The Elegy Beta
Poems That Crack the Silence
Dive into a world where angels hover just out of reach, where faith tangles with the everyday, and where words hum with a sharp, luminous edge. The Elegy Beta isn’t just poetry—it’s a pulse. Critics call it “striking,” “original,” “a symphony of symbolic resonance.” Readers say it makes them kneel, laugh, ache.
From the mind of Mischa Willett, this collection riffs on Rilke’s Duino Elegies with a modern twist—think jazz improvisation meets divine whisper. It’s elegant. It’s irreverent. It’s yours to hold.
“Let weeping wash me like the rain. Let pain split me like overripe fruit.”
Feel that? That’s just the beginning.
Hardcover. Paperback. E-book. Pick your poison—start reading tonight.
2020 | ISBN 10: 1733716653
What people are saying.
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![DLJ on Willett]()
"An absolutely distinctive voice, angular, refractory, often unsettling in flashes of psychological and spiritual insights...A remarkable volume."
David Lyle Jeffrey
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![JKAS on Willett is best Christian poet]()
"Dwell in the lilt of Willett's play. He's dead serious and death-defying."
James K.A. Smith
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![BM TGC Willett Christian Poets]()
"Displays the capacity of poetic language to remind us of the world--its everyday glory and profound peculiarity--that gets lost in the noise."
Brett McCracken
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![Guite on best Anglican Poet Mischa Willett]()
"Here is a striking and original collection which responds to both our biblical and poetic heritage with a fresh contemporary voice."
Malcom Guite
[an excerpt from The Elegy Beta]
First Out of Bed
There was chicken
in the crock as the cock crowed
Let there be light
and the sky snowed.
Night-shirt and bare-toed
I walk the wood stairs
to the cold, oak kitchen
and add salt to the stock
of my afternoon stew.
I listen.
I lean for the music
of the new snow
padding the brutal ground like kittens,
and hear only my blue breath,
the cow’s moo,
chickens,
and see on the reflection
of the white clock
the yolk of the cracked sun,
and turn,
steam rising from the barn roof
like music,
the moon:
everyone will be awake soon.
About the author.
Dr. Mischa Willett is a celebrated poet and essayist, with scholarly articles and translations appearing in a wide range of venues. He is a practicing Anglican and a professor of English Literature at Arizona Christian University. Mischa and his wife live in Scottsdale, Arizona with their three young children.