Darkness and the Light

About this book

An exquisite book in which a series of poems about biblical characters -- "Samson", "Saul and David", "Judith", and so on -- provides the backdrop for other reflections on both the beauty and the darkness in contemporary life. We see ourselves in fresh light as Hecht illuminates the simililarites between our own age and the biblical world, and finds postmodern sadness in stories like that of Miriam, who announces in her poem, "I had a nice voice once, and a large following./I was, you might say, a star". The centerpiece of the volume is the stunning "Sacrifice", a three-part poem that connects the story of Abraham and Isaac to an arresting Second World War scene unfolding in provincial occupied France in 1945. Throughout, there is a poignant sense of life lived and catalogued by a mature sensibility. As Hecht writes with clear-eyed grace in "Sarabande on Attaining the Age of Seventy-Seven",