Description: The Shapes Are Real is a collection of thirty-three poems by the Christian poet, Jill Pelaez Baumgaertner, occasioned by thirty-three of the dramatic sculptures of the Romanian Christian sculptor, Liviu Mocan. Photos of the sculptures are presented along with the poems inspired by them. The Shapes Are Real can be read as a series of devotional poems presented in the pages of an art book in which poems and sculptures inform each other.
Brief description: Jill Pelaez Baumgaertner is Professor of English and Dean of Humanities and Theological Studies at Wheaton College. She is the author of four previous collections of poems, a poetry textbook, and Flannery O'Connor: A Proper Scaring. She edited the collection Imago Dei: Poems from Christianity and Literature and serves as poetry editor of The Christian Century.