Haphazard by Starlight: A Poem a Day from Advent to Epiphany

by Janet Morley

Unlike Lent, Advent is celebrated when the year is becoming darker and colder, moving into the death and dormancy of winter. Before we can greet the coming of the light, we need to engage with some themes that are challenging and occasionally fearful. Like the magi who travelled a long distance to search out and adore the infant Jesus, and who took some wrong turnings on the way, we too have a journey to undertake, before we find that we have.

Genres: Poetry, Christmas, Faith, Christianity, Nonfiction, Devotional, Religion

145 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Melody Schwarting · Rating 4 out of 5]

This poetic devotional walking from Advent through Epiphany hit the spot for me this year. Morley's reflections are top notch, and her selection of poems considers a wide swathe of poets--Christina Rossetti and Denise Levertov, Elizabeth Jennings and Jane Kenyon, Philip Larkin and Gerard Manley Hopkins, and many more. I really enjoyed reading this devotional, and would like to read Morley's Lent book as well. Recommended to anyone looking for a poetic accompaniment to the season.

[Meredith McCaskey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a wonderful way to travel from the beginning of Advent all the way through Epiphany. I appreciated Janet Morley's unique selection of poems– most of them were new to me, and many of them were not obviously Advent or Christmas poems, yet her analysis and reflections showed how appropriate they were to the season.

Occasionally I found myself skimming through some of her analysis; poetry is meant first of all to be read and enjoyed, and sometimes trying to analyze a powerful poem lessens its impact. But for the most part I really appreciated Ms. Morley's insights, and the background that she gave to each poem and poet was very helpful.

Highly recommended for Advent reading! I'm going to miss ending my day with this book.

[Patty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely collection of poems. I will visit this poetry in another Advent season.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this Advent-Epiphany collection. Each day has a poem, a reflection on the poem by Janet Morley, and a question for further thought. The poems were high quality, some from present-day writers and some from beloved poets of the past like Sylvia Plath, Gerard Manley Hopkins, T.S. Eliot, etc. Most of the poems in this collection were new to me and I found some I loved. For whatever reason, poems with Advent themes have a particular resonance for me…light and dark, presence and absence, creation and re-creation, and the wonder and mystery of the Incarnation. My soul has been enriched by both the poems and Morley’s reflections. The reflections helped me decode parts of the poems that were puzzling without over-explaining them. Morley lets the poems retain their inherent mystery, which is what allows poetry to be such a powerful medium for contemplation. I am loathe to put this collection back on the shelf already so I think I may keep revisiting this until Candlemas.

P.S. Additional points for a super title.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Confession to make - I slightly cheated by finishing off the remaining 7 poems in this book today so that I hit my Goodreads target of 60 books for the year. These are Advent poems and supposed to be read one a day until 6 January.

Anyway with that out of the way, I can recommend this book as a way to step back and contemplate the real meaning of Christmas.
The book is also perfect for poetry beginners like me as the accompanying descriptions explain the poem and often also give some background on the poet.
I look forward to reading Janet Morley’s other poetry collection, “The Heart’s Time” during Lent.

[Rachel Dorminy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was my second year trying to use this book, and I just don’t enjoy the poetry selections. A lot of them are modern and I prefer a more traditional poetry style.

[John Howes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent analysis of Advent and Christmas poems from a Christian perspective.

[Gille Liath · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t think this will please genuine lovers of poetry. There are some bad pieces here, and some of Morley’s comments make you wonder whether she has any real ear for the form. For example she considers ‘deciduous’ a ‘brilliant word’ – well, maybe for a school science text book. And it won’t very much please believers: there are agnostic and atheistic pieces included, and the arrangement also leaves something to be desired – a Welsh Nationalist poem for Christmas Eve (possibly it’s because there’s a connection to former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams)! And what was the thinking behind including Yeats' grubbily apocalyptic Second Coming – just the title?

