Psalms Down-Under

Joy Cowley's Psalms Down-under, like their biblical models, are not the stuff of comfortable piety. They sing beatitudes for all life has to offer: pain and joy, doubt and faith, turbulence and peace, in the immediacy of 'down-under' speech.

Commonalities become blinding insights as Cowley sees the 'shimmering of the divine' in everything from detergent bubbles to mountain snows.

The subjects range from the paschal mysteries to the ordinary 'Bumps' in our lives.

These contemporary 'metaphysical' prayer-poems go straight to our heart and quicken the soul: "Listen God/I just had a nasty bump/and now I want to know the reason why."