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American Religious Poems: An Anthology
No more profound and intimate expression of America’s spiritual life can be found than the work of its poets. From Anne Bradstreet to the Beats, from Native American chant and Shaker hymnody to Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, religion and spirituality have always been central to American poetry. In this unique anthology, world-renowned scholar Harold Bloom weaves a tapestry from the many strands of American religious experience and practice: the searching meditations of Puritan pioneers, the evangelical fervor of the Great Awakenings, the mystical currents of Transcendentalism, the diverse influences of the world religions that have taken root in modern America.
Spanning four centuries and more than 200 poets, American Religious Poems is a bountiful and moving gathering of voices that offers countless moments of inspiration, solace, meditation, and transcendence. The poems in this unprecedented volume are a lasting testimony to the American spirit and its unremitting quest for ultimate truth and meaning.
This deluxe collector’s edition features:
• an introduction by Harold Bloom;
• a reader’s guide to significant topics and themes in the poems;
• Smyth-sewn binding and flexible, leatherette covers; and
• a ribbon page-marker.
Spanning four centuries and more than 200 poets, American Religious Poems is a bountiful and moving gathering of voices that offers countless moments of inspiration, solace, meditation, and transcendence. The poems in this unprecedented volume are a lasting testimony to the American spirit and its unremitting quest for ultimate truth and meaning.
This deluxe collector’s edition features:
• an introduction by Harold Bloom;
• a reader’s guide to significant topics and themes in the poems;
• Smyth-sewn binding and flexible, leatherette covers; and
• a ribbon page-marker.
685 pages, Hardcover
First published October 5, 2006
About the author
Harold Bloom
1,708 books2,096 followersHarold Bloom was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was called "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking world." After publishing his first book in 1959, Bloom wrote more than 50 books, including over 40 books of literary criticism, several books discussing religion, and one novel. He edited hundreds of anthologies concerning numerous literary and philosophical figures for the Chelsea House publishing firm. Bloom's books have been translated into more than 40 languages. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1995.
Bloom was a defender of the traditional Western canon at a time when literature departments were focusing on what he derided as the "school of resentment" (multiculturalists, feminists, Marxists, and others). He was educated at Yale University, the University of Cambridge, and Cornell University.
Bloom was a defender of the traditional Western canon at a time when literature departments were focusing on what he derided as the "school of resentment" (multiculturalists, feminists, Marxists, and others). He was educated at Yale University, the University of Cambridge, and Cornell University.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
April 22, 2026
America's Spiritual Journey In Poetry
Poetry remains the most reliable guide to the thoughts, ideals, and aspirations of the heart. In the recent anthology, "American Religious Poems", the Library of America offers a revealing overview of the many and varied ways in which Americans have expressed their feelings of religion and spirituality through poetry. The anthology includes a cross-section of American religious verse beginning with the American Indians and the Pilgrims, and it continues chronologically through poets born in the final third of the Twentieth Century. Selections from over 200 poets are included in over 600 pages of verse together with provocative essays by the editors of the collection, Professor Harold Bloom and Jesse Zuba.
The Library of America anthology invites attention to the diversity of American experiences of religion, but it suggests large areas of continuity as well. From earliest times, Americans have been more preoccupied with religion than have been Europeans. Many of the early settlers came to America to avoid religious prosecution and their influence has been lasting. With the independence of the United States, many people developed a sense of American uniqueness and purpose to which they gave expression in poetry and literature. In addition, the freedom and liberty that Americans have enjoyed shapes their various and individual approaches to religion.
It is tempting, when faced with an anthology of poetry of the scope of this collection, to browse and to read selectively from time to time from among the wealth of the selections. This method of reading would be an entirely proper way to approach "American Religious Poems" ; but in my own reading, I gained a great deal by the cumulative impact of reading the book from cover to cover. It gave me the feeling of a multitude of voices using different poetical forms over the years to converse with each other about feelings and matters they found of highest significance to them. The weight and the flow of Americans creating poetry about religious subject will be missed by browsing through the collection.
