"Lands of Likeness is one of the deepest accounts of poetry's cognitive dimensions ever written. What Hart does in the book is explore models of poetic reflection that conform to the models of neither discursive philosophical argumentation nor full-fledged religious contemplation, yet inhabit a meditative domain that is both conceptual and spiritual. I know of no other book that explores this terrain as thoroughly as this one does." -- John Koethe, University of Wisconsin-Madison "In this learned and comprehensive book on the poetic legacy of contemplation, Hart guides us from the early church fathers to the Romantics, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and many major twentieth-century poets who looked on nature in light of its likeness to spirit. A distinguished poet himself, Hart has much to say to readers and writers of poetry. Indeed, this book will interest anyone who has felt the power of leaving some things unsaid as well as the elation of those 'hovering thoughts' that are the book's focus." -- Susan Stewart, Princeton University