Saint Agnes Outside the Walls

SAINT AGNES OUTSIDE THE WALLS returns us to Moore's familiar concerns with a humanity bonded by sacrifice and insight. Although named for the small, 4th-century chapel "outside the walls" of Rome, the poems move from historical moments in a shared European/American identity to present-day encounters with remarkable people and events. On these landscape, cultures mingle and truths are blurred by the power of desire. The poetry captures these movements by sudden turns of phrase, or even slippage, as metaphors map the route of the traveler, enquirer, and interlocutor. From ancient Rome to China, from Iceland to Portugal, in the thoughts of "martyrs" and "illuminati," the poems question Catholicism, Buddhism, and other faces of belief, as we are asked to test these truths against the ironic events of the human world.