PRAISE for BEARING THE CAST "The word metanoia (typically translated as 'repentance') actually means 'Go into the larger mind.' In that sense, Skip Renker's new collection is a profound act of metanoia; it bears witness to a human being 'caught in the act' of waking up, learning to pay attention from the heart. Clearly detectible beneath the sparse, Zenlike surface of these poems are those deeper shafts of light emerging from a growing compassion, gentleness, and a wry, self- deprecating humor that somehow manages to 'hold all things in unity.'" The Rev. Cynthia Bourgeault Episcopal Priest - Writer - Retreat Leader "In this God-haunted book of poems where the Dhammapada and The Tibetan Book of the Dead seem to exert influence equally with the writings of Thoreau and Meister Eckhart, Skip Renker gives us the world made whole again through a language of remarkable precision and clarity. The old dichotomy of subjective/objective falls away, replaced by the thinking mind bodied forth, which is to say, poetry of a very high order. Bearing the Cast is a magnificent achievement." B.F. Fairchild - Author The Blue Buick: New and Selected Poems National Book Critics Circle Award Winner "As you read this book, everything around you will grow more vivid. Wherever you live, whatever you see every day--ordinary as it may seem--will snap into a different kind of focus. Skip Renker argues that if we can coax ourselves to be still, if we can look carefully and at length at what lies immediately in our lives, if we can enter silence and pay attention and grasp what we see, we might be transformed. I am grateful for his steadiness, especially during this time of historic upheaval. He is a trustworthy companion. I would follow him anywhere." Jeanne Murray Walker - Author Helping the Morning: New and Selected Poems