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Title
Pity the Beautiful
Dana Gioia
Review
In accessible and carefully chosen language, Dana Gioia takes what is broken and lost in human experience, along with what is whole and abiding, and gathers it all into several series of beautiful poems which together make up his latest collection, Pity the Beautiful. The final lines of “Prayer at Winter Solstice” exemplify this quality:
Blessed are the saint and the sinner who redeem each other.
Blessed are the dead, calm in their perfection.
Blessed is the pain that humbles us.
Blessed is the distance that bars our joy.
Blessed is this shortest day that makes us long for light.
Blessed is the love that in losing we discover. ~ Travis Biddick
Review Date
Reviewed March 2014
