The Words of My Mouth and The Meditations of My Heart

I've been an admiring reader of Louis Daniel Brodsky for many years, and yet I was quite unprepared for the power and beauty of his latest sequence, which arises from his own experience of illness. Only in times of suffering does spiritual progress seem likely, even possible. Brodsky takes us on a harrowing journey but, in the end, he can sing with D. H. Lawrence: "Look, we have come through!" This is strong writing by a poet of considerable range, talent, and freshness.

— Jay Parini, author of Jesus: The Human Face of God; The Art of Subtraction: New and Selected Poems; Promised Land: Thirteen Books That Changed America; and The Last Station: A Novel of Tolstoy's Final Year

In these moving and insightful poems modeled after the Book of the Psalms, Louis Daniel Brodsky, gravely ill, looks Death squarely in the face and answers with a series of unyielding affirmations — a faith in God, faith in human relationships, faith in life's precious passing moments, and, undergirding and supporting all of these, faith in the power and beauty of the poetic voice.

— Robert Hamblin, author of From the Ground Up: Poems of One Southerner's Passage to Adulthood; Keeping Score: Sports Poems for Every Season; and Crossroads: Poems of a Mississippi Childhood

Louis Daniel Brodsky’s The Words of My Mouth and the Meditations of My Heart brings us a rich autumn harvest of the poet’s lifelong project, to sing his body and mind electric. In this suite of poems, often his own "Odes to Joy," he seizes and sings his present days, in a chorus of voices ranging from incredulous celebration of the ordinary to clear-eyed wonder at his own complexly-pitched battle. No more alone, he revels in his family, offers playful homage to Dr. Seuss, and logs two more voyages to his beloved Lake Nebagamon.

And sometimes, he makes perfect prayers of supplication and thanks for the divine order he has seen in the world and the word.

— James B. Carothers, Conger Gabel Teaching Professor of English, University of Kansas, author of William Faulkner's Short Stories; and co-author, with Theresa M. Towner, of Reading Faulkner: Collected Stories

This newest book of poetry by Louis Daniel Brodsky, The Words of My Mouth and the Meditations of My Heart, was written in the aftermath of the discovery of his brain cancer and a complicated operation and chemotherapy. During his long period of convalescence and treatment, the poet transforms his pain and struggle into a sequence of poetic meditations and prayers that can inspire and enrich the reader. Although these poems are, at times, reminiscent of Whitman's Song of Myself, Pascal's Pensées, and the Book of Psalms, Brodsky nonetheless has succeeded in creating his own unique insights and his own unique voice. Brodsky asks, "Could it be that I've finally discovered the core, the reservoir, / The source where all joy, contentment, serenity, and glory are born, / Which our minds breathe when we sense the reason for being / Our destinies have assigned our lives, spirits, and souls?" Having walked through the valley of the shadow of death, Brodsky writes that "these meditative manifestations are finding their home, / Page by page, day by day, in my peaceful soul." Reading this book, we discover that the poems, these "meditative manifestations," may be finding a home in our own souls as well.

— Yakov Azriel, author of Threads from a Coat of Many Colors; and Swimming in Moses' Well

Just a word about just one miracle-working word in Louis Daniel Brodsky's moving new book of poems, a book about suffering and fear and, most of all, the unembarrassed love a man can feel for everything he encounters, even from the depths that threaten to swallow him. (Water or liquid imagery washes over, and through, the entire volume.) The word I choose (it's a favorite with this poet) is "glistening." I stop to savor just one moment of its magic, in "Meditation #53: Green Tea." You see, what happens there (it happens throughout this book) is that the struggle to find healing gives way to, relaxes into, the inflow of the world. The poet seeks the elixir that might restore him. Instead his meditation produces a concentrate of poet-world that dissolves self-concern. Brodsky pursues this High Romantic design with the collected force of his life experience, a story that breathlessly outruns story. It's the story and, finally, the achievement of a good man who struggles continuously to be even better, more aware of others (including loons and leaves), more loving. When we get to the word "glistening" at the end of this poem, we hear the word voiced, flowingly from its gl, by the green tea and the green scene as much as by the poet who sips it, accepts it, past his silent lips.

— Sanford Budick, Professor of English Emeritus, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and author of The Dividing Muse: Images of Sacred Disjunction in Milton's Poetry; and Kant and Milton

I was unable to put this amazing and inspiring book down. It kept me up late, reading into the night, convinced me to put aside little tasks and relish Brodsky's words as if he were speaking directly to me. It has been, in every way, a gift, and I am so grateful for having had the chance to look so deeply into the author’s soul. He is heartbreakingly honest, perfectly expressive, and his words are worthy of being the prayers they so clearly are.

During the preceding weeks,
From beyond the limitless reaches of Eternity,
Poems have been winging into my convalescing brain’s galaxy,
Bringing singing grace that’s phrased like Psalmic meditations.

Each of these free-flowing poetic expressions has been a dazzling meteor,
A precious celestial blessing brightening my lifetime’s sky.

From what source on High have these shooting stars been sent? Why?

To best answer these questions,
I’ve been collecting these meteors’ incandescence,
When they land on the surface of my mind,
Hoping that their glow will illuminate how Creation commenced,
Disclose the very beginning of being,
When it coalesced into breathing beings.

During evenings, for a few weeks of sunsets and moonrises,
I’ve been gathering these winged, singing luminaries,
Believing that, once collected, they’ll speak the sacred secrets
Gleaned from the origin of life,
Explain the purpose for human beings being on Earth.

As these godly bodies have flown through my psyche’s skies
And arrived in my consciousness,
I’ve begun to sense a serenity, a satisfying happiness, soul- and mind-peace,
A feeling of merciful annealing, entering my spirit, my heart,
Guiding my soul to the limitless reaches of healing Eternity —
Elohim’s holy home.

These days, I’m biding my time,
Reading this book’s accumulating illuminating pages,
Which speak the Universal Poet’s intentions.
I believe in what He’s saying and have faith in His sanctified Word’s words.

Now, I must rush from the house,
To gather the glowing dust from another shooting star,
Which has just sent another winged revelation
For me to add to the growing collection
Of my mouth’s words and heart’s meditations.