Voices of Light: Spiritual and Visionary Poems by Women Around the World from Ancient Sumeria to Now

This comprehensive and feminine collection of poems gives evidence to what women have always known in their souls--that even though male poets are most often quoted as the heaven-blessed wordsmiths, women have always sung exquisite songs of divine praise, passion, and yearning. Editor and Pulitzer-Prize nominee Aliki Barnstone is a poet in her own right, and because of this she brings a keen literary eye to her selections. Since the volume reads in chronological order, it begins with Enheduanna (ca. 2300 BCE), who calls to the "moon goddess" Innanna. "We sing, mourn, and cry before you/and walk toward you along a path/from the house of enormous sighs." Every poem offers pause for reflection and is bound to stir enormous sighs of appreciation. Moving through centuries and millennia, Barnstone has included famous poets (Hildegarde of Bingen, Denise Levertov, Linda Hogan, Anne Sexton, Louise Erdrich) with the more obscure but equally divine. --Gail Hudson