Practical Gods

Winner of the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

A critically acclaimed literary treasure, Practical Gods is a captivating poetry collection that transcends conventional perspectives.

Many of the poems in this eighth collection by Carl Dennis involve an attempt to enter into dialogue with pagan and biblical perspectives, to throw light on ordinary experience through metaphor borrowed from religious myth and to translate religious myth into secular terms. While making no claims to put us in touch with some ultimate reality, these clear, precise, sensitive poems help us to pay homage to the everyday household gods that are easy to ignore, the gods that sustain life and make it rewarding.Carl Dennis is the author of nine books of poetry, including Practical Gods, winner of the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. A recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, in 2000 he was awarded the Ruth Lilly Prize from Poetry Magazine and the Modern Poetry Association for his contribution to American poetry. He teaches in the English Department at the State University of New York at Buffalo, and is a sometime member of the faculty of the MFA program in creative writing at Warren Wilson College.