Where Divinity Begins
Deborah DeNicola
"Where Divinity Begins is clearly
poetry written out of necessity. There is nothing trivial here, nothing settled
easily. Deborah DeNicola has an uncanny instinct to locate her poems at the heart
of our human commerce so that questions asked are always the big questions, and the truths
revealed are always the truths that can only be discovered through brave acts of the
imagination. Her poems wear these gestures in the form of good, clear writing, and
sensuous detail."
—Bruce Weigl
"Where Divinity Begins is stunning—sexy, jazzy, somber, and steeply Gregorian by turns. The poems view the world
through an eye that magnifies and transforms like a prism. The voice blooms deep
within a woman's psyche, and speaks of the human soul, its myths, arts, passions and
ordinary objects. But most of all the poems sing, and music here becomes thought,
prayer, and the food that sustains us, carries us on our journeys."
—Betsy
Sholl
"This first book struggles with issues of isolation, lost love
and friendships, desire, hope—in terms that include classical and biblical allusions,
painting, history—what we might expect, yes—but also counterpointed against tanning
salons, beached whales and a variety of everyday events, for this is a poetry where the
everyday is informed by those larger issues, and the larger issues given substance by the
everyday. Where Divinity Begins explores the inner life
and finds a place where courage, vision and music—the poet's voice—become essential
and lifesaving."
—Richard Jackson
about the author
Deborah DeNicola's work has
appeared in The Antioch Review, The North American Review, Apalachee Quaterly,
Cimarron Review, Fiction International, The Journal, and The
Louisville Review among other journals. She teaches Creative Writing
at the Massachusetts College of Art and lives in Brookline, Massachusetts. Her new chapbook, Inside Light, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press and will be available in September.
