Messages from the Nile: poems

From the sleepy college town of St. Peter, Minnesota, Philip S. Bryant once again shares with us a wide range of impressions, images, and rhythms. On one page he's appreciating delicate lines across new-fallen snow, and on the next he's reassessing the Battle of the Little Bighorn or offering up a prayer for the NRA. Time and again he succeeds in bringing the historical, political, and natural worlds together in surprising ways. He can transform rage into lyricism without undercutting the significance of the injustices involved, and he can instill evidently mundane experiences—the song of a goldfinch or the appearance of a spring ephemeral—with cosmic significance. Baseball, campfire smoke, intelligent design, a farm repair sign along the highway, there's no telling what theme will command his attention next, and that's half the fun.

What's the true meaning of a liberal arts education? In Bryant's view, it's "Just Soul," and soul abounds in these challenging and delightful lyrics.