Nobody knows what good poetry it supposed to look like these days, yet the would-be cultured still have a vague feeling that they ought to appreciate it. And I guess that’s the real market for this book: people who want to be told what to like and why.

[Marsali Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't recommend this book too highly. It has a poem a day, taking you right though from 1st December to Epiphany, with a sensitive commentary on the language of the poem and the theological implications. After each is a suggestion for meditation. The poems included some well-known favourites, like Edwin Morgan's 'The angel and the girl are met' and Tennyson's 'Ring out wild bells', and a number of authors who were new to me. I found it really made me think more deeply about the theme of Christmas, as well as reminding me how wonderful poetry is. Morley has also done an Easter selection, and I'll certainly be buying it for this Lent.
Wonderful.

[Fiona · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my companion through advent this year and I loved it. The poems selected enter into all the mystery, loss and waiting of this season, and the way Janet unfolds them is illuminating while but being dry like some poetry companions can be. A really good advent guide, especially for someone willing and wanting to embrace the hard of the season as well as the expectation.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I tried to read the poems on the prescribed day, but mostly failed - December is such a busy month! Now that we are most of the way through January I have read most of them, but as I rather lost the thread, I expect I've missed a few.
There were poems that I enjoyed and poems that didn't really speak to me. Not all the poems were actually about advent or Christmas as such, but all were chosen because Janet Morley felt that they had something to offer relating to the season. Each poem was accompanied by a commentary, which was often enlightening. I'm going to try again next advent - though may quite possibly fail again!

[Toby Newton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure that this doubtlessly well-intended book really climbed upon two stools, so as to be able to fall between them. As a non-Christian, I bought it in the hope of being tutored a little in the "real" meaning of Christmas, from Advent to Epiphany, through the choice of apposite poems which lent themselves to a believer's commentary. I was seeking insight, whether to be moved by it or not. As it was, the collection was rag-tag, at best, and, occasionally, peculiar, with the exegesis seeming stretched, if not shoe-horned; cf. Oxymandias, Musee des Beaux Arts, The Year's Midnight ... There must, surely, be poems out there better suited to manage this task?

Lovely cover though.

[Emma Tiller · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of poems gently led me on a journey through Advent themes of waiting, longing, and searching, and on to the joy and mystery of Christmas and the incarnation - God with us - and I found my soul unexpectedly refreshed by the experience. Taking time to reflect on and be swept up by a few words of poetry, paying attention to layers of meaning and allowing images, words, ideas to settle proved to be for me a perfect antidote to a paradoxically frantic pace to the season that can drive away mystery and encounter with God.

[Rebekah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent. An interesting mix of well-known poems (The Tyger, Dover Beach, Ozymandias, In the Bleak Midwinter) and lots which will be less well-known to many readers. After each poem there is about two pages discussing the poet in context, the techniques used, and the theology implied. Finally, there is a prompt for meditation. Highly recommended: a thoughtful, enlightening read which will at the very least bring some new poems to your attention.

[Julie Nicholson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mixed bag of poems, as you would expect from a collection, and some I found more challenging than others, which isn't necessarily a bad thing and it does expose you to new writers and work. The commentary on each poem often went into quite technical detail (and I realised how little I know about the structure of poetry) and there were some interesting points made, but I didn't get a lot out of most of them.

[Kristen Gebbia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Morley gives some really lovely commentary on her selections of seasonal poetry in this book. I loved the questions for contemplation with each selection. As with any book of poetry, there were a few that I personally found weird or disagreed with. But overall, a great book!

[Hilary Swift · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful, I go back to it time and time again.

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect accompaniment for Advent and beyond.

[Voirrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a lovely Advent study. I will remember some of the poems and my well come back to for another advent in future.

[Rachel L. · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Some lovely poems but overall I prefer Malcolm Guitar’s Advent/Christmas poetry readings.

[Joshua Reitano · Rating 4 out of 5]

Used this from Lent to Epiphany. Nice to encounter some familiar and new poems. I didn’t like this as much as Malcolm Guite’s Advent anthology, but this was nice for a change of pace.

