Faith, Hope and Poetry explores the poetic imagination as a way of knowing; a way of seeing reality more clearly. Presenting a series of critical appreciations of English poetry from Anglo-Saxon times to the present day, Malcolm Guite applies the insights of poetry to contemporary issues and the contribution poetry can make to our religious knowing and the way we 'do theology'. This book is not solely concerned with overtly religious poetry, but attends to the paradoxical ways in which the poetry of doubt and despair also enriches theology. Developing an original analysis and application of the poetic vision of Coleridge, Larkin and Seamus Heaney in the final chapters, Guite builds towards a substantial theology of imagination and provides unique insights into truth that complement and enrich more strictly rational ways of knowing. Readers of this book will return to their reading of poetry equipped with new insights and enthusiasm and will be challenged to integrate imaginative ways of knowing into their other academic and intellectual pursuits.

Poetry has always been a central element of Christian spirituality and is increasingly used in worship, in pastoral services and guided meditation. In Sounding the Seasons, Cambridge poet, priest and singer-songwriter Malcolm Guite transforms seventy lectionary readings into lucid, inspiring poems, for use in regular worship, seasonal services, meditative reading or on retreat. Already widely recognised, Malcolm's writing has been acclaimed by Rowan Williams and Luci Shaw, two leading contemporary religious poets. Seven Advent poems from this collection will appear in the next edition of Penguin's (US) Best Spiritual Writing edited by Philip Zaleski, alongside the work of writers such as Seamus Heaney and Annie Dillard. Malcolm Guite is Chaplain of Girton College, Cambridge. A performance poet and singer/songwriter, he lectures widely on poetry and theology in Britain and the US and has a large following on his website, www.malcolmguite.wordpress.com. He is a contributor to Reflections for Daily Prayer.

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.

Since the publication of the bestselling Sounding the Seasons, Malcolm Guite has repeatedly been asked for more sonnets. This new collection offers a sequence of 50 sonnets that focus on many passages in the Gospels: the Beatitudes, parables and miracles, teachings on the Kingdom, and the 'hard sayings' - Jesus' challenging demands with which we wrestle. In addition this collection includes: * A sequence of five sonnets on 'The Wilderness', exploring mysterious stories of divine encounter such as Jacob's wrestling with the angel. * Poetic reflections on music, hospitality and ecology. * Seven short poems celebrating the days of creation. * A biblical index pairing the poems with scripture readings for use in worship.

Faith, Hope and Poetry explores the poetic imagination as a way of knowing; a way of seeing reality more clearly. Presenting a series of critical appreciations of English poetry from Anglo-Saxon times to the present day, Malcolm Guite applies the insights of poetry to contemporary issues and the contribution poetry can make to our religious knowing and the way we 'do theology'. This book is not solely concerned with overtly religious poetry, but attends to the paradoxical ways in which the poetry of doubt and despair also enriches theology. Developing an original analysis and application of the poetic vision of Coleridge, Larkin and Seamus Heaney in the final chapters, Guite builds towards a substantial theology of imagination and provides unique insights into truth that complement and enrich more strictly rational ways of knowing. Readers of this book will return to their reading of poetry equipped with new insights and enthusiasm and will be challenged to integrate imaginative ways of knowing into their other academic and intellectual pursuits.

Reflections for Daily Prayer continues to be one of the most popular and highly valued daily Bible reading companions. Continuing its tradition of excellence, regular favourites and new contributors offer insightful, informed and inspiring reflections on the scripture readings of the day, based on the Common Worship lectionary for Morning Prayer. Stephen Cottrell, the Archbishop of York, is the guest contributor for Holy Week. New voices this year include Gregory Cameron, the Bishop of St Asaph and author of the popular An Advent Book of Days and An Easter Book of Days; Chine MacDonald, author, broadcaster and Director of the religious think tank Theos; and Emma Parker, Deputy Warden of Cranmer Hall, Durham. For every day (excluding Sundays) of the 2023-24 church year, there are full references and a quotation from the day’s set of Scripture readings, concise and challenging commentary, and a collect. Also included is a simple order for Morning and Night Rrayer, and additional helps for nurturing a habit of regular daily prayer.

