In The Ways of Grace: Poems of Truth & Joy, Robin M. Chandler elevates memoir in the poetic tradition in her first compilation of poetry reflecting on a 50-year creative career. In 42 poems with nine sectional the, the artist exercises the power of honest language to tell stories on themes that inspire, instruct, and chasten us about life. Inspired, insightful and wise, with tenderness, The Ways of Grace: Poems of Truth & Joy documents, honors and celebrates Chandlers’ international action research on six continents. Mining and honoring the jewels of her mixed heritage her poems are courageous, intimate, and politically charged. Exploring poetic form, this collection includes praise poems, free verse, elegies, dramatic and lyric poems, an epic, and experiments with the ghazal in ‘Feeling Rumi’.

The Ways of Grace: Poems of Truth & Joy gives visionary voice, clear and uncompromising, to the inner life of tormented heroes and be-leaguered heroines and lingers in emotional spaces only meant for those committed to social justice. As a visual artist Chandler creates companion collages and poems to tell a wider truth and expand our horizon to push beyond what we can see, to cross boundaries or make precious seemingly small things. From the ceremonial epic Mourning and the Last Council Fire of the We to father-daughter poems or the mystical nature of love in the section ‘Feeling Rumi’, The Ways of Grace: Poems of Truth & Joy claims a place in the hopeful heart of humanity and models how to control our own stories for liberation and peace.