Woodman’s fifth collection in the Scapes series, following Artscapes, offers an impassioned set of poems which strive toward mysteries of the spiritual realm with a joyful, nondenominational approach. At times, the poet writes from a neo-pagan perspective, as in “A Child Asks.” Woodman writes, “What is God? // I think, not darkly, // God is death,” but informing that line is the poet’s clear conviction that death is not so much an end as it is a transformation. In Soulscapes, the grave is a bed and also a womb where the expired are “beckoned by life-to-be” to bloom anew.

“Benjamin” and “Past Life” also explore life, death, and spirit, contemplating the conjuring of deceased souls and children who remember past existences, while other entries, like “Postcards Way Over the Edge,” in which the speaker receives a postcard from her father in heaven, and “Grasping for Faith, a Ballad” which touches on the trinity, grapple with a distinctly Christian faith. In Woodman’s collection, all of these incarnations of the spiritual are valid channels through which people can access the divine, while poetry itself is a spiritual rite that uses language as a conduit for godliness.

Soulscapes is an entry point; not every poem will resonate with the convictions of all readers, but those seeking an open-hearted, spiritual collection with a welcoming attitude will find comfort in Woodman’s verses. “Fifty Senses,” in particular, summarizes the collection’s devotion to plurality in its declaration that humanity’s senses far exceed five. “I believe sensations beyond my limbs,” Woodman writes, “I experience joy of silent // songs in my sleep—unheard shouts within nightmares. // I swim in space,” and each of these extra-sensory experiences is a connection, however small, to the energy of the universe. The key, this searching collection suggests, is to be open to them all.

Takeaway: Spiritually panoramic poems that celebrate myriad ways humanity seeks the divine.

Comparable Titles: Robinson Jeffers’s “The Treasure,” Brenda Hillman’s “Little Furnace”

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