The Elegy Beta

Poems about art and angels.

The poems in The Elegy Beta invite readers into a world where angels walk among us and the veil between heaven and earth grows thin. Through masterfully crafted verse, Mischa Willett illuminates the thresholds where divine mystery intersects with daily life—in hospital waiting rooms, kitchen windows, and quiet moments of wonder.

These poems blend intellectual rigor with spiritual sensitivity, offering readers both comfort and challenge. Willett's precise language and keen theological imagination create a collection that resonates with the depth of Hopkins and Donne while speaking directly to contemporary experience.

Perfect for readers who appreciate:

Contemporary poetry with theological depth
Accessible yet sophisticated verse
Themes of faith, angels, and everyday transcendence
Literary craftsmanship rooted in Christian tradition

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Sample Poem

What people are saying.

"An absolutely distinctive voice, angular, refractory, often unsettling in flashes of psychological and spiritual insights...A remarkable volume."

David Lyle Jeffrey
"Dwell in the lilt of Willett's play. He's dead serious and death-defying."

James K.A. Smith
"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
"Here is a striking and original collection which responds to both our biblical and poetic heritage with a fresh contemporary voice."

Malcom Guite

Sample Poem from The Elegy Beta

Another Advent

Come crack the frozen
branch-ends that’ve had you so long
penned up as in winter-trap,
snow-drift, tree-sap.

Have the whole Earth heave
and scream at your verdant birth;
bring in your train the bright green
lips of leaves, the lengthening day,
the suggestion of sex, a mess;
wreck the hard and frostbitten ground
with your trillion shoots; break through,
crown, come in like a tooth
into a world sore, into the ache;

come save the stupid, drooped
stems of our hearts before they wilt;
by the Earth’s cataclysmic tilt,
Primavera, evergreen hope,
get here.