Some Divine Commotion

Dana Gioia has described David Denny as “a poet who finds the miraculous in everyday experience.” To be sure, there are poems in this new collection that reveal the numinous with startling precision. But Some Divine Commotion also expands Denny’s poetic territory into internal and external realms not commonly explored in contemporary verse. Each of the book’s sections examines large themes—love and loss, imagination and spirituality, art and nature—in unexpected ways, ranging in style from lyrical rumination to extended narrative to pithy dialogue. By turns witty, sad, playful, and wise, these poems carry their wisdom lightly, never failing to entertain. Reading this book, we hear the voice of a versatile American poet singing his redemption songs.