One Like Silence
Ebook
To a fragmented and conflicted world, One Like Silence offers a vision of radical connection, solidarity, union. It opens with the image of two long-estranged lovers joined, after the death of one, by an unbreakable thread that weaves together all forms in a timeless reality. The spaciousness of this metaphor is realized in the various sections of the book as it celebrates the ecstasy of existence ("Out of the Blackness Ecstatic"), grapples with the alienation engendered by trauma and suffering ("The River of Affirmation and Joy") and by fear and hate ("Moon in a Muddy Arroyo"), asserts the underlying unity of nature ("Enchanted Rock"), explores the most intimate of relationships as the archetype and ideal of union ("The Ordeal of Marriage"), and finally follows "the path of love beyond love" to claim the oneness manifesting all the diverse expressions in form ("Harmony of Star and Ditch"). Besides proposing a theory of consciousness in sync with perennial wisdom, this collection points the way to peace, wholeness, and the healing of this noisy, broken world.
“One Like Silence is a song of wisdom sung by a mature singer reflecting various sources of inspiration: experience, myth, sacred texts, and so many other living details that distinguish and distract us on our journeys. These poems satisfy the poet’s quest for wholeness; moreover, they are a gift to any seeker who, like Chris Ellery, finds deep purpose sung with lyrical beauty.”
—Ken Hada, author of Come before Winter
“The reading of this book leaves me stunned and falling in love all over again with the power of words. Chris Ellery’s poetry is nothing less than divine, with a wisdom Seamus Heaney himself would have wished he had written. It leaves us breathless, wanting to split ourselves open to become one with this beautiful earth.”
—Karla K. Morton, 2010 Texas State poet laureate
“In the poem ‘Provision’: ‘Consider the bowl of the body.’ This poem attempts to define ownership using objects from the mundane to the holy. The questions in this poem—‘the bounteous marrow of this poverty’—are answered by the rest of the book. There is, ultimately, much to be thankful for, after much ‘dangerous and determined love,’ (something incredibly human and exquisitely put), that yes, we need to consider, and own, the bowl of our temporal and spiritual body. Few books have this much wisdom.”
—Alan Birkelbach, 2005 Texas State poet laureate
- Title: One Like Silence
- Author: Chris Ellery
- Publisher: Resource Publications
- Print Publication Date: 2024
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9798385222490, 9798385222476, 9798385222483
- Resource ID: LLS:9798385222490
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-07-04T20:40:48Z
Chris Ellery is author of five previous poetry collections, including The Big Mosque of Mercy, Elder Tree, and Canticles of the Body. A member of the Texas Institute of Letters, he has received the X. J. Kennedy Award for Creative Nonfiction, the Dora and Alexander Raynes Prize for Poetry, the Betsy Colquitt Award, and the Texas Poetry Award.