Common Prayer

Inspired by the violent landscape of 20th-century central Europe, this collection of formal sonnets, homages, narrative fiction, and lyrical reflections focuses predominantly on the relationship of human illness and bereavement to depleted ecology. Employing linguistic risk, transgressive range, and intellectual demand as well as visceral emotional content, these poems elicit both liturgical and sensual truths.

Fiona Sampson is the editor of Poetry Review, the founder-editor of Orient Express, and the author of The Distance Between Us and Writing: Self and Reflexivity.