Dying of the Light: A Poetry Collection

By Kit Willett

"The fierce wind strips the tree--and leaves become dust.
A family set apart from the amber hue of stormtime encroaching,
and a mule that smells danger. People hauling sodden nets
on one knee, like digging a grave or saying evening prayers."
--From "A Mountain Landscape"

Dying of the Light contains fifty new poems retelling Milton's Paradise Lost from a perspective sympathetic to Lucifer. The poems in Willett's debut collection balance the visceral with the visual, the domestic with the divine, and the static with the transformative. This collection follows Lucifer escaping heaven, living with trauma, and finally journeying to Eden to free humanity. It is a story about family violence and institutional power; it is a work that wrestles with religion from the inside.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Release date: Oct 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9781666757248

Kit Willett

Kit Willett is a New Zealand poet, English teacher, and editor of Tarot Poetry Journal.

Book preview

Dying of the Light

A Poetry Collection

Kit Willett

Dying of the Light

A Poetry Collection

Copyright ©

2022

Kit Willett. 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

.

Resource Publications

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

199

W.

8

th Ave., Suite

3

Eugene, OR

97401

www.wipfandstock.com

paperback isbn: 978-1-6667-5722-4

hardcover isbn: 978-1-6667-5723-1

ebook isbn: 978-1-6667-5724-8

09/22/22

Table of Contents

Title page

Preface

Acknowledgements

Prologue

At the Beginning of a Journey

Act One

Like Any Other Day

Why I Listen to Folk-Punk

Broken

Liberation I: Wrath

Liberation II: For a Moment

Trapped, Observed

Liberation III: Lest We Celebrate15

Act Two

A Rare Scene

Ribbons and Naked Fabric

Disclosure

A Younger Sibling Appears

Wild Shelter

Canticle I: The Oasis

Creation Hymn

Dinner Plans

Hospitality

Act Three

Finding Process

Aroha Mai, Aroha Atu

Bugle

The Birth of Institutions

A Bowl of Fruit

Bricks Fall

The Great Plot

Baptized First in Blood

Tough Love

Alone Time

Streetlight

The Fall, Part One: Suspension

The Fall, Part Two: Firmly Held

The Fall, Part Three: Filthy Hands and Muddy Feet

The Fall, Part Four: Resentment

The Fall, Part Five: Taste the Fruit

Act Four

Optimism

Canticle II: A Grove

Like That Other Day

Death

On a Bench, Observing a Bridge

A Mountain Landscape

Institutions

Reflection

Act Five

Future I: Cain and Abel

Future II: Noah’s Lullaby

Future III: Overheard at a Seminary

Surrender

End

Wood and Water

Unlike Any Other Day

Felix Culpa

Epilogue

Onward: A Benediction

This collection is dedicated to Hilary and all those who challenge systems of power. In the face of adversity and hopelessness, may your courage and integrity lead you; when met with patronization, may your story and community bring you strength; when your voice is among those who do not value it, may you sing, clear and strong.

Thou wilt not leave me in the loathsom grave

His prey, nor suffer my unspotted Soule

For ever with corruption there to dwell;

But I shall rise Victorious, and subdue

My Vanquisher, spoild of his vanted spoile;

Death his deaths wound shall then receive, and stoop

Inglorious, of his mortal sting disarm’d.

—Paradise Lost (

3

.

247–53

)

Preface

My primary motivation behind writing this collection was two-fold: Dying of the Light should reframe Milton’s Paradise Lost in a way that is sympathetic to Lucifer, and it should be proof of the generative nature of contemplative practices when applied to text. This project is the result of my Master of Creative Writing research, which I undertook in 2020; the poetry collection is the creative thesis, and this preface is a reduction of the collection’s accompanying exegesis.

Reframing Paradise Lost

Its title comes from Dylan Thomas’ ‘Do not go gentle into that good