The book includes poetry by adherents of many religions, Puritan, Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Buddhist, Moslem, Bah'ai, native American, and others. Some of the poems reflect a comfort with the doctrines and practices of a specific religion. But probably the greater number of poems show a questioning of and a skepticism for the teachings of traditional religion. They show that America long has been home to a religion of spirituality, which tends to be inwardly based, highly personal, and suspicious of creeds and doctrines. In his introduction, Harold Bloom argues that American poetry as a whole shows a distinctively American religious sensibility which is developed at its fullest in Walt Whitman and in the two other poets, Emily Dickinson and Hart Crane, that, Bloom argues, constitute the "grandest voices" of American poetry.
There is a great mix of the familiar and the unfamiliar in this anthology. Readers will make the reaquaintance of Whitman and Dickinson, together with other 19th Century poets such as Bryant, Emerson, Longfellow, and Melville. Poets who wrote during the Twentieth Century include Crane, E.A. Robinson, Wallace Stevens, T.S. Elliot, and Robert Frost. The poets whose works may be less familiar include Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor from Colonial days, and Jones Very, Emma Lazarus, and Trumbull Stickney from the Nineteenth Century. Among poets of the Twentieth Century, the anthology includes in addition to the major figures I have already mentioned Robinson Jeffers, Langston Hughes, Charles Reznikoff, John Wheelwright, Louis Zukofsky, Robert Hayden, John Berryman, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, and many more. Every reader will find delights both new and unfamiliar.
Harold Bloom closes his Introduction with a paean of praise to that representative American -- Walt Whitman. Bloom urges his readers to discover Whitman and Emily Dickinson through further reading and thinking. He writes: "To represent [Whitman] properly in this anthology, you would have to destroy the volume, by printing everything of supreme aesthetic power in Leaves of Grass. With Whitman as with Dickinson, what is printed here is only a synecdoche for what must be sought outside this book." Readers will be inspired indeed by reading through this magnificent anthology. But as Bloom points out, this book may well serve as a guide to the reader in exploring further American spirituality as expressed in American poetry.
Robin Friedman
Poetry remains the most reliable guide to the thoughts, ideals, and aspirations of the heart. In the recent anthology, "American Religious Poems", the Library of America offers a revealing overview of the many and varied ways in which Americans have expressed their feelings of religion and spirituality through poetry. The anthology includes a cross-section of American religious verse beginning with the American Indians and the Pilgrims, and it continues chronologically through poets born in the final third of the Twentieth Century. Selections from over 200 poets are included in over 600 pages of verse together with provocative essays by the editors of the collection, Professor Harold Bloom and Jesse Zuba.
The Library of America anthology invites attention to the diversity of American experiences of religion, but it suggests large areas of continuity as well. From earliest times, Americans have been more preoccupied with religion than have been Europeans. Many of the early settlers came to America to avoid religious prosecution and their influence has been lasting. With the independence of the United States, many people developed a sense of American uniqueness and purpose to which they gave expression in poetry and literature. In addition, the freedom and liberty that Americans have enjoyed shapes their various and individual approaches to religion.
It is tempting, when faced with an anthology of poetry of the scope of this collection, to browse and to read selectively from time to time from among the wealth of the selections. This method of reading would be an entirely proper way to approach "American Religious Poems" ; but in my own reading, I gained a great deal by the cumulative impact of reading the book from cover to cover. It gave me the feeling of a multitude of voices using different poetical forms over the years to converse with each other about feelings and matters they found of highest significance to them. The weight and the flow of Americans creating poetry about religious subject will be missed by browsing through the collection.
The book includes poetry by adherents of many religions, Puritan, Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Buddhist, Moslem, Bah'ai, native American, and others. Some of the poems reflect a comfort with the doctrines and practices of a specific religion. But probably the greater number of poems show a questioning of and a skepticism for the teachings of traditional religion. They show that America long has been home to a religion of spirituality, which tends to be inwardly based, highly personal, and suspicious of creeds and doctrines. In his introduction, Harold Bloom argues that American poetry as a whole shows a distinctively American religious sensibility which is developed at its fullest in Walt Whitman and in the two other poets, Emily Dickinson and Hart Crane, that, Bloom argues, constitute the "grandest voices" of American poetry.
