David's Crown: Sounding the Psalms

by Malcolm Guite

As well as the name of a virus, a corona is a crown, the pearly glow around the sun in certain astronomical conditions and a poetic form where interlinking lines connect a sequence. It is the perfect name therefore for this new collection of 150 poems by the bestselling poet Malcolm Guite, each one written in response to the Bible s 150 psalms as they appear in William Coverdale s timeless translation. The Psalms express every human emotion with disarming honesty, as anger and thankfulness alike are directed at God. All of life is here with its moments of beauty and its times of despair and shame. Like the Psalms themselves, the poems do not avoid the cursing and glorying over the downfall of your enemies, but wrestle honestly with them as we do when we come to say them.

Genres: Poetry, Christianity, Christian, Spirituality, Theology, Prayer, Biblical Studies

150 pages, Paperback

First published January 15, 2021

Reviews

[Christy Whitsell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! I read this alongside Psalms and several books about Psalms for Lent this year. This book is a delight. It really gave me new eyes to see Psalms. I love how Guite kept the spirit of the Psalm, but included Christ explicitly. He also included modern things, like the exile we’ve all felt due to Covid. I’ll return to this and recommend it far and wide!

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Malcolm Guite restores my faith in Christian poetry. And Christian poetry restores my faith.

These 150 poems, composed in lockdown, perform duets of contradiction - they disarm and strengthen; cleanse and enrich; startle and comfort. Just like the gospel.

The poems are woven into a ‘corona’ - a crown or coronet, where the last line of one becomes the first line of the next. The result is a never-ending breath of praise, which garlands the head of Jesus, who himself wore a bitter crown of thorns for us.

Each poem is a response to a psalm - not a paraphrase. They’re best enjoyed as echoes or sweet refractions, read straight after the original.

[Othy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful collection of poems. I began these without really liking Guite's other poetry, but these were good. I think the difference was that these are all interconnected and rely on one another, and taken in chunks (I read about twenty or so at a time), they create a really beautiful whole. There are some particular gems in here, too.

[Robin Langford · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve been enjoying Malcom Guite’s poetry. These poems were perfect companions as I read through the Psalms.

[Shawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

2021. Malcom Guite’s poetry is always worth revisiting so in 2023 I began my second reading, but this time I started reading it out loud to my husband during his final days, but I didn’t get through it before he entered into the presence of God, our Father. No doubt I will read David’s Crown again in another year or so.

[Ronda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fascinating concept. Each poem is based on a Psalm, though many diverge in unexpected directions. And each poem has fifteen lines written in a specific structured form, with the last line of each forming the first line in the next. Last of all, the 150th poem ends with the same line which began the first, making a complete circle, or crown, of praise. It looks like quite a challenge to make all of that work, and it was interesting to me to see how he managed it.

Guite, as usual, has a beautiful command of language and makes lovely pictures with his words. I spent over a year grazing on this book at random intervals, and it was a joy.

[Devon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful volume of poetry that I read with a friend! This Corona of poems consistently was one of the best parts of my day as I read. Guite managed to make this look at the Psalms both immensely personal yet deeply theological. I recommend this for anyone who enjoys Christian poetry or is looking for a companion to their reading of the Psalms.

[Lucy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another stunning collection of poems from Malcolm Guite.

"Keep your security in Christ, who hears
The slightest murmur of your smallest prayer,
And do not be afraid, but trust in him,
Your heart's in heaven, keep your treasure there."

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you love Christian poetry this is the book for you
Malcolm Guite has written a poem that goes with each of the Psalms I always read the one that goes with the psalm I have just read and see even more

[Heidi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful way to start each morning, reading a psalm and Malcolm’s poem to accompany it. His interpretations may echo, enhance, even contradict mine, but always resulted in a worshipful experience.

[Josh Head · Rating 4 out of 5]

LOVE this collection.
Talk about a baptized imagination!

[Oliver Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

profound and astounding.

[Jess Schurz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn’t love this, but will always love Malcolm!

