George MacDonald (1824-1905) was writing at a time of Evangelical unease. In a society ravaged by Asiatic cholera, numbed by levels of infant mortality, and fearful of revolution and the toxicity of industry (to name but a few of the many challenges), the «gospel» proclaiming eternal damnation for unbelievers was hardly good news; rather, Christianity was increasingly viewed as the source of bad news and a tool of state oppression. MacDonald agr ...
Poet Charles Ghigna pulls back the curtain of creativity and presents a poetic look into the mind and heart of the creative process. In a series of pithy and poignant reflections, Ghigna reveals insights into personal truths about inspiration, writing, and art. Dear Poet: Notes to a Young Writer is a companion guide for all who dare follow their dreams and heed the call of the creative life. ...
What does it mean that the Psalms are the prayer book of the people? Rocking Like It's All Intermezzo: Twenty-first-Century Psalm Responsorials is one such person's prayer book. Using familiar refrains as their starting points, the poems attempt a balance between how the psalmist understood God's faithfulness and how the poet's lived experience requires revised understanding in some places, renewed commitment in others. In ad ...
A Crown for Ted and Sylvia is a book of poetry for Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes fans and for those obsessed by their compelling literary story. It examines questions about the politics of family and shifting perspectives over time, and asks why some families are fated to repeat certain narratives over generations. Finally, those who enjoy traditional forms, such as sonnets, villanelles, and pentinas, will find plenty of them here. ...
The great Victorian Christian author George MacDonald is the wellspring of the modern fantasy genre. In this book Colin Manlove offers explorations of MacDonald's eight shorter fairy tales and his longer stories At the Back of the North Wind, The Princess and the Goblin, The Wise Woman, and The Princess and Curdie. MacDonald saw the imagination as the source of fairy tales and of divine truth together. For he believed that God lives in th ...
Ever since the Middle Ages, the first hour of daily prayer in monastic life–Matins–has roused the community from sleep. Wisely, the second hour was reserved for Lauds, which means praise. Praise with that freshly awakened consciousness. In this way, such an attitude toward the world, seen and unseen, could be absorbed before breakfast. The poems in this book continue that tradition–though outside a monastic community–of waking up, refle ...
Look Closely is the eighth collection of haiku by this author. His first, The Healing Spirit of Haiku (2004 & 2014), was co-authored with Joel Weishaus. White Rose, Red Rose (2017) was written with Johnny Baranski. His five other collections are as follows: Clouds and More Clouds (2013), Spelunking Through Life (2016), Living With Evergreens (2017), In Search of the Hidden Pond (2017), and Torii Haiku (2018). Haiku is magical, as it allow ...
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Evangeline was a bestseller in nineteenth-century America, inspiring generations of readers with a heroine who overcomes colonial violence and exile in her romantic and spiritual quest across America. Long ignored by modernist scholars, Evangeline is finally getting the critical attention it deserves. Drawing on original research in Longfellow's scholarly manuscripts, Bartel explores the theological sources ...
Recinos' love for poetry dates back to being abandoned by Latino parents at age twelve to live on New York City streets. When he turned sixteen, he was taken into the family of a white Presbyterian minister and guided back to school. After finishing high school, Recinos attended undergraduate school in Ohio and graduate school in New York, where he befriended the Nuyorican poets Miguel Pinero and Pedro Pietri, who encouraged him to write an ...
