Daughter Ashley knows I love poetry, because when she was little we read a lot of it together. She recently presented me with a copy of Malcolm Guite's Sounding the Seasons: Seventy Sonnets for the Christian Year, from Canterbury Press. The sonnets are organized into a living whole, after the manner of Herbert or Ferrar. They are prophetically current and thought provoking, and yet retain all of the charm and blance of Classic Shakespearean or Petrarchan poetry. Appendices are included which discuss the use of poetry in liturgy, and an index to scriptural allusions and quotations. The author is Chaplain of Girton College and Associate Chaplain of St. Edward King and Martyr in Cambridge, and the author of Faith, Hope, and Poetry (Ashgate).
A Sample from All Saints Day (2)
And blessed are the ones we overlook;
The faithful servers on the coffee rota,
The ones who hold no candle, bell or book
But keep the books and tally up the quota,
The gentle souls who come to 'do the flowers',
The quiet ones who organize the fete,
Church sitters who give up their weekday hours,
Doorkeepers who may open heaven's gate.
God knows the depths that often go unspoken
Amongst the shy, the quiet, and the kind,
Or the slow healing of a heart long broken,
Placing each flower so for a year's mind.
Invisible on earth, without a voice,
In heaven their angels glory and rejoice.
Available at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Sounding-Seasons-Malcolm-Guite/dp/1848252749/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1365436461&sr=1-1&keywords=sounding+the+seasons+malcolm+guite for $8.05 or $7.65 on Kindle. This book will warm your heart and challenge you to experience our Lord in a deeper, humbler, and more incarnational way.
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