There is a great mix of the familiar and the unfamiliar in this anthology. Readers will make the reaquaintance of Whitman and Dickinson, together with other 19th Century poets such as Bryant, Emerson, Longfellow, and Melville. Poets who wrote during the Twentieth Century include Crane, E.A. Robinson, Wallace Stevens, T.S. Elliot, and Robert Frost. The poets whose works may be less familiar include Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor from Colonial days, and Jones Very, Emma Lazarus, and Trumbull Stickney from the Nineteenth Century. Among poets of the Twentieth Century, the anthology includes in addition to the major figures I have already mentioned Robinson Jeffers, Langston Hughes, Charles Reznikoff, John Wheelwright, Louis Zukofsky, Robert Hayden, John Berryman, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, and many more. Every reader will find delights both new and unfamiliar.
Harold Bloom closes his Introduction with a paean of praise to that representative American -- Walt Whitman. Bloom urges his readers to discover Whitman and Emily Dickinson through further reading and thinking. He writes: "To represent [Whitman] properly in this anthology, you would have to destroy the volume, by printing everything of supreme aesthetic power in Leaves of Grass. With Whitman as with Dickinson, what is printed here is only a synecdoche for what must be sought outside this book." Readers will be inspired indeed by reading through this magnificent anthology. But as Bloom points out, this book may well serve as a guide to the reader in exploring further American spirituality as expressed in American poetry.
Robin Friedman
July 5, 2023
I prefer the poems preceding the Modernist era as they are truly religious in a Christian perspective. Everything following is a search within the inner self for spirituality . . . and let me tell you, one gets lost in there.
December 22, 2010
this anthology has been so important in my life. while living abroad, my husband and i spent hours in our little shoe box flat discussing its selections and puzzling over the balance of faith and works, and the challenges of faith in general.
harold bloom does a terrific job in his selections. we left the anthology more thoughtful then we had been before-- and, i hope, with more compassion for ourselves and others.
harold bloom does a terrific job in his selections. we left the anthology more thoughtful then we had been before-- and, i hope, with more compassion for ourselves and others.
June 14, 2021
been nibbling away at this for the better part of a year— and a poem every day for several months. the habit made my days more beautiful 🤩
December 15, 2022
When it takes you 4 years to work through an anthology of poetry, it's probably because the selection is of incredibly poor quality and just plain unpleasant to grind through. I can imagine the most avid reader of poetry being completely turned off to the art by the time they make it through this book--if they ever make it through this book.
I'm not entirely sure what the goal of this book was. It starts off with a forward ranting and raving about how Walt Whitman is the Jesus--the Messiah--of America. Seriously. I'm not even kidding. Now, I've never much cared for Whitman's "poetry" (and unfortunately, I've read all of it), so this was already starting me off on the wrong foot. Ironically, after frothing and foaming at the mouth about how Whitman is the American Messiah come down from heaven to lead us all to the promise land--or somewhere--he wasn't given that huge a spread within the anthology.
Most of the poems Bloom focuses on seem to be futile exercises in mental masturbation, the goal simply to be as abstract, recondite, unrelatable, and unreadable as possible. I came away from about 90% of the poems feeling like some self-inflated ego just came in my eye, and I couldn't work fast enough to rinse the grotesque, slightly chlorinated effusion from my orbs. What I found especially abrasive was a poem actually dedicated _to_ Bloom, which suddenly gave the whole anthology a cronyistic feel, the entire product purely the result of an academic circle-jerk. But, as a dedicated student of poetry I continued reading, and rinsing, reading, and rinsing, reading, and rinsing--furiously rinsing. The hope always being to gain some new insight into the nature of the art and its manifestations.
