Where Outside the Body Is the Soul Today comprises two interwoven
series--one of linked prose poems called "Another Letter to the Soul"
and one of individual lined poems that explore the connection between
anima and animal. The volume speaks to and questions the ancient concept
of the soul and its contemporary manifestations, including the damaged
soul, the American soul, and the blind, gagged soul of history.
Melissa Kwasny does not define the soul in traditional religious terms,
but in a shamanic, perhaps ecological sense, as the part of being that
continues its existence after death. The poems in "Another Letter to the
Soul" point inward, addressing the human soul directly, while the
individual lined poems search outward, sensing the soul in the plants,
animals, rocks, waters, and winds that surround us.