Moving beyond identity, embracing his Ibo and Chinese names, Afaa Michael Weaver's poems are sturdy and direct. He achieves the rare exception in American poetry by returning to Whitman, toward the self, to permeate the spirit and to see God.

"The Plum Flower Dance: Poems 1985 to 2005" include Self Portrait, which really isn't about the self at all. In this poem, the speaker proclaims:

I never inspect the withered assumption
of my face's petty dialogue in raindrops,
the deceptive spreading of the words
oozing from the skin to the edges of water
etched on the ground by gravity and wishing.

If you haven't read Weaver's work, then you're missing out on an opportunity to see the world differently, by looking at your own life more closely to see the lingering influence of absolute goodness.