That said, I did find a handful of gems within these pages. They were far and few between, but I was happy to discover them. I suppose it is inevitable that if you mash enough poems together, however inbred and obscure they may be, a few quality pieces _should_ slip through and find their way in. I'd have to imagine that upon reviewing the finished, published product, Bloom came across these poems and cursed himself for allowing them to be included, thinking that there must have been some absolute piece of nonsense jizzed up by one of his cronies that he could have put there instead. I'll just have to be a little thankful that he missed those, for without the 20 or so gems I probably would never have worked my way to the end.
I'm not entirely sure what the goal of this book was. It starts off with a forward ranting and raving about how Walt Whitman is the Jesus--the Messiah--of America. Seriously. I'm not even kidding. Now, I've never much cared for Whitman's "poetry" (and unfortunately, I've read all of it), so this was already starting me off on the wrong foot. Ironically, after frothing and foaming at the mouth about how Whitman is the American Messiah come down from heaven to lead us all to the promise land--or somewhere--he wasn't given that huge a spread within the anthology.
Most of the poems Bloom focuses on seem to be futile exercises in mental masturbation, the goal simply to be as abstract, recondite, unrelatable, and unreadable as possible. I came away from about 90% of the poems feeling like some self-inflated ego just came in my eye, and I couldn't work fast enough to rinse the grotesque, slightly chlorinated effusion from my orbs. What I found especially abrasive was a poem actually dedicated _to_ Bloom, which suddenly gave the whole anthology a cronyistic feel, the entire product purely the result of an academic circle-jerk. But, as a dedicated student of poetry I continued reading, and rinsing, reading, and rinsing, reading, and rinsing--furiously rinsing. The hope always being to gain some new insight into the nature of the art and its manifestations.
That said, I did find a handful of gems within these pages. They were far and few between, but I was happy to discover them. I suppose it is inevitable that if you mash enough poems together, however inbred and obscure they may be, a few quality pieces _should_ slip through and find their way in. I'd have to imagine that upon reviewing the finished, published product, Bloom came across these poems and cursed himself for allowing them to be included, thinking that there must have been some absolute piece of nonsense jizzed up by one of his cronies that he could have put there instead. I'll just have to be a little thankful that he missed those, for without the 20 or so gems I probably would never have worked my way to the end.
June 12, 2020
A marvelous collection. And comprehensive.
I began it well before the quarantine, but it was a solace during a difficult time.
I began it well before the quarantine, but it was a solace during a difficult time.
December 30, 2025
Interesting collection. I’d say at least as much spiritual as religious, including strongly anti-religious. But it covers the range America.
August 31, 2016
Interesting collection. I appreciate that Bloom included a section of African American Spirituals and also American Indian Songs and Chants. (Of these, the Ghost Dance Songs of the Kiowa were very moving, considering the tragic events that accompanied them.)
"Ye Flippering Soule,
Why dost between the Nippers dwell?
fr. Let by Rain - Edward Taylor
(I know that's not supposed to be funny, but I can't help myself.)
"We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time."
T.S. Eliot - Little Gidding
21)Meditation - Edward Taylor
23)Let by Rain - " "
51)Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep - Emma H. Willard
52)The Coral Insect - Lydia Huntley Sigourney
56)To a Waterfowl - William Cullen Bryant
57)Forest Hymn - " "
101)Sic Vita - Henry David Thoreau
138)Sonnet - Frederick Goddard Tuckerman
175)A Prayer in Spring - Robert Frost
181)For You - Carl Sandburg
228)Little Gidding - T.S.Eliot *
245)God's World - Edna St. Vincent Millay
246)e.e. cummings
247)Luzzato - Charles Reznikoff
278)Take My Hand Thomas A. Dorsey
300)Evening Hawk - Robert Penn Warren
301)Heart of Autumn - " "
308)The Waking - Theodore Roethke *
309)In a Dark Time - " " *
366)A Christmas Hymn - Richard Wilbur
379)The Jacob's Ladder - Denise Levertov
392)The City Limits - A.R. Ammons
460)When Death Comes - Mary Oliver
599)Ghost-Dance Songs - Kiowa *
"Ye Flippering Soule,
Why dost between the Nippers dwell?
fr. Let by Rain - Edward Taylor
(I know that's not supposed to be funny, but I can't help myself.)
