Something Like Jasmine, Fr. Murray Bodo, OFM, Include CD of Fr. Murray reading his poetry from Something Like Jasmine.One of the most moving and thought provoking collections of poetry that I have read for a long time. Murray Bodo has that rare gift of understanding, only too well, the joys and sorrows of our everyday lives. As I read, I began to live with the poet as he himself lives his poetry. Anne Beresford, poet and author of Collected Poems (1967-2006) Murray Bodo's sinewy and original poems in Something Like Jasmine are sharply focused, truthful and - most strikingly - brave. They are not ashamed to speak in the voice of the child who shot songbirds by mistake or the adult who now delights in animals as companions. And they do not shy away from speaking frankly of death and loss. Throughout this fine and varied collection, Bodo's Christian faith is evident - sometimes shining as brightly and unexpectedly as a high-flying jet in the sun that suggests the arms outstretched that mark Good Friday; but elsewhere as gently persistent as the scent of jasmine. Michael Bartholomew-Biggs, poet and poetry editor of the online, London Grip The clear, luminous, consoling poems of Father Murray Bodo's Something Like Jasmine "brave a soothing hand / like this on your troubled shoulder." Buoyed by kindest saints and the natural world of gulls and sycamores, by encounters with a sparrow and a street singer, he does not remain cloistered but sets his poetry en plein air, like an Impressionist painter, and empathizes with the struggles of real people. After the moving, richly evocative "Suite in Memory of Herbert Lomas," the collection culminates in the poet's awareness that "Those who've died cling to him like / Fragrant night-blooming jasmine." What's divine comes through in the vivid earthiness of Murray Bodo's generous imagination. John Drury, poet and teacher, author of The Refugee Camp and The Poetry Dictionary