In For Lovers of God Everywhere Roger Housden offers 98 of the finest poems from both historic and contemporary writers. This compelling collection puts a spotlight on the great spiritual voices of Christianity, a body of work that is unendingly rich, varied and inspiring. Housden takes us from the wisdom of the Desert Fathers to the passion of St. Augustine, through the medieval ecstasies of St. Francis of Assisi and St. Catherine of Siena to the subtleties of St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila and on to contemporary voices like Rainer Maria Rilke, T.S. Eliot, and Mary Oliver. Housden's insightful commentary on each poem inspires us to take in its words more deeply and shows how the mystical tradition transcends sectarian divides and speaks to the heart of humanity. While uncovering universal themes of longing and ecstasy, silence and wisdom, searching and doubt, the poets all share one goal: earthly union with the divine. Poetry offers the reader the chance to discover realms of beauty and knowledge that we could not otherwise access. Whether we want to find solace, have our thoughts challenged or notice the beauty of existence, the Christian poets transcendent words offer us truths that cannot be expressed otherwise.

In this powerful book, Roger Housden harnesses the unique ability of poetry to touch the reader's inner-most feelings. For everyone who knows there is more to life than they are currently experiencing, it aims to bring an awakening... Through the voices of ten very individual poets, Housden directs each of us to examine the universal themes that pursue us through life: those that stir our eternal emotions and desires. The ten poems presented are timeless; affecting us with a powerful sense of reality, and moving us to alter the way we view ourselves and the world. With a penetrating commentary on each of the poems, Housden provides an insight into his own spiritual journey, and invites us to contemplate the significance of the poet's message in our own lives.

“Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?” —Mary Oliver

This luminous anthology brings together great poets from around the world whose work transcends culture and time. Their words reach past the outer divisions to the universal currents of love and revelation that move and inspire us all. These poems urge us to wake up and love. They also call on us to relinquish our grip on ideas and opinions that confine us and, instead, to risk moving forward into the life that is truly ours.

In his selection, Roger Housden has placed strong emphasis on contemporary voices such as the American poet laureate Billy Collins and the Nobel Prize–winners Czeslaw Milosz and Seamus Heaney, but the collection also includes some timeless echoes of the past in the form of work by masters such as Goethe, Wordsworth, and Emily Dickinson.

The tens of thousands of readers of Roger Housden’s “Ten Poems” series will welcome this beautiful harvest of poems that both open the mind and heal the heart.

"Sacred America, " in lucid and poetic prose, is the story of ordinary people who have dared to follow and trust the voices of their own souls in the midst of everyday life in the United States. It is also the story of another America, one not seen on the nightly news. What Roger Housden finds on his journey across the country suggests to him that, contrary to popular belief, the United States is among the most creative and spiritually vibrant cultures on earth. "Sacred America" is his proof.
Just as Alexis de Tocqueville set out across our country in search of democracy, so too did Housden, an Englishman, travel throughout the United States in the waning years of the twentieth century in search of this country's heart. He discovered that, despite or perhaps due to the moral turpitude of Wall Street and Capitol Hill, the spirit of the American people is flourishing. Americans are continually redefining what it means to be human, what they want from democracy, and, most important, how a democratic society is an expression of the sacred.
As an outsider, Housden was both surprised and impressed by what he found -- the extent to which the aspirations, genius, actions, wisdom, and compassion of people in all walks of life are woven into the social and cultural fabric of America. For Housden, this presence of Being in the midst of everyday life, rather than in formal places of worship (though he found it there too), is reinventing what a sense of the sacred means for the American individual at the turn of the millennium.
"Sacred America" acknowledges that a spiritual materialism prospers here to an extent that would stagger any European mind; spiritual techniques and teachings have become major product lines along with everything else. Yet Housden also finds a genuine human spirit flourishing, found in small-town Wyoming, on a bus ride to Manhattan, on a remote Indian reservation, in an artist's cave in New Mexico, in the life of a letter carrier in California, and even in Hollywood. Further, he finds groups of people coming together to share their various faiths in a truly open spirit: at Wellesley College in Massachusetts; among the politicians of Washington, D.C.; at Habitat for Humanity; at a retreat center for ex-cons in North Carolina; as well as in churches, at an Islamic conference, in Buddhist meditation centers, and in the traditional Hispanic faith in northern New Mexico.
What is significant, Housden discovers, is that no one is in charge of this emergence of the human spirit. No one is doing it. This other America -- so different from the image that much of the world holds of this country -- is not a cause that you fight for or a movement orchestrated by any religious or spiritual denomination. It is something at work, Housden suggests, in the collective psyche. It is something we participate in, rather than direct or control. A broader intelligence is at work not as some external force acting on us but from within us as a collective. It is changing the way Americans feel about themselves, restoring a sense of meaning and moral authority to the wellspring of individual conscience -- Housden calls it the intelligence of the knowing heart. "Sacred America" is emerging, Housden concludes, as that growing community of individuals who are interconnected not by the external dictate of creed or culture but by the prompting of the heart's intelligence.

