Displaying a range of voices and subjects—from dramatic monologues in the voices of Judas Iscariot and John the Baptist to harrowing personal lyrics of family, time, memory, and loss—Creech's poems examine the difficulties of belief and the transcendent possibilities of common experience, pushing beyond mere surfaces to explore the "kingdom of desire."

Paper Cathedrals confronts the tensions between the here and hereafter, gravity and grace, and religious faith and an allegiance to the passing, sensual world.