Inheritance of Light: Contemporary Poetry

Inheritance of Light is divided into five sections, each containing poems set in a flowing sequence based on similar themes and concerns.

Part One is introductory, surreal poems about the art of poetry and the creative process—an intense opening. Part Two contains autobiographical poems about the family, growing up, and ancestors. Part Three is the political section with a number of poems about war, politics, and global matters. Part Four may have the most personal, confessional, yet universal poems about the poets’ reactions to the world around them. Part Five contains poems about journeys, reaffirmation, renewal, life and death, which brings the whole book to an emotional closing.

Ray Gonzalez is poetry editor of The Bloomsbury Review and a member of Texas Institute of Letters. He has written two books of poetry, a book of essays, and has edited ten anthologies of contemporary literature.