'The story of Coleridge's life does undoubtedly echo that of his poem; this is a book that provides rewarding rereadings of both' - The Sunday Times A new biography of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, shaped and structured around the story he himself tells in his most famous poem, 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'. Though the 'Mariner' was written in 1797 when Coleridge was only twenty-five, it was an astonishingly prescient poem. As Coleridge himself came to realise much later, this tale - of a journey that starts in high hopes and good spirits, but leads to a profound encounter with human fallibility, darkness, alienation, loneliness and dread, before coming home to a renewal of faith and vocation - was to be the shape of his own life. In this rich new biography, academic, priest and poet Malcolm Guite draws out how with an uncanny clarity, image after image and event after event in the poem became emblems of what Coleridge was later to suffer and discover. Of course 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' is more than just an individual's story: it is also a profound exploration of the human condition and, as Coleridge says in his gloss, our 'loneliness and fixedness'. But the poem also offers hope, release, and recovery; and Guite also draws out the continuing relevance of Coleridge's life and writing to our own time. 'Forcefully and convincingly argued' - The Telegraph

For every day from Shrove Tuesday to Easter Day, the bestselling poet Malcolm Guite chooses a favourite poem from across the Christian spiritual and English literary traditions and offers incisive seasonal reflections on it. Lent is a time to reorient ourselves, clarify our minds, slow down, recover from distraction and focus on the values of God's kingdom. Poetry, with its power to awaken the mind, is an ideal companion for such a time. This collection enables us to turn aside from everyday routine and experience moments of transfigured vision as we journey through the desert landscape of Lent and find refreshment along the way. Following each poem with a helpful prose reflection, Malcolm Guite has selected from classical and contemporary poets, from Dante, John Donne and George Herbert to Seamus Heaney, Rowan Williams and Gillian Clarke, and his own acclaimed poetry.

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.

Advent is a season of waiting and anticipation in which the waiting itself is strangely rich and fulfilling. Poetry can help us fathom the depths of Advent's many paradoxes: dark and light, emptiness and fulfilment, ancient and ever new. For every day from Advent Sunday to Christmas Day and beyond, the bestselling poet Malcolm Guite chooses a favourite poem from across the Christian spiritual and English literary traditions and offers incisive seasonal reflections on it. In the spirit of the season, he blends the familiar and the new, ranging from from spiritual classics such as Edmund Spenser, John Donne, George Herbert and Christina Rossetti, to contemporary voices Luci Shaw and Scott Cairns. His own acclaimed sequence of sonnets for the great Advent antiphons are also included.

My Theology: The world’s leading Christian thinkers explain some of the principal tenets of their theological beliefs. The Word within the words is a Poet’s Credo, in which Malcolm Guite describes how his Christian faith informs and underpins his poetry, and in turn how poetry itself, and more widely the poetic imagination, helps him to understand and interpret his faith. Illustrating his account with personal stories and poetry – both his own and classics from the canon – Guite explains a guiding theology of Christ as the Word, the essential logos that underlies all things, made flesh for us in Jesus. He then demonstrates how Scripture, Liturgy and Sacrament can each be understood as a poetry capable of transfiguring our vision and transforming our lives.

Malcolm Guite's eagerly awaited second poetry collection includes poems that seek beauty and transfiguration in the everyday; sonnets inspired by Francis and other outstanding saints; poems centred on love, parting and mortality. A further group, 'Word and World', searches for the life of the spirit in the midst of modernity and includes an ode to an iPhone, while others wrestle with the problem of evil and the difficulty of prayer. Throughout, the poet seeks to celebrate the world of which he is made, find heaven in the ordinary and echo a little of its music.

