To his long eminence as a poetry critic, Yale professor Bloom has more recently added the mantles of expert in comparative religion (Jesus and Yahweh, 2005) and all-around literary sage (Genius, 2003). This expansive anthology takes advantage of all three Bloomian reputations, gathering verse on Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, Native American spiritual, Transcendentalist and even agnostic themes, from 17th-century European colonists (one poet is Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island) to up-and-comers in contemporary verse. Pious readers will have no trouble finding high-quality poetry that confirms their beliefs from the monk Thomas Merton, the Anglican T.S. Eliot, the Jewish liturgical poet Esther Schor and the Louisiana-based Christian poet Martha Serpas. Yet from the 19th century to the present, from the decidedly heterodox Emily Dickinson forwards, the anthology often highlights the ways in which American spirituality has challenged all doctrines about who God is and what God does. Herman Melville speculates about the eternal feud between "ape and angel"; John Ashbery's "The Recital" tells us not to care "whether prayers were answered with concrete events," and the Libyan-born Khaled Mattawa questions Islamic custom. More than half of the book is taken up by 20th-century poets, who offer varied takes on what religion has come to mean in America. (Oct.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Moonlighting as a critic of religion, literary critic Bloom theorized that the U.S. has produced a unique blend of Gnostic mysteriousness, regenerative Orphic magic, and enthusiasm that he calls, in the title of his book tracing its development, The American Religion 0 (1992). This anthology complements that study in the bias of its contents and magnificently in Bloom's introduction, where he annunciates the American poetic gospel, as it were, of Emerson, Whitman, and Dickinson, with Hart Crane as their principal twentieth-century apostle. Regardless of what one thinks of Bloom's conception--and traditional adherents to any Western faith must deplore it--the poems of his nineteenth--century trinity attest to its viability, and since the three still exert the greatest influence on readers and other poets, so do a great many of the other selections. There are many poems of more orthodox character (colonial Calvinist poetry, hymns, and the occasional wrestling with a Christian or Jewish doctrine), of course, and coeditor Zuba's foreword nicely points up the selection's diversity. Most important, there are hundreds of fine poems here. --Ray Olson Copyright 2006 Booklist From: Syndetics Solutions, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.