[Ricky Wall · Rating 5 out of 5]

a good intro to Malcolm Guite. I was rather impressed

[Bernard Delcourt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. It offers a contemporary echo to the psalms. And it makes them connected to our experience of God today. The best way is to read the psalm in the bible first and then read the corresponding poem a couple of times.

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this. Written during 2020, it’s a collection of 150 poems that are responses to each of the Psalms. I found it comforting and challenging and entirely timely; with its personal responses to Scripture, it so often resonated with my own thoughts and emotions from the past couple years of pandemic and general upheaval. This is one I’m sure I’ll go back to again and again in tandem with my reading of the Psalms.

[sch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dec 2025. Resuming at "As the deer." This volume suits the season much better than Bernanos's IMPOSTOR. Update: 40 left to go. Still reading quickly, about ten per sitting. This pace seems right for two reasons: it maintains the "coronal" thread, and the rhymes and repeated lines are often modified or slant.

Two observations about the content: Guite's solution to the problem of imprecatory psalms is rejection ("I cannot pray this psalm"). He cannot reconcile them with the Lord's command to love our enemies, and naturally he prefers Jesus to David. I have encountered two other solutions to this problem in my reading: Augustine somewhere gives a figurative interpretation to the death of earthly foes, as indicating their conversion to Christ and "rebirth" as brethren. Other Fathers read the foes allegorically, as signifying the demons or our sins, rather than men. In my opinion, all three solutions work, but Guite's ranks last.

Secondly, is it just me, or are other readers put off by all these references to the coronavirus? I suppose it was natural for authors in 2020 to reflect so often on the "plague" (Guite's word), but it wears thin pretty quick, here at the end of 2025.

Finished, good.

Oct 2025. Starting over, lovely. Not taking them slowly; the interlinked form invites speed. Alas, quitting again after 40, life too busy.

May 2022. Gift from a colleague. Quitting after 25 psalms. Thought I'd have time for it this summer, but Aquinas and Tolstoy crowded out almost everything else.

[Michael Morris · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book follows the author's personal journal through the psalter with his own poems. The technical achievement is marvelous overall, though it did mean a few lines seem forced or less musical than I would have liked. Normally, I do not like poetry that is "uplifting." However, these poems are for many of the same reasons the actual book of Psalms is.

Even those who do not read poetry may find this a refreshing and edifying volume.

[Melody Schwarting · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this sequence of poems based on the sonnet crown form (they were not sonnets but repeated lines at the beginning/ending of each poem) and the psalms (they are entirely Christocentric). I read it along with my read-through of the Psalter, and enjoyed connecting each poem to its psalm. Some try to get the sense of the whole psalm, and some tease out one or two ideas. I found it fresh that Guite occasionally connected directly to modern issues (see below) but more often relied on timeless meanings. Yet, I found a little too much Christianese for my taste, even though it makes it great for personal devotional use, it leaves the poetry just a little bit lacking. (Maybe that's after being knocked sidways by Ravenna Cole's The Alchemy of Grace, which is highly devotional and not given to Christianese.) Recommended for Guite fans or anyone looking for poetry inspired by the Bible that's not imitative.

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from "Psalm 2: II Quare fremuerunt gentes?"

Then let the chaff of life just blow away:
The cynic scoffer and the evil troll,
The hunters and the haters who hold sway

In raging twitter storms, the ones who scroll
Through hate- and hit-lists in their tiny rage
Are dust upon the mirror of your soul.

from "Psalm 17: XVII Exaudi, Domine"

...I avail
Myself of compline's long familiar chant
To call on you. I ask you to prevail

Over the powers that dull and disenchant,
Over the scoffing of a world that's steeped
In its own excess, and instead to plant

Me firmly by your waters...

"Psalm 130: CXXX De profundis"

Ask him for mercy, you won't be denied.
Call on him de profundis, from the deep;
The places where the child in you has cried

All night unheard, and where your spirit weeps
As Rachael wept and would not be consoled.
Cry from the place where grief unspoken seeps

Into a bitter silence, never told
And never healed. So cry out from the deep:
Bring every grief to God, do not withhold

A tear from him. Give him your tears to keep
For they are precious to him. Flee to him,
His heart was pierced and he knows how to weep,

For he is full of mercy, and with him
Is plenteous redemption. Let him sound
The depths that he might draw you out from them.

