Six Christian Poetry Anthologies Worth Reading
I won’t go so far as to call it a “golden age” as yet—such claims have a way of returning to embarrass overly-confident prognosticators—but we are living in a very healthy and interesting time for poetry in general, and for poetry by persons of faith, specifically. Whereas once the faith-based artist faced a wasteland of editors hostile to any hint of that kind of thing, we now enjoy a fulsome, thriving scene replete with journals of the highest quality, conferences, both recurring and individual that create occasions to gather, online communities, churches that double as reading venues, intelligent readers with an apparently boundless appetite for verse, and entire presses dedicated to its production.
Enter the anthologists.
When a particular mode of production, or of concern, reaches certain thresholds, or when public taste shifts palpably enough, artifacts attesting to it arise to delineate its contours. Often this happens around the turn of the century, or when a major figure dies. Poetry anthologies not only summarize the zeitgeist, but become lasting works of art in themselves: think of W.H. Auden’s Book of Light Verse or Keillor’s Good Poems for Hard Times. Sometimes, another organizational principle prevails. Copper Canyon has just released a luminous anthology on the occasion of the press’ 50th anniversary. FSG has published one celebrating 75 years of their influential poetry list.
If they don’t always include the very best of what’s being done, they do serve as handy introductions to a scene, a movement, a press, a time.
What follows is a gathering of just some of the faith-based poetry anthologies assembled in recent years. These are not the sorts of books one reads sequentially. I recommend dipping in wherever you like, and finding something that catches your ear, snags you by the heart. Maybe you’ll find a new favorite and track down their collections hereafter. If you don’t like any of it, remember that anthologies are never completely representative, and always reflect a certain editor’s taste. Your mileage may vary.
Read around. Click wildly. Go to readings. Get recs.
Or subscribe to a good poetry newsletter, if you happen know of one.
The Soul in Paraphrase: A Treasury of Classic Devotional Poems ed. Ryken
This collection is big on the classics, the sort of poems that English Majors already know, but it’s a handsome book and features page long explanations about why these particular poems are so moving and powerful, for those who could use some help with interpretation.
Before the Door of God: An Anthology of Devotional Poetry ed. Hopler and Johnson
A massive collection that begins with early Christian mystics and goes right through to authors still living. Includes the heavies, but also many lesser-known poems. Importantly, this anthology makes space for authors who are not themselves religious, who nevertheless write prayerfully or Biblically-informed poetry.
To Heaven’s Rim: The Kingdom Poets Book of World Christian Poetry ed. Horniachek
Attending especially to non-English poetry in translation, this collection testifies to the broad witness of the church across the world from the earliest records to about 1800.
Christian Poetry in America Since 1940 ed. Mattix and Thomas
A survey of (mostly) contemporary and late-Modernist voices by professing Christians in the U.S. They didn’t include my work (humph) but it’s still a great who’s who.
See how narrow and interesting these assemblies can be? This one is not just English, and contemporary, but features poems only from the last 25 years as published in a single magazine.
The Turning Aside: The Kingdom Poets Book of Contemporary Christian Poetry ed. Martin
A very fine collection of modern Christian poetry with a few bigger names—Richard Wilbur, R.S. Thomas—thrown in. Most of them from poets on the Poeima Series, who (full-disclosure) published my first book. Want to know what’s going on now? I’d start here.
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And this is not all! There are new anthologies featuring specifically Catholic poems, and others featuring vaguely-spiritual or inspiring poems, but this should be enough to get you started.
Wherever you are in your poetry-reading journey, note that, as with all journeys, there’s more to be seen.
