Accompanied by Angels: Poems of the Incarnation

by Luci Shaw

From the time she was a child in Toronto, celebrated poet Luci Shaw has sent Advent greetings to her friends and family with a carefully crafted original poem. What began as a simple childhood exercise has now become a beloved annual tradition. Though a number of these poems have appeared elsewhere,  Accompanied by Angels  gathers all of them for the first time into a collection for all readers for any season of the year.

Beginning with the joy, terror, and wonder of the annunciation, Shaw leads the reader on a poetic journey through the birth, life, and death of Jesus the Christ, culminating in the joyous and unexpected wonder of his resurrection. Her subjects run from the mundane to the sublime, from birds in flight and waiting old men to fiery angels and storm-ravaged ridges.

Genres: Poetry, Christian, Christmas, Faith, Christianity

110 pages, Paperback

First published June 19, 2006

About the author

Luci Shaw is a Christian writer of poetry and essays.

Reviews

[Bethany · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I'd rated this early on I would've given it a slightly lower rating. Clearly they saved the best for last! Brilliant in its imagery. Luci Shaw thinks about the incarnation in such a profound way!

[Matthew Lynch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great collection of poems, a few of my faves were 1) The Golden Ratio and the Coriolis Force, a beautiful and wonderful meditation on the eucharist and universe. 2)Jordan River, and these words in particular:
"But can you vision clean Jesus under Jordan's water? John the baptizer did holding the thin white body down seeing it muddied as any sinner's against river bottom grimed by the ground of his being."

[Ali · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this volume better than the other Luci Shaw book I read. The theme of incarnation is intriguing to me and I enjoyed the various perspectives she explores, Advent, the life of Jesus, his suffering and death, and resurrection. Some of the poems I found to be lacking something. They almost felt like they were not quite finished and could have used more work. Luci Shaw is not my favorite, but I’m glad I gave her a try.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve rarely encountered a writer as skilled at wrestling big, enthralling, incomprehensible ideas into words as Luci Shaw. Her poems left me reflecting with fresh, needed awe at the incarnation, life and death, and the weight of Christ’s sacrifice.

[Joshua Gage · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too many cliches and abstractions to work as a whole for me, but there are some hidden gems in here that make it work reading once.

[Drew Bennett · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my favorite contemporary poets. "Descent" and "Mary's Song" are two of my favorites in this volume.

[Danielle Hardy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not all of Luci's poems spoke to me in this collection, but the ones that did...wow.

[Amy Kannel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such lovely poems. They weren't all five stars, but enough of them were that I'll hang onto and return to this volume.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Luci Shaw takes a Gerard Manley Hopkins love of the sonority of English (her poems are especially powerful when read aloud)--without Hopkins's sometimes perplexing, even cumbersome, density--and articulates a less eccentrically monastic and much more accessibly familiar, and feminine, sensibility.

I have loved her poetry since my late father introduced me to it in the 1970s, and have found it ever fresh: it prickles and soothes, startles and reminds, commands and comforts.

This collection is good especially for Advent and Lent, but I've been musing through it, a poem a day, for some months now. Each work invariably sends me off on a jet of thought, whether confined within the poem's limits or utterly tangential...and always edifying.

[Joy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The inspiration Shaw draws from the Incarnation has been manifestly clear to me in reading all her other books. Having the clearest examples thereof gathered here is convenient, but I think I prefer the moment of surprise when encountering them out of order, commingled with poems about other facets of life.

Again, her tracing out Christ's life - that is, grouping the poems by Announcement, Arrival, Living, Dying, Risen - is helpful, liturgically. But it seems to me more powerful to have Christ's life, Christ's death, Christ's living again overlap in the mind and the heart: eternally present.

[Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some really lovely poems in here!

I love the way Luci Shaw transmutes simple pleasures, especially those of the outdoor sort, into sublime spiritual and theological reflections. She also sometimes blends her own experiences with Mary's imagined perspective (for example, "Advent Visitation"), so that many of her poems were doubly enriching for me as a mother.

Of course one must always approach such poetry gingerly, but I think it's possible to enjoy and benefit from this collection without sacrificing a clear view of the actual biblical record.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shaw's earthy poems provide shocks of wonder and recognition on the subjects of the Incarnation and the life of Christ. An excellent addition to Advent readings.

[Marlo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful. A fresh look at an old story. Perfect reading at Christmas.

[Nick Roark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful