Elizabeth Spencer Spragins

The Language of Bones Elizabeth Spencer Spragins

"Elizabeth Spencer Spragins truly is in touch with ancient bards and the glorious music of the incantations of druidic sisters in her collection The Language of Bones. Roaming the geography and history of America, these verses hark back to the British and Celtic ancestry of the original European settlers. "Children run unshod, / Armed with goldenrod," reenacting the past as they unknowingly step on its buried remnants. As the poet writes, the reader will indeed "linger late" and read with "awe and meditate" on history written in the earth and echoed in these lyrical poems inspired by those ancient bards."

David Anthony Sam, the award-winning author of Finite to Fail: Poems after Dickinson, as well as Final Inventory and three other collections

"The intricate syllabic forms, cross-rhyming, internal echoes, and circular returns of Celtic verse forms are not within the competence of every poet, even those skilled in set forms, but Elizabeth Spragins shows us that they can be wielded with power and grace. . . . She has invested her attention in age-old lyrics that promise to take on new life in an age that aches for inspiration."

James F. Gaines, Professor Emeritus of French at the University of Mary Washington and co-author of the science fiction series the Forlani Saga (as J. M. R. Gaines)

"The Language of Bones is a perceptive journey through the unadorned, mythic past, as well as the mystical spirit, of key segments of the American experience. The Southeast, Southwest and Far North are all fertile ground for Ms. Spragins' incisive commentary and poetic exploration of authentic events, the land, and its peoples. This bold collection offers a variety of lyrical pieces, both graceful and beautiful, as well as harder-edged fare meant to convey some of our natural world's challenges, and history's harsher character and consequences."

Steven P. Pody, author of The Panoptikon