Slender Warble: Poems

By Susan Cowger

Within the bewildering paradox of suffering and beauty, we often miss the Invisible One. Never quite what you'd imagine, the nudge of his Presence can be mind-bending. More often, the Almighty gives no more than a slender warble. This collection is about finding the presence of God in spite of and because of the trappings that make us most human.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Release date: Mar 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9781725251694

Susan Cowger

Susan Cowger is a poet and artist whose lens to the world is image. Her poems have appeared most recently in In A Strange Land: Introducing Ten Kingdom Poets (Cascade, 2019), Ekphrastic Review, Windhover, Perspectives, Crux, McGuffin, and Presence. Publication also includes the chapbook Scarab Hiding. Susan is founder and past editor of the journal Rock & Sling. Connect with her on Facebook and at [e-mail].

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Slender Warble

Poems

Susan Cowger

Slender Warble

Poems

The Poiema Poetry Series

Copyright ©

2020

Susan Cowger. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers,

199

W.

8

th Ave., Suite

3

, Eugene, OR

97401

.

Cascade Books

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

199

W.

8

th Ave., Suite

3

Eugene, OR

97401

www.wipfandstock.com

paperback isbn: 978-1-7252-5167-0

hardcover isbn: 978-1-7252-5168-7

ebook isbn: 978-1-7252-5169-4

Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Names: Cowger, Susan, author.

Title: Slender warble : poems / Susan Cowger.

Description: Eugene, OR: Cascade Books,

2019

| The Poiema Poetry Series.

Identifiers:

isbn 978-1-7252-5167-0 (

paperback

). | isbn 978-1-7252-5168-7 (

hardcover

). | isbn 978-1-7252-5169-4 (

ebook

).

Subjects: LCSH: American poetry.

Classification:

PS3603.O8887 S65 2020 (

paperback

) | PS3603.O8887 (

ebook

)

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

04/08/20

The Poiema Poetry Series

Poems are windows into worlds; windows into beauty, goodness, and truth; windows into understandings that won’t twist themselves into tidy dogmatic statements; windows into experiences. We can do more than merely peer into such windows; with a little effort we can fling open the casements, and leap over the sills into the heart of these worlds. We are also led into familiar places of hurt, confusion, and disappointment, but we arrive in the poet’s company. Poetry is a partnership between poet and reader, seeking together to gain something of value—to get at something important.

Ephesians

2

:

10

says, We are God’s workmanship . . . poiema in Greek—the thing that has been made, the masterpiece, the poem. The Poiema Poetry Series presents the work of gifted poets who take Christian faith seriously, and demonstrate in whose image we have been made through their creativity and craftsmanship.

These poets are recent participants in the ancient tradition of David, Asaph, Isaiah, and John the Revelator. The thread can be followed through the centuries—through the diverse poetic visions of Dante, Bernard of Clairvaux, Donne, Herbert, Milton, Hopkins, Eliot, R. S. Thomas, and Denise Levertov—down to the poet whose work is in your hand. With the selection of this volume you are entering this enduring tradition, and as a reader contributing to it.

—D.S. Martin

Series Editor

Table of Contents

Title Page

In the Tunnel

Weather Report

January

She Memorized His Back

Promise Remembered

Standing Her Ground

Paradox Apples

Accidental Psalm

Change the Color of Sky

A Bucket Goes to the Well Empty

Two Buff Birds

My Father Disappears

The Great Missoula Flood

Notes from the First Job

The Clouds and the Glory

Between Two Hands

Weather Report

Gratitude’s Shadow

Go Ahead Do It

Things I Saw in Her House

David & Bathsheba

A Cry Too Soft to Hear

Things Without Words

A Drop of Dew Asks for Heaven

Cannot Know Until You Do

Having the Last Word

Rules of Engagement

River Styx

How Memory Works

Embalming Sorrow

Crumbs

Black Hills Dust

Doing What He Can from This Side

Port Orford: Requiem

Is This Where He Cries

I Watched You