[Carol Bakker · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an exquisite collection of poems!

The form of the corona captured me. The last line of each poem links (is repeated) to the first line of the next poem. And the final line of 150 is the same as the first line of 1. Guite is very clear that these poems for each psalm are neither a translation nor a commentary, but more like a prayer journal.

In my own journal I wrote down a phrase from each poem.

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was amazed how Malcolm wrote a poem for every Psalm, and how it was so fitting for each Psalm. He wrote in such a way that made the Psalm seem even clearer in depth and meaning.

I have given this to some who are fighting cancer, as a comfort of how God hears us regardless of what we are going through. I think the Psalms are written to show us that we are all human and our emotions can range from high to low as we go through life and face difficult challenges.

Well written Malcom Guite!

[Melody · Rating 4 out of 5]

I paired this with a Timothy Keller book of praying through the psalms. I liked the format of this book, though I think some of the longer psalms maybe lost some of their beauty and meaning because the author was rigid in sticking to his format for each one (like couldn’t you do a part one and part two or something). I never knew until reading this that the fist half of psalms get darker and more desperate with each one you read and then start getting more positive and hopeful at the halfway point as you work your way towards the last one.

[Margaret Rodeheaver · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book - would give it many more stars if I could. I had to quit turning down page corners on my favorites because I had too many. Read a psalm a day from the Book of Common Prayer, and then the corresponding sonnet from “David’s Crown.” You will see the psalms in a new way, since Guite writes his poetry from a Christian perspective. I especially like how Guite deals with some of the psalms that call down God’s wrath on wrong-doers. Surprising! Loved this book - highly recommend.

[Ryan Geer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Malcolm Guite has quickly become my favorite poet. Over the last few years, the Psalms have become quite important to me—especially as life's circumstances have forced me to this book of Scripture to find (I thought!) some word of encouragement, only to be met with writers who were hurting just like me.
Guite's book of poems from the Psalms are an incredible companion as he takes themes/ideas and adapts them into English poetry. I loved this book and will be going back to it frequently.

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s bittersweet to finish this book. I started it ten months ago and slowly made my way through it - and through the book of Psalms. I think all poetry is best read slowly, so I read only one poem per day, along with the psalm in the BCP and in The Message.

Guite’s writing is wonderful and masterful. I admire his technical expertise and his poems often brought something new to me for the psalm. These poems became prayer for me day after day. I will miss spending time with them.

[Bryan Ens · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have very mixed feelings. As always, Guite's poems are brilliantly written. Based solely on the poems, I would gine this 5 stars, but the poems are supposed to be reflections on the Psalms, and I found that some of the connections were tenuous at best. That being said, writing 150 poems to reflect 150 scriptural poems is a rather daunting task. I'll still recommend this book, but I reluctantly say that this is not Guite's best.

[Annie Nardone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Guite is my favorite contemporary poet - beautiful, lyrical words in each poem that are simple enough for the beginning poetry lover and complex enough to challenge all readers. I recommend reading this in tandem with Coverdale's translation of The Psalter, or the Psalms of David! I suggest using this as a focused study, working through the liturgy of the Psalter with Guite's poems in one month.

[Carole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poems inspired by the psalms - one poem for each psalm. I don't know how good these poems are as poems, but they are responses of a Christian poet to the psalms and I often found myself praying these ´poems´. Other times they took me to a place of contemplation or awe.
If you love the Psalms and are a Christian (or are interested in Christianity), you will love this book.

[Eris Cardin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished reading through this book, and now I'm ready to start right back at the beginning and read each poem alongside the corresponding psalm. The poetry is beautifully designed, lyrical, and thoughtful. So many of the poems made me stop and think, made me wonder, made me look up and pray and ask to look deeper into the beauty of Who our Lord is.

[Leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been reading this alongside the Psalms and love the poetry. I had a few small theological differences along the way, but Guite does an excellent job finding Christ in the Psalms. The corona of repeating last and first lines was beautifully executed as well. Looking forward to reading more of his work.