In Every Corner Sing: A Poet's Corner collection

by Malcolm Guite

Succeeding Ronald Blythe's Word From Wormingford, one of the most beloved columns in contemporary journalism, was always going to be a formidable challenge for any writer. Yet the new occupier of the back page slot of the Church Times, the priest-poet Malcolm Guite, immediately gained the affections and loyalty of a discerning audience accustomed to literary excellence.

His lucid, perceptive and imaginative musings follow a similar pattern to the sonnets for which he is so renowned. In his own words, he treats these 500 word essays 'a little in the spirit of the sonnet, with a sense of development, of a 'turn' or volta part way through, and a sense that the end revisits and re-reads the opening'.

These draw together everyday events and encounters, landscape, journeys, poetry, stories, memory and a sense of the sacred, and fuses them to create richly satisfying portraits of the familiar that at the same time opens a doorway in to a new and enchanted world.

Genres: Poetry, Theology, Philosophy

153 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 9, 2018

Reviews

[Jeff Garrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had not read Guite when I heard him speak at the HopeWords Writing Conference in Bluefield earlier this month. While there, I purchased and had him sign this collection of his columns which appeared in Church Times, a British magazine. Each article is about 500 words or two to two and a half pages in length. Although English, Guite spent part of his years growing up in Canada. As I read this book, I enjoyed getting to know him better. Each article draws on poetry, from ancient to modern poets including a few from his own hand.

In them, he muses about poetry and the natural world. We learn of a man who enjoys many things, from smoking a pipe to walking his dogs. We also learn of his deep faith in Christ, his delight at the natural world, and how we are connected to those who came before us. Most of these essays have a nice twist at the end. In one story, he marvels at an old bridge as he canoes “Willow” on a river through the bridge. The last two arches in the bridge are “new.” They were rebuilt after having been destroyed Cromwell’s era (17th Century) to prevent an army from taking a town. After flirting with the bridge, the poetry of Tennyson and Eliot, he ends marveling at the bridge God has built through Christ that cannot be destroyed.

This was a perfect wind-down book for the evening as I could read through four or five of the seventy-three columns, before closing the book, turning out the light, and going to bed.

[Leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a book to savor; one reading at a time means it took me over 4 months. In a world of noise, we need poets to help us find quiet. Guite is marvelous for this, finding spiritual truths in the stuff of life. My favorite chapter is the one on bluebells. Also, now I really want to visit England someday.

[Aaron Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a delightful book of musings and stories.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely reading and full of further reading material.

[Ryan Geer · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best thing I can say about this collection of essays is that I was truly sad when I came to the end and only wished there was more...