[Schuyler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Morley's commentary on each day's poem from both a literary and a theological perspective provides a truly thoughtful addition to Advent. I'll definitely be returning to this one.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love reading carefully curated collections of poems for Advent.

That is all.

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful collection of poems and commentary to take one through Advent to Epiphany. Completely recommend.

[Blair Brake]

Happy Epiphany.

[Shirley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my Advent Book for 2014, starting on 1 December 2014 and finishing on Epiphany, 6 January 2015, containing some beautiful and thought provoking poems. It was good to meet old favourites such as ‘Ozymandias’ (P B Shelley), ‘BC:AD’ (U A Fanthorpe), ‘Innocent’s Song’ (Charles Causley), ‘Musee des Beaux Arts’ (W H Auden) and ‘Journey of the Magi’ (T S Eliot) but I also made new discoveries such as ‘Advent Calendar’ (Rowan Williams), ‘We grow accustomed to the dark’ (Emily Dickinson), ‘Blackbird in Fulham’ (P J Kavanagh), ‘Northumbrian Sequence, 4’ (Kathleen Raine) and ‘The Year’s Midnight’ (Gillian Clarke).

I enjoyed the poetry and accompanying reflections but I was disappointed that this book lacked the usual daily linked bible readings and daily scriptural comment, which are a common feature of Advent books. There is plenty of reflective writing but the starting point is always the poem and links to scripture are more generalised. At the end of each day there is a thought or challenge for the reader to take away and consider but, with a few exceptions, I found these fairly unhelpful. This is a lovely book for someone who enjoys poetry and unpicking their meanings and implications in a fairly erudite way. For me Advent books are always an extra discipline alongside daily bible reading and I would hesitate to recommend this as a sole way to engage with scripture.

Janet Morley has also produced ‘The Heart's Time: A Poem a Day for Lent and Easter’ a Lent book (to be read during the weeks from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday). I have recently been given this as a gift and it will be interesting to see whether the format differs. In any case I will certainly be using it as an extra rather than an alternative discipline.

[Davidg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read and thoroughly enjoyed Janet Morley's Lent book last Easter (The Heart's Time: A Poem a Day for Lent and Easter), I grabbed this Advent and Christmas book when I saw it on the bookshop shelf. Like the earlier book, we have a poem for each day of the season with a detailed commentary on its meaning, imagery and language.

The poems cover the darkness of the season, the year's ending, as well as the events of the bible story itself. I suppose I could have done with a little more light rather than dark and more Advent hope, but I didn't get quite as much from it as I did the other book - but it is probably just me. So, it has four rather than five stars.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read as the writer intended with one poem and commentary per day from 1st December until 6th January. The variation in the poetry offered was wide in both style and content, and the comments provided helpful guidance and useful trigger points for reflection. It was not entirely celebratory in style, indeed many of the poems dealt with darker themes of death and loss, as well as the more expected winter and 'incarnation' ones. The question at the end of each day was a good starting point for discussion if the readings were being done with another person (which I did) or in a small group. Definitely to be recommended as an Advent reader.

[Tanya Marlow · Rating 4 out of 5]

This will be going on next year’s advent list: a wonderful collection of classic poems, some Christian, some not, to lead you through the season of Advent through to Epiphany, with a literary commentary on the poem, and a short question to encourage you to think about how it affects you.

This is literary and academic, but short, and gently spiritual. It is a wonderful collection of poems, and I really appreciated her guided tour – a great way of doing Advent for poetry-lovers. Highly recommended.

[Francesco · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a good book

I received it as a present by a Christian friend and I approached it with doubts.
Some of the poems are chosen even of they were not written by religious authors.
I's a good collection of poetry that is perfect for reflection at this time of the year, for preparing for birth or death, or coping with the latter.
It is possible to let oneself be wrapped by words and darkness whilst letting the inner sparkle glitter in expectation.