In Wrath of Light, Stephen Hays delivers a searing testament to the cosmic, the carnal, and the sacred violence of being. Blending the elemental pulse of Appalachian nature with the transcendental awe of spiritual yearning, this collection of 44 poems tunnels deep into the interwoven forces of eruption and memory, innocence and annihilation, life and its merciless continuance. With a poet’s fierce urgency and a mystic’s gaze, Hays fashions a language that scorches and consoles in equal measure. In Wrath of Light, Spring is not a season but a resurrection, volcanic, and relentless, as the primordial birth of Earth itself is shown in a brutal ballet of fire, ice, and genesis, culminating in a world brimming with both life and nuclear menace, offering a haunting, mythic meditation on the fragile fate of all—born into light only to be consumed by its shadow. Each poem in Wrath of Light roars from the depths of a world forever caught between becoming and decay. Hays' style—image-driven, immediate, manic, and consolatory—echoes Emerson and Whitman, but speaks in a voice wholly his Southern, ecstatic, and elegiac. This book is not a quiet reflection. It is an invocation.