The Elegy Beta: And Other Poems

"Mischa Willett has an absolutely distinctive voice, angular, refractory, often unsettling in flashes of psychological and spiritual insight that go deep, by-passing categories. The Elegy Beta begins in sharp, arresting jolts to consciousness and conscience, then moves in the grand title poem to a symphony of symbolic resonance that invites deep pondering and re-reading. A remarkable volume." - David Lyle Jeffrey, author of Scripture and the English Poetic Imagination

"Here is a striking and original collection which responds to both our biblical and poetic heritage with a fresh contemporary voice." - Malcolm Guite, author of Parable and Practice

"Find a quiet spot where your tongue can delight your ears and read these poems aloud. For some you'll want to kneel. For others, slap your thigh and guffaw. In some an epiphany will dawn like a sun surprising you at midnight. Dwell in the lilt of Willett's play. He's dead serious and death-defying." - James K.A. Smith, editor-in-chief of Image and author of You Are What You Love and On the Road with Saint Augustine

"In a world awash in a flood of cheap chatter, and numb from the noise of weaponized words, good poetry is a healing, sensitizing balm. Willett's The Elegy Beta displays the capacity of poetic language to remind us of the world--its everyday glory and profound peculiarity--that gets lost in the noise. These poems neither weaponize nor worship words; they rather let words do their work, like the sun does its: warming, illuminating, drawing forth life." - Brett McCracken, senior editor, The Gospel Coalition, author of Uncomfortable: The Awkward and Essential Challenge of Christian Community