One Another

MICHAEL COADY'S "One Another is a welcome and worthy successor to his much-loved "All Souls. Poetry, prose, and illustration are integrated in a cumulative work of gravity and compassion. The title poem is prelude to a set of variations on motifs of community, mortality and memory, emerging from an intimately known anchorage of place. The writer's voice is joined by a chorale of "overheard" communal tones, in oral mode and various moods. The book's inclusive reach finds room for play, as in 'Textament, ' or its guest versions of 'The Gift of Tongues.' A personal crisis deepens perspective and heralds renewal in 'The Place of Hurt and Healing.' The human interplay of unsung lives and destinies suffuses "One Another "in the carnal war / with time that's always lost / but never conceded."