Words to God's Music: A New Book of Psalms

People for centuries have been drawn to the Bible's psalms — to their beauty and power, to their music and their poetry. In "Words to God's Music" poet Laurance Wieder gives these songs of the soul a new and richly imaginative interpretation.

Many poets over the years have translated some of the psalms, but Wieder's text — contemporary without being trendy — offers a complete version of them. The result of Wieder's sustained inspiration, careful craft, and deep immersion in numerous versions of the psalms, "Words to God's Music" is extraordinary. These poems speak with grace and eloquence to readers of literature and readers of Scripture alike.

Wieder follows the traditional Hebrew division of Psalms into five books, with each of his 150 poems corresponding to one of the biblical psalms. This correspondence varies from poem to poem, as Wieder explains: "Some of these poems live fairly close to their biblical originals; some stand as commentaries or variations on the text; some venture afield." So these are not translations or interpretations in the strictest sense. And yet they get at the heart of the psalms, with an awareness of how they speak to "both the eternal and the immediate, living moment," how they speak to every reader across time and circumstance.

This is a beautiful collection, with Wieder's words set to God's music in a way that will make listening to the songs of the psalms a familiar yet freshly profound experience.