The poetry of Kate Bernadette Benedict has been praised for its stirring approach to language, its stylistic diversity, and its arresting imagery. Earthly Use" includes poems from her two heralded collections as well as poems appearing in book form for the first time. These poems mine the depths of what Seamus Heaney has called "the human predicament"; they deal with the flesh, the soul, love, work, sorrow, joy, spiritual longing, and deep imagination. As Frank Wilson wrote in The Philadelphia Inquirer: ." . . for Benedict, poetry is less a career or a profession than a devotional exercise, a...