Word in the Wilderness: A Poem a Day for Lent and Easter

by Malcolm Guite

For every day from Shrove Tuesday to Easter Day, the bestselling poet Malcolm Guite chooses a favourite poem from across the Christian spiritual and English literary traditions and offers incisive seasonal reflections on it. Lent is a time to reorient ourselves, clarify our minds, slow down, recover from distraction and focus on the values of God's kingdom. Poetry, with its power to awaken the mind, is an ideal companion for such a time. This collection enables us to turn aside from everyday routine and experience moments of transfigured vision as we journey through the desert landscape of Lent and find refreshment along the way. Following each poem with a helpful prose reflection, Malcolm Guite has selected from classical and contemporary poets, from Dante, John Donne and George Herbert to Seamus Heaney, Rowan Williams and Gillian Clarke, and his own acclaimed poetry.

Genres: Poetry

208 pages, Hardcover

Published November 30, 2014

Reviews

[Anjanette · Rating 3 out of 5]

DNF It’s like this…I have too much of a crush on George Herbert right now to have eyes for any other poetry. Wrong time for this book.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is at least my third year using this anthology of poetry as a Lenten devotional. It is better every year. (He also has one for Advent). In this he includes a variety of classic poems (such as excerpts from Dante's Inferno or from Tennyson's In Memoriam), to modern poets, and some of his own. Malcolm Guite is a master at showing how the poems he chose to are "in conversation" with each other, that is, how they seem to speak to each other on similar themes or with a phrase that seems to connect them. He does a great job of explaining some of the ideas found in each poem.