The second book by poet Clare L. Martin explores loss and rebirth and the nature of the spiritual. These poems are the quiet revelations of a poet who is questioning everything.

The Louisiana Series of Cajun and Creole Poetry
2017 Selection

Praise for Seek the Holy Dark

Any new book of poems worth its salt must reinvent the intelligences of poetry: trope, word, image, argument, sentence, strophe, music. The poems in Clare Martin’s Seek the Holy Dark will keep. They are salt. 

—Darrell Bourque, Former Louisiana Poet Laureate, 
author of Megan’s Guitar and Other Poems from Acadie and Where I Waited 

Seek the Holy Dark is a book of revelations in poems.  Clare L. Martin sees the richness and the poverty that are bedmates, proffers them as gifts, lays them at our feet.  Her poems suggest we join in the quest to be both humbled and exalted. Martin, who never looks away, fully understands the duality of nature, its light and darkness, exploring both in this lush and lyrical new collection.

—Susan Tepper, author of dear Petrov and The Merrill Diaries


From the holy dark of horror storms and freedom in the hand, to starving wolves and old women who live in woods, Clare Martin’s poetic imagery seeks in myth to locate depth of soul. She incants salvation “bone by bone” up from the shadows. Her writing has a beautiful fury, a hard questing and secret exultation that keep the reader poised and intoxicated. “Do you seek the heart too” the opening poem asks, and of course, we answer Yes and read breathlessly on. These poems “drop through this world/into dark awakening.” The strong-hearted will understand.

—Rachel Dacus, author of Gods of Water and Air