Long admired as a compassionate churchman and a superb scholar, Rowan Williams is also a poet of resounding voice and feeling. His earthy, poetic meditations are for everyone, religious and nonreligious alike. Archbishop Williams speaks from the crucible of faith, yet his words emerge from the universal experience of life. "I dislike the idea of being a religious poet," he says. "I would prefer to be a poet for whom religious things matter intensely."
The Poems of Rowan Williams gathers all of the poems from the Archbishop's two previous collections, After Silent Centuries (1994) and Remembering Jerusalem (2001), and includes some more recent ones as well. The subject matter of these sixty-five poems ranges broadly--the natural world, works of art, a visit to the Holy Land at Easter, ancient Celtic artifacts, a group of thin girls waiting at a bus stop, grief at the loss of loved ones. Readers from all walks of life will come to cherish this choice collection of verse.
Foreword by Phoebe Pettingell
Editorial Reviews
"Reading this poet, at such a period in our history, is like feeling the first drops of rain after a long season of drought." --A.N. Wilson
"Rowan Williams's poems are spare and compressed, slowly releasing themselves. They have great concreteness and are close to the skin of things. I admire all those qualities...A fine book." --Richard Wilbur
"The poems of Rowan Williams, crystalline and spare, lead the reader from the surface of things to that deep place of encounter with divine mystery." --Bishop Frank T. Griswold
About the Author
Rowan Williams is the Archbishop of Canterbury. His other books include Arius, Christ on Trial, The Dwelling of the Light, and Writing in the Dust.
