Poetry of Resurrection: Peter Skrzynecki's Easter Sunday

Abstract

Peter Skrzynecki's latest collection of poems, published in 1993, is focused (as its title indicates) on experiences and manifestations of resurrection - ranging from its doctrinal expression in the context, for example, of the Church's liturgy, to the heterodoxy of intimations of new life, as in the world of nature. John Coburn's illustration for the book's cover perfectly combines these aspects of the poems' subject matter - as the form of the Cross is revealed in a sprouting tree and the attendant birds are both those of nature and (in traditional symbolism) representative of the Holy Spirit. They also represent, here, the tongues of fire of the Spirit's festival at Pentecost, the celebration of the combination of spiritual and linguistic inspiration.