Two dozen select prayer poems to learn from and live with Poetry and prayer are closely related. We often look to poets to give language to our deepest hopes, fears, losses—and prayers. Poets slow us down. They teach us to stop and go in before we go on. They play at the edges of mystery, holding a tension between line and sentence, between sense and reason, between the transcendent and the deeply, comfortingly familiar. When Poets Pray contains thoughtful meditations by Marilyn McEntyre on choice poems/prayers and poems about prayer. Her beautifully written reflections are contemplative exercises, not scholarly analyses, meant more as invitation than instruc¬tion. Here McEntyre shares gifts that she herself has received from poets who pray, or who reflect on prayer, believing that they have other gifts to offer readers seeking spiritual companionship along our pilgrim way. POETS DISCUSSED IN THIS BOOK Hildegard of Bingen Lucille Clifton Walter Chalmers Smith Robert Frost Wendell Berry Joy Harjo John Donne Gerard Manley Hopkins Said Marilyn McEntyre George Herbert Thomas Merton Denise Levertov Scott Cairns Mary Oliver Marin Sorescu T. S. Eliot Richard Wilbur Francisco X. Alarcon Anna Kamienska Michael Chitwood Psalm 139:1-12

This volume marks the first translation of these prayer-poems into English. Originally written in 1899, Rilke wrote them upon returning to Germany from his first trip to Russia. His experience of the East shaped him profoundly. He found himself entranced by Orthodox churches and monasteries, above all by the icons that seemed to him like flames glowing in dark spaces. He intended these poems as icons of sorts, gestures that could illumine a way for seekers in the darkness. As Rilke here writes, "I love the dark hours of my being, / for they deepen my senses."

A collection of poetry and prayers reflecting the beliefs of the American Indians which have been handed down for many generations.

Drawing from the poetry of generations of esteemed writers Gary Bouchard shows how poems often express the longings of the human heart as a kind of prayer. Emily Dickinson, Rev. Rowan Williams, Pope John Paul II, Christina Rossetti, Robert Frost, and Fr. Kilian McDonnell, OSB, among others, offer readers an inspiring path to reflect upon and pray with poetic verse. Arranged under six engaging themes, each selection uses the words of poets as vehicles to prompt “heaven in ordinary” or to praise like “exalted manna”; to find the right “paraphrase” for your own soul or maybe sense your “soul’s blood”; to muster up from your grief or anger “reversed thunder” or dare to articulate from your own personal anguish “Christ-side-piercing spear.”

The U.S. merchant marine played a critical, though often overlooked, role in World War II. This historical text provides a brief narrative of each of the recorded attacks on American-flagged merchant ships, as well as an accounting of the men and the ships, which were a part of this worldwide conflict. In addition to the wealth of data on the ships, their crews and cargoes, this text depicts the exciting and often violent story of the hundreds of enemy attacks on convoys and lone merchant vessels. Evident within the narrative is the gallantry and sacrifice of naval gun crews and the merchant crewmen.

This major new poetry collection from bestselling poet and priest Malcolm Guite features more than seventy new and previously unpublished works. At the heart of this collection is a sequence of twenty seven sonnets written in response to George Herbert’s exquisite sonnet 'Prayer', each one describing prayer in an arresting metaphor such as ‘the church's banquet’, ‘reversed thunder’, ‘the Milky Way’, ‘the bird of paradise’ and ‘something understood’. In conversation with each of these, Malcolm’s sonnets offer profound insights into the nature of communion with God in all circumstances and conditions. Recognising that all poetry is a pursuit of prayer, After Prayer also includes forty five more widely ranging new poems, including a sonnet sequence on the seven heavens.

Msgr. Charles began writing these words as conclusions to his homilies at Sunday Mass, usually summarizing three main points from each homily in the form of a prayer. The growing, positive response to the prayers by parishioners encouraged author and retired pastor Charles D. McGlinn to make the choice to publish his prayers for more than his congregation to enjoy. The efforts created this book, Poem Prayers, that feature several of his treasured poetic prayers from the past twenty-five years. The prayers are divided into groups under certain themes, for example Christian discipleship, the cross, sin and forgiveness, and the Eucharist. The poem prayers reflect the parables and teachings of Jesus as found in the scriptures, such as loving God as we should, loving one's enemies and communicating with God to learn of His will. Other prayers celebrate the feelings we experience when we desire Jesus to be near us, drawing us closer to God in trust and faith. Our hope is to enlighten readers to the wonderful gift prayer can be to unite believers with God and with others in their lives. The proceeds from book sales will go towards facilitating the operations of Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos in Miacatlan, Mexico, an orphanage providing food, clothing, medical services, housing and more for orphaned/abandoned children in Mexico. What began as a parting message to congregants has led Poem Prayers to not only reach people around the world, but also support the growth and development of faith for children in need of God's protection and love."

Interdisciplinary and ecumenical in scope, Poetry and Prayer offers theoretical discussion on the profound connection between poetic inspiration and prayer as well as reflection on the work of individual writers and the traditions within which they stand. An international range of established and new scholars in literary studies and theology offer unique contributions to the neglected study of poetry in relation to prayer. Part I addresses the relationship of prayer and poetry. Parts II and III consider these and related ideas from the point of view of their implementation in a range of different authors and traditions, offering case studies from, for example, the Bible, Dante, Shakespeare and Herbert, as well as twentieth-century poets such as Thomas Merton, Denise Levertov, W.H. Auden and R.S. Thomas.

The collections of prayers, blessings and hymns indicate that fixed prayers were already customary within Judaism during the period of the Second Temple within sectarian circles. In the light of the prayer texts from Qumran the author conducts a systematic study of Jewish prayer beginning with its biblical traditions, through its development during the Second Temple period, and down to rabbinic prayer.

Over the years, Denise Levertov's poetry has moved ever more deeply into the realm of meditation, while yet speaking with the familiar voice of "the poet in the world." Oblique Prayers is arranged in four thematic sections that, taken together, work toward a mature philosophy in equal harmony with public activism and private reflection. A personal mood links the poems of “Decipherings.” In “Prisoners," the poet addresses the continuing horrors of our dark time: genocide, imperialism, impending nuclear holocaust––human degradation in brutal political guise. Levertov is an accomplished translator. With "Fourteen Poems by Jean Joubert," she introduces English-speaking readers to a contemporary French poet whose work is remarkably akin to her own. "Of God and of the Gods," the final section of the book, is informed by a transcendent lyricism that can equate in a breath "a day of spring, a needle's eye."