Art & Soul

In exceptionally creative contemplations of art, nature, history, and the human heart, Barbara Lydecker Crane offers frequently surprising perspectives within traditional poetic forms. The eye and ear of a perceptive traveler inform poems set in Hungary, Italy, Morocco, Costa Rica, and elsewhere; an agile imagination allows Crane to assume the voices of a medieval scribe, an Iranian exile, and an Inuit sculptor, among many others. In dynamic encounters with art, the poet acknowledges both the methodical processes of creation - "hours of sanding down this changeling rock" - and the inexplicable astonishment art can elicit with its "absolute alchemy." At the intersection of art and soul, this collection finds heart.

-Jean L. Kreiling, Frost Farm Prize winner

Art & Soul by award-winning poet Barbara Lydecker Crane offers rhythm, rhyme, wit, and a willingness to look at our troubled world afresh. The book offers not only her own viewpoints and imaginings, but those from many other times and cultures, in poems crafted with clear vision and empathy.

-A.M. Juster, author, Wonder and Wrath

Forget plain old armchair travel. With Barbara Lydecker Crane as your guide, you get armchair travel plus armchair art-viewing, music-listening, nature-exploring, people-meeting, and dream-flying. And you'll want to take your time. Art & Soul teems with original turns of phrase that invite you to double back - even as expert shifts in poetic form keep you eager for whatever's next. The book is poignant. (See "Love Refrains" and "Shoes on the Danube Promenade.") It's playful. (See "My Letter to Sonnet Insurance.") Sometimes, as in a poem on the author's health ("The Invaders"), it manages to be both. On top of all this, Art & Soul is a dazzle of shape-shifting as Crane takes on personae ranging from real to invented, famous to obscure. When you reach the book's last page, don't be surprised if you want to start the whole adventure again.

-Melissa Balmain, Editor-in-Chief, Light