Synopsis: Committing theology to poetry is not new, but it's not
wildly common. The Sunrise Liturgy aims to do just that. It is a
sequence, like liturgy, with a start and a procession and a finish.
The sun does the processing, and the play on sun and Son is never
far from sight. Sunrise gives the cantus firmus to this theological
theme and variations, where the going is by turns easy, by turns
thickly polyphonic--take a deep breath The cantus firmus shifts
from voice to voice, disappearing, towards year's end, beyond the
audible range of human mortals. But there are other mortals in this
procession of the year, "acolytes of the Holy Impotence," and under
and beside and through it all flows the St. Lawrence River, le
fleuve, winding across the page, a tidal presence at once natural
and mystical. As are the snow geese. As is the heron. There is an
attempt to wrestle with a credible theodicy, especially
environmental. There is a profound penchant for the eremitic, with
nods to The Cloud of Unknowing and Gregory of Nyssa. And always
there is the priestly sense of "performance," enactment, and
Eucharist, for this is a priest speaking. Endorsements: "The
Sunrise Liturgy does what it says on the cover: it is a liturgical
celebration of dawn. That is, it goes over again and again the kind
of change that a new day is--materially and spiritually--and makes
us participants in this event that makes the entire world look
different. It is constantly surprising and very beautiful . . . It
is by turns full of a Joycean exuberance and an extraordinary
stillness. . . Exciting poetry, demanding and enlarging." --Rowan
Williams Archbishop of Canterbury Author of Christian Imagination
in Poetry and Polity "Here is something true--steadying, vivifying.
I felt lifted and anchored by the reading. Anderson's] distinctive
narrative leaps, her metaphoric audacity, the graceful flexibility
of her poetic mind lead us into a sensibility which amounts to a
trued world." --Tim Lilburn Poet and essayist 2003 Governor
General's Literary Award winner "In a world full of voices eager to
tell, to lay truth out for obedient consumption, how refreshing the
buoyant, evocative, teasing, playful--and serious--voice of The
Sunrise Liturgy. Spending time in these pages is like spending
Saturday afternoon with a fearless child." --Michael Thompson
General Secretary of the Anglican Church of Canada "The liturgists
of creation, from St Francis to Thomas Traherne, have always been a
minority Magnificat. . . Here Mia Anderson joins their throng,
introduces environmentalists to the liturgical year, challenges
churchy believers with the swoops of a heron, and juxtaposes
contemporary idiom with echoes deeply textured in the Christian
tradition. The fine membranes between poetry and prayer, prophecy
and play, perception and percussion become invisible. God's
grandeur is alive once more as she hovers on the wind of the
Spirit." --Samuel Wells Author of God's Companions: Reimagining
Christian Ethics Author Biography: Mia Anderson is an Anglican
priest in the Diocese of Quebec, and author of three books of
poetry: Appetite (1988), Chateau Puits '81 (1992), and Practising
Death (1997). She was for many years a theatre actor, and later a
shepherd.
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