover that these key moments require the heart to open and the mind to still in order to fully accept whatever results, whether it is to suffer inconsolably or to discover new facets of wisdom. With an imagery that is by turns beautiful, tender, provocative, and terrifying, this collection signals the triumphant return of a poet of national renown.