Messiah

MESSIAH, a post-modern bop through our culture set in diverse elements of the American landscape—  from a Manhattan subway station, to mills of rural Louisiana, to the mean streets of Detroit, to the wilds of the American Northwest, to Yankee Stadium, to the hills of Bellaire —  writes back to the Bible passages with which Handel composed his Messiah Oratorio without challenging their theological meaning but setting them, as most sacred art does, in the contemporary. Anne Babson’s poetry isn’t “churchy,” but it is replete with passionate exhortation, delighting in Americans in their imperfections and calling for a subversive conspiracy of love and a new era of compassion. The book is set to a soundtrack of American music, where the rapture trumpet is blown by Louis Armstrong, where the angels sing in doo-wop chorus, and where Handel’s “Chorus: Hallelujah” turns into a Southern Rock anthem. The work is about us and our needs, our playlist, our delights, and the possibility of radical forgiveness and a return to hope.