"We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time."
T.S. Eliot - Little Gidding
21)Meditation - Edward Taylor
23)Let by Rain - " "
51)Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep - Emma H. Willard
52)The Coral Insect - Lydia Huntley Sigourney
56)To a Waterfowl - William Cullen Bryant
57)Forest Hymn - " "
101)Sic Vita - Henry David Thoreau
138)Sonnet - Frederick Goddard Tuckerman
175)A Prayer in Spring - Robert Frost
181)For You - Carl Sandburg
228)Little Gidding - T.S.Eliot *
245)God's World - Edna St. Vincent Millay
246)e.e. cummings
247)Luzzato - Charles Reznikoff
278)Take My Hand Thomas A. Dorsey
300)Evening Hawk - Robert Penn Warren
301)Heart of Autumn - " "
308)The Waking - Theodore Roethke *
309)In a Dark Time - " " *
366)A Christmas Hymn - Richard Wilbur
379)The Jacob's Ladder - Denise Levertov
392)The City Limits - A.R. Ammons
460)When Death Comes - Mary Oliver
599)Ghost-Dance Songs - Kiowa *
February 22, 2011
Enough great stuff in this volume to make it worthpicking up. It celebrates what Giles Gunn calls the "oddly religious nature of American literature." See Marilynne Robinson's excellent review of it (which should be included in subsequent editions as an intro): http://www.poetryfoundation.org/journ...
May 11, 2012
This book is not what I was expecting. Think of it more as a PBS look at poetry that had anything to do with religion. It even has some pretty blatant anti-god ones. I did find a few I liked that lead me to better books so that's the value I found in it.
Read
January 14, 2018I think "sacred" or "spiritual" would have been a better word than "religious" for the title of this anthology, as it intends to (and does) reflect a very broad expanse of individual relationships to the Divine, in all the different ways it is referred to. Harold Bloom refers to this as "the American religion" in the introduction, which doesn't seem particularly helpful, but I can see where he's coming from. An Emerson quote early in the introduction makes a very clear distinction between, effectively, Sanaatan Dharma and "churchianity," without using those terms, and it's interesting to read through the poems seeing how such themes manifest in different ways.
It's actually taken me several years to work my way through this book, but I did finally finish. It's the sort of thing I don't like to give a rating to, though, so I won't. There's too wide a range between the poems I do like and the ones I don't. I did mark stars in the table of contents next to my favorites as I went along, though, and as it's organized chronologically, it's easy to see that my preferences have a strong weighting towards the 19th Century.
The introduction is considerably more Harold Bloom than I can stomach, so I skimmed half of it and flipped through the rest. The "about this book" by Jesse Zuba is a fine introduction on its own. The "reader's guide" at the end turns out to be sort of a thematic index, which is kind of cool. It's not exhaustive, but if you want to find poems about "prayer" or "nature" or whatever, it'll give some suggestions.
It's actually taken me several years to work my way through this book, but I did finally finish. It's the sort of thing I don't like to give a rating to, though, so I won't. There's too wide a range between the poems I do like and the ones I don't. I did mark stars in the table of contents next to my favorites as I went along, though, and as it's organized chronologically, it's easy to see that my preferences have a strong weighting towards the 19th Century.
The introduction is considerably more Harold Bloom than I can stomach, so I skimmed half of it and flipped through the rest. The "about this book" by Jesse Zuba is a fine introduction on its own. The "reader's guide" at the end turns out to be sort of a thematic index, which is kind of cool. It's not exhaustive, but if you want to find poems about "prayer" or "nature" or whatever, it'll give some suggestions.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews