Passageways is a major collection of Philip Resnick's poetry, spanning over 40 years. A number of the poems in the first section of the book, "Of the Greeks and Hebrews," were in earlier collections, which have long been out of print. The other four sections of the book tackle a wide variety of topics. "Faraway Shores" evokes various places the author has visited or lived in over the course of a long career. "In Troubled Times" contains poems dealing with political themes, some clearly contemporary in character, others more historical in scope. "Meditations and Reflections" contains a wide range of poems with literary, philosophical, as well as autobiographical underpinnings. The final section of the book, "Thanatos's Shadow," deals with the challenges of facing the death of a loved one and the bereavement which follows. Greece, and the region of Mount Pelion in particular, has been a major source of inspiration for Resnick's poetry over the years and this is strongly reflected in many of the poems in this collection.

Philip Resnick's Footsteps of the Past constitutes a powerful set of reflections on the modern human condition. The book contains poems dealing with memory, recognition, and the slow passage of time, while others meditate on the deep wounds that chronic illness and disability instill. Some of the poems have a critical political edge, while others probe the cultural and philosophical underpinnings of our modern identities with cool detachment and unrelenting honesty. For inspiration, Resnick draws on Sophocles, Thucydides, Montesquieu, and, from our own day, Thomas Piketty and Charles Taylor. There is also a shout-out to "Je suis Charlie." Always in these poems one senses a longing for a previous, perhaps mythical, time when the future opened the possibility of a world of ideals. For the reader, this book will resonate in quite unpredictable ways, much like the ferry of the mind whose voyage the author invokes. Bare-knuckled imagery, intellectual inquisitiveness, and a kaleidoscope of themes mark Footsteps of the Past as a strikingly original poetry collection.