Fools & Crows

Terry Witek’s Fools and Crows takes the ancient discipline of ekphrasis—a poet’s description of a work of art—to a new level of intensity. In her explorations of Renaissance paintings, of Roman Catholic holy cards, of the Vision of Our Lady of Fatima, the poet locates the matter and spirit of the human condition, our desires to connect, to worship, to elude death. These lyric unveilings and expositions recall the beautiful exactitudes of Marianne Moore’s poetry. They are the elucidations of a luminous intelligence, shadowed by grief and joy.

—Mark Jarman