Jessica Powers wrote close to three hundred published poems and over a hundred unpublished ones. She referred to her poems as "songs" and it is possible that the lyrics spoke as much to the inner ear - that silence where "heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter" - as to the external ear. For the natural world she came upon it abruptly and denied nothing, but gave to it a haunting beauty through her brisk clarity, powerful imagery, depth of perception and faithfulness to the human condition. Her early poetry reflects her Wisconsin background and experiences most clearly. The Wisconsin poems are a necessary prelude to the later poems of contemplation and mysticism. As a mystic Jessica came to express in her poetry the direct, intense, immediacy of God's presence. She is a contemporary poet in the ancient tradition of John of the Cross.