Block Island

A Voice and a Poet for All TimesIt is impossible not to be gripped by the spectacular details of Daniel Berrigan's life. He was Paul Simon's 'radical priest' smiling in handcuffs. The Jesuit activist excommunicated by his peers and imprisoned by the state. The unapologetic advocate for society's disempowered. The defiant vandal of objects that fed bodies and materiel to the war machine. And the earnest, yet somehow serene, face emanating from televisions denouncing the inhumanity of that very machine's deeds. Yet Daniel was first an accomplished poet, inspired in his faith by dreams of peace. It was from this profound contemplation of the world from an early age that his courageous acts of civil disobedience and humanitarianism were born. In this collection of interconnected poems, Daniel Berrigan writes about his intimate bond with his small cottage built especially for him on Block Island. We see his complete integration into the island itself in his reverence for the everyday life and ever-changing weather winding around him. Yet soon we also discover themes of God and the soul, the land and the sea, friendship and loss, time and impermanence, and the tension between society's potential and its spiritual impoverishment. Embraced by personal and scholarly writings from friends who remain students of Daniel's ideas and lifeworks, as well as images and letters that enrich our perceptions of Daniel, this ever-timely collection is an essential object for poets, activists, the faithful, and all forms of countercultural rebel alike.