Instead of the cross, the Albatross About my neck was hung. Samuel Taylor Coleridge's famous poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" is often regarded as having heralded the beginning of the Romantic era in British literature. The poem narrates the story of a sailor who has returned home from a long voyage having suffered great loss, yet survived. In this Studies in Theology and the Arts volume, poet and theologian Malcolm Guite leads readers on a journey with Coleridge, whose own life paralleled the experience of the mariner. On this theological voyage, Guite draws out the continuing relevance of this work and the ability of poetry to communicate the truths of humanity's fallenness, our need for grace, and the possibility of redemption. The Studies in Theology and the Arts series encourages Christians to thoughtfully engage with the relationship between their faith and artistic expression, with contributions from both theologians and artists on a range of artistic media including visual art, music, poetry, literature, film, and more.

Malcolm Guite's eagerly awaited second poetry collection includes poems that seek beauty and transfiguration in the everyday; sonnets inspired by Francis and other outstanding saints; poems centred on love, parting and mortality. A further group, 'Word and World', searches for the life of the spirit in the midst of modernity and includes an ode to an iPhone, while others wrestle with the problem of evil and the difficulty of prayer. Throughout, the poet seeks to celebrate the world of which he is made, find heaven in the ordinary and echo a little of its music.

Each year, the Holy Week and Easter double issue of the Church Times offers a wealth of seasonal reading and resources for worship and preaching. This volume, like its companion Christmas collection, draws together outstanding features from the past twenty years. It includes: * Meditations on the Stations of the Cross by the poet David Scott; * A short story set in Gethsemane by David Hart; * Timothy Radcliffe on the alternative to conflict symbolised by the Last Supper; * Sam Wells on Pilate and what he - and we - could do differently; * Richard Harries on the art of Good Friday; * Peter Stanford on Judas; * Michael Perham on why Easter celebrations should start in the dark; * Stephen Cleobury on the carols of Easter; * Mark Oakley on the poetry of the cross; * Paula Gooder on why the resurrection is central to faith; * Reflections on the season's lectionary readings, and much besides. In life Jesus had 'nowhere to lay his head' and in death was laid in a borrowed tomb. Mindful of this, all royalties from this book will go to the Church Homeless Trust.

Poet's Corner is Malcolm Guite's delectable column that appears on the back page of the Church Times each week. This second collection brings together more than seventy columns created from little glimpses and reflections from all corners of the country, the musings of a poet's mind, and the corners and alleyways of our literary heritage. Malcolm's lucid, perceptive and imaginative columns follow a similar pattern to the sonnets for which he is so renowned, with a sense of development, of a turn or volta part way through, and a sense that the end revisits and re-reads the opening. They draw together everyday events and encounters, landscape, journeys, poetry, stories, memory and a sense of the sacred, fusing them to create richly satisfying portraits of the familiar that at the same time open a doorway into a new and enchanted world.

Succeeding Ronald Blythe's Word From Wormingford, one of the most beloved columns in contemporary journalism, was always going to be a formidable challenge for any writer. Yet the new occupier of the back page slot of the Church Times, the priest-poet Malcolm Guite, immediately gained the affections and loyalty of a discerning audience accustomed to literary excellence. His lucid, perceptive and imaginative musings follow a similar pattern to the sonnets for which he is so renowned. In his own words, he treats these 500 word essays 'a little in the spirit of the sonnet, with a sense of development, of a 'turn' or volta part way through, and a sense that the end revisits and re-reads the opening'. These draw together everyday events and encounters, landscape, journeys, poetry, stories, memory and a sense of the sacred, and fuses them to create richly satisfying portraits of the familiar that at the same time opens a doorway in to a new and enchanted world.

Reflections for Daily Prayer has nourished thousands of Christians for a decade with its inspiring and informed weekday Bible reflections. Now, in response to demand, Reflections for Sundays combines material from over the years with new writing to provide high-quality reflections on the Principal Readings for Sundays and major Holy Days. Contributors include some of the very best writers from across the Anglican tradition who have helped to establish it as one of the leading daily devotional volumes today. For each Sunday and major Holy Day in Year C, Reflections for Sundays offers: * full lectionary details for the Principle Service * a reflection on the Old Testament reading * a reflection on the Epistle * a reflection on the Gospel It also contains a substantial introduction to the Gospels of Luke, written by renowned Bible teacher Paula Gooder.