Dec. 2 - Scott Cairns - Anaphora [Advent Calendar]

The Englewood Review of Books
Best Books of 2019
Advent Calendar
December 2

Anaphora:
New Poems

Scott Cairns

Paperback: Paraclete Press, 2019
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In Anaphora, his latest collection of new poems, Cairns seems more aware of the apparent limits of words and more attuned to the wonder of the unseen and unspoken. As he explains in the preface, anaphora is “the deliberate repetition of a word or phrase,” a familiar poetic and liturgical device. It is also the name of a prayer in the eucharistic liturgy of the Eastern Church and a term for “the specific liturgical moment when the elements—the bread and wine are consecrated.” Cairns is offering up his own words in these poems, lingering with them even in their inadequacy, trusting that “at least intermittently, [they] may acquire due substance of their own, partaking of more than is apparent, the more that is nonetheless so, and is present.”