The Saint Mary’s Book of Christian Verse

Published by Gracewing Publishing  |  June, 2022  |  400 pages | $25.00   Purchase

Book Précis

The Saint Mary’s Book of Christian Verse brings together the work of poets from across the English-speaking world to celebrate the sacred art of poetry in all of its pied beauty.

Chosen by the acclaimed Newman scholar Edward Short, the collection captures not only the range but the richness of Christian verse. The last comparable anthology of Christian poetry to appear was Donald Davie’s Oxford Book of Christian Verse (1981): a proper successor, one more reflective of the true scope and variety of Christian poetry, has been long overdue.

The Saint Mary’ s Book of Christian Verse supplies that need with a dazzling compilation encompassing over eight centuries of Christian verse by poets extending from Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare,George Herbert, John Donne, John Milton and Henry Vaughan to William Cowper, Isaac Watts, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, W.H. Auden, T.S. Eliot and Dana Gioia. In between, readers will find poems about faith, hope, love, loss, praise, rejoicing, mortality and immortality from such beloved poets as St. Robert Southwell, Thomas Traherne, William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Emily Dickinson, Christina Rossetti, Wallace Stevens, Charles Causley, Elizabeth Jennings, James McAuley, and Richard Wilbur.

A perfect anthology for schools, colleges and the general reader, The Saint Mary’ s Book of Christian Verse will serve as a welcome reaffirmation for readers around the world of how vital Christian verse has been and remains to our deeply humanizing, deeply civilizing Christian inheritance.

Excerpts from The Saint Mary’s Book of Christian Verse recited by Monica Nash

More work by Monica Nash can be found here.

Reviews of The Saint Mary’s Book of Christian Verse

“Given that The Saint Mary's Book of Christian Verse was chosen and introduced by Edward Short to serve as an introduction to upper-school students at the Schools of Saint Mary in Manhasset, New York, it is fitting that [it should] also inspire potential poets by helping them to see themselves as part of the story of poetry in English, a story in which the best coheres... with Christian faith... It is one of the strengths of the volume that it has both minor poetic gems but also a healthy dose of the classics including: Shakespeare's sonnets and the hits from Paradise Lost; hymns from Watts, Wesley, and Newton; Donne, Herbert (Mary and George), Quarles, and Traherne; Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Blake; Newman and Hopkins; Auden, Eliot, and Anne Ridler... Immensely readable..." Prof. David Deavel, The Imaginative Conservative 

“Edward Short's Saint Mary's Book of Christian Verse offers a rich vision of the English poetic tradition... Best known for his studies of John Henry Newman and his extensive work as a book critic, Mr Short has an excellent ear for the kind of real rhetorical beauty we find in Newman's prose" and "in happy consequence, he seems incapable of including an ugly poem or any poem that fails to overwhelm the reader with its own gorgeousness. ...Mr. Short's anthology is an education in itself, clarifying for readers the best of our tradition.  ...Indeed, it recovers that tradition..." James Matthew Wilson, Catholic World Report

“This handsome book certainly contains a great deal of fine poems - some very familiar and much loved, others much less familiar but still deeply affecting. Edward’s Short’s anthology will serve a teaching role very well…”. Peter Costello, The Irish Catholic

"This mesmerizingly beautiful anthology of Christian poetry reminds us on every page of how committed the Catholic tradition is to love, grace, redemption, and thanksgiving. Edward Short’s careful editorial work shines throughout: poets devout and sceptical are put into conversation with each other, allowing readers to move easily between Cædmon and Milton, Blake and Shelley, Rossetti and Hopkins, Larkin and Jennings. The Catholic imagination speaks so sonorously here that all will welcome the delights within. For readers of all faiths, The Saint Mary's Book of Christian Verse will act as a restorative music of prayers, devotions, laments, and praise in which the most resonant note is a love of God and so love of all things. A phenomenal introduction to the history of Christian verse in English." Prof. Emma Mason, Head of Department, English and Comparative Literary Studies, University of Warwick

The Saint Mary's Book of Christian Verse “is full of wonderful selections from Milton, Wordsworth, Hopkins, Wallace Stevens, Philip Larkin, and a host of earlier writers... What an eye the editor has for the essential...God prosper this beautiful book.” Father Dermot Fenlon, Chaplain, Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, Cobh, Co Cork.