Out of print
This anthology brings together poetry and prose by fifteeen Canadian poets who have meditated deeply on the relation between their art and the spiritual wellspring of their lives.
Contributors: Beryl Baigent, Marianne Bluger, John Livingstone Clark, Sister Eileen Curteis, Richard Greene, Lee Johnson, Joy Kogawa, Hannah Main-van der Kamp, Alice Major, Susan McCaslin, Catherine Owen, Margo Swiss, John Terpstra, David Waltner Toews, and George Whipple.
“With the quality of devotion to spiritual life and book-making craft we have come to expect from the St. Thomas poetry series, Poetry and Spiritual Practice brings together the work of Canadian poets doing spiritual work in both an accepted spiritual tradition and in poetry itself . . . Each poe introduces his or her work with a concise and intriguing introduction to his or her poetic and spiritual practice. The result is a solid, serious attempt, within a wide range of Christian traditions, to marry poetry and spiritual life, so that poetry becomes, if not prayer, then a mirror of prayer, shared with people instead of given privately to God. I like to think of this as a new book of common prayer, a guidebook for a set of new and wholly Canadian traditions, with their roots set firmly in the past. We would be well served to have it on every pew, and on every thoughtful person’s desk” (Harold Rhenisch, League of Canadian Poets website).
“The poets in this anthology not only come to a fuller awareness of themselves and their relation to the world in which they find themselves, but also communicate a sense of this awareness to their readers. A book not for the trend-conscious but for those who are genuinely concerned with spiritual things” (W. J. Keith, CBRA).