The Secret Trees: Poems

by Luci Shaw

The poet is obliged to take the Creation and its textures seriously, since it is in the language of those textures that he speaks to us of all the rest of our experience. The delights, perplexities, horrors, and quiet pleasures of life, and the emotions we feel in response to them, and the mysteries and immensities of the divine Drama - the poet comes at these things, not via abstractions and generalities, but by exact and concrete images which he sees lying all around him all the time. Luci Shaw shows this. Read her poetry here. let these verses... lead you to the regions where you not only reflect on things, but where you grasp and touch and feel them, and where you discover that there is a transubstantiation going on - that what you supposed was mere earth bespeaks heaven.

Genres: Poetry

78 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1976

About the author

Luci Shaw is a Christian writer of poetry and essays.

Reviews

[Alyssa Bohon · Rating 4 out of 5]

First read of Luci Shaw and I want to read more. She is a kindred spirit - mother, poet, lover of nature, influenced by Tolkien, MacDonald, Schaeffer, forthrightly Christian. This book is decades old, chosen from a Thriftbooks search for 'Luci Shaw' because it was the best deal on the page and I was happy to start anywhere. It has a definite 70's vibe, and I'd be interested to read some of her more recent works.

[Tamara Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe we wouldn't actually be bosom friends if the opportunity arose, maybe it's just the mark of a good poet that I read her words and think: "Yes, I feel the same way when I read the gospel stories about Jesus!" or "I thought I was the only one who notices the life-giving happening when a forest is transformed into a house!" Even better are the times I think: "I always wanted to say that, but never thought I had permission."

I've finished this book, but I'll never be done reading it.

[John Hanson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was disappointed in this book as it started out well. It started out about trees, but it slowly morphed into a book about Jesus. I can take a Jesus poem now and then, but not when I am expecting a book about nature and specifically trees. Hardly a tree being mentioned in the second half, and the last third was all Jesus poetry. Jesus!

I found the rhythms rather curt and truncated. Very few of them felt good lyrically to read. Most also leaned on the abstract side of the image slider. Only two poems made me stop and consider what I'd read: 'Behind the walls' and 'Cover story'.