Margaret La Due

Lightings: Moments of Poetry and Grace Margaret La Due

Lightings: moments of poetry and grace is a remarkable work with wide-reaching appeal. In her poetry Margaret La Due seamlessly combines simplicity of language and style with profound insights into ordinary events and encounters. A child's song "anoints with goodness a weary world;" a yellow Cadillac "stills momentarily" the realization of death. Short verbal Snapshots of some of the author's former students seek to arouse similarly startling images in the minds of readers. "Like a de Kooning print Marty marches across my soul splashing coal-black lines. But when he smiles, hope dominates the perspective, despite himself." In The Reader's Turn La Due invites each of us to reminisce, and then to jot down our own personal moments of poetry and grace. She suggests, "In your memory walk down some of the streets you have traveled. See the trees and the graffiti, the flower beds and the pot holes, the people passing." Thus her book becomes, in effect, each reader's own chronicle of unexpected light. In short - an impressive collection of striking poetry, evocative images and down-home philosophy.