"In Cynthia Atkins' Still-Life With God, the material world becomes a rubric for faith, all its threats and losses a constant test for what we believe in and what we can bear. With packed lyricism and astonishing leaps, Atkins studies how easily God manifests as a new object in our lives, and how quickly the mutable self, starts becoming an image that can be 'shared and liked.' Although the dangers of the world sear through everything, there's also a reverence for the "exquisite human machine of pathos and debris." Just as a door compels us to knock, these poems make you sit up, astonished, a little wild with awe." --Traci Brimhall, author of Come the Slumberless to the Land of Nod
"'Every day is triage, ' writes Cynthia Atkins, and indeed, Still-Life with God is full of damage and ache, but also a spirit willing to look for something holy where such things are difficult to find. Here, God is a wishing well, a medicine cabinet, a bullet, and an alibi. These are sharp, bold poems by a poet unafraid to search for the divine, and unafraid to tell you what that search might yield." --Matthew Olzmann, author of Contradictions in the Design
"Cynthia Atkins' Still-Life With God confronts our world with a large open heart. Spiritual, emotional, creative, and technological, Atkins' thoughtful narrative brings us into precise moments where "train whistles/record the distance of our loneliness and a boy is sailing/a paper airplane into the vast/ stratosphere of science and love." How could one not read poems with titles like, "The Internet Is The Loneliest Place On The Planet," "God Is A Treasure Hunt," and "Dear Art"--they draw us in and make us return. Atkins' insightful exploration of the past and present, the self and the self-portrait, help us all find our own place a little easier in the whole and the divine. A beautiful collection to hold." --Kelli Russell Agodon, author of Hourglass Museum and The Daily Poet