The poems of Kim Bridgford"s EPIPHANIES are heart-breaking in their leap of faith, finding not just the divine in the human, but the human in the divine: "You"ll rise again. I know what you"ve been through./I suffered human life: and so do you." "In forty-two stunning sonnets Kim Bridgford covers the story of salvation from beginning to end. Bridgford appealingly complicates what would in less skilled hands be facile pictures of familiar Bible stories. She reveals the ambiguities, the slightly uncomfortable angle; she pushes beyond the surface, attempting to get under the skin of biblical figures we thought we already knew. Particularly memorable are the extended conversation of sonnets between Cain and Abel; Job"s friends smiling secretly "because that"s what people do"; Joseph"s love of Mary and his desire for her to tell the story of her unborn child over and over again; Lazarus pondering whether he was or was not before Christ called him back; and Jesus"s final words: "I suffered human life: and so do you." Bridgford has done what Christian poets must do but do so rarely: revitalize the language and reinvigorate the Story."-- Jill Pelaez Baumgaertner "Kim Bridgford"s poetry is so clear-eyed it hurts--especially in these new poems, which demonstrate variety, prowess, and a subtle reshifting of old stories into fresh and unabashedly mortal forms. Maybe God"s gaze is this steady. I"m no believer, but found myself hoping so as I wept my way through this graceful, devastating collection."--Terri Witek