Radical Innocence is an "invitation to reverie," a collection of poems that is at once suffused with marvels and a brilliant historical and cultural critique of our society's development. In this ambivalent look at classical christian attitudes and how they have influenced the western world, Pass moves beyond the ordinary, taking images and personal concerns from our everyday lives and shaping them into a poetic consciousness that is both intimate and immediate. This volume is an exploration of the relationship between father and son; a reflection on the current state of our environment; a "reprieve for the body", ...
so near, forsaken, so sullen with its losses/ it won't come in for calling for the longest time; and a meditation upon the "radical innocence" christianity praises, promises and ultimately compromises.
"Here there's a sense of testing, of vigilant unease, that sharpens the work. Pass's poems draw you past their opalescent linguistic surfaces to a passion that's variously joyous, musing, or gruff." -"Books in Canada"