The author of "Soul and Sensuality" guides readers on sacred pilgrimages to eight spiritually significant destinations: the Ganges in India; St. Catherine's on Mt. Sinai; Big Sur in California; and more. 40 color photos.

This is a dangerous book. Great poetry calls into question not less than everything. It dares us to break free from the safe strategies of the cautious mind. It opens us to pain and joy and delight. It amazes, startles, pierces, and transforms us. It can lead to communion and grace.

Through the voices of ten inspiring poets and his own reflections, the author of Sacred America shows how poetry illuminates the eternal feelings and desires that stir the human heart and soul. These poems explore such universal themes as the awakening of wonder, the longing for love, the wisdom of dreams, and the courage required to live an authentic life. In thoughtful commentary on each work, Housden offers glimpses into his personal spiritual journey and invites readers to contemplate the significance of the poet's message in their own lives.

In Ten Poems to Change Your Life, Roger Housden shows how these astonishing poems can inspire you to live what you always knew in your bones but never had the words for.


"The Journey" by Mary Oliver
"Last Night as I Was Sleeping" by Antonio Machado
"Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman
"Zero Circle" by Rumi
"The Time Before Death" by Kabir
"Ode to My Socks" by Pablo Neruda
"Last Gods" by Galway Kinnell
"For the Anniversary of My Death" by W. S. Merwin
"Love After Love" by Derek Walcott
"The Dark Night" by St. John of the Cross

Housden adds a mystical twist to a young man's search for love in this spare, allegorical tale of a Greek icon painter living in 1950s Italy who makes a pilgrimage to the tomb of 13th-century Sufi poet Jelaluddin Rumi. Lyrically written, this surrealistic affirmation of life and love will! enthrall and inspire readers seeking spiritual nourishment.

When Roger Housden decided to travel to Iran and finally see the subject of his youthful fascination, he was in his sixties. By then, he thought he had seen the world. He was wrong.
It was a quest that changed him forever. In Iran, Housden met with artists, writers, film makers and religious scholars who embody the long Iranian tradition of humanism, and shared with him their belief in scholarship and artistry. From the bustle of modern Tehran to the paradise gardens of Shiraz to the spectacular mosques and ancient palaces of Isfahan, Housden met Iranians who were warm, welcoming, generous, intellectually curious, and altogether alive with their love for one another, and for the faith and tradition that holds them together.
"Saved by Beauty" weaves a richly textured story of many threads. It is a deeply poetic and perceptive appreciation of a culture that has endured for over three thousand years, while it also portrays the creative and spiritual cultures within contemporary Iran. While there, Roger Housden was brought face to face with the reality that beauty and truth, deceit and violence, are inextricably mingled in the affairs of human life, and was forever altered by it.