O Gracious Light

Abstract

O Gracious Light Garret Keizer (bio) We say the Phos Hilaronevery Friday nightafter Kathy lights the candlesright before we eat. What a happy, heady senseof defiance flared in me this time,so many outlandish statementsfor such a little prayer! Old words struck like steelagainst a flinty heart—you can say them many timesbefore you say them. [End Page 343] Garret Keizer Garret Keizer is the author of The World Pushes Back, which won the X. J. Kennedy Poetry Prize in 2018, and eight books of prose, including Getting Schooled, Privacy, and The Unwanted Sound of Everything We Want. A contributing editor of Harper's Magazine and Virginia Quarterly Review, he lives in northeastern Vermont. www.garretkeizer.com Copyright © 2023 Johns Hopkins University Press