*Since students have asked, I have placed an asterisk next to some of my personal favorites and bolded the names of the more famous poets of the Modern period.
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# Modern and Contemporary Poets of Christian Faith

The following is a partial list of twentieth-century poets who write in some way about their Christian faith.  For some, this is an explicit project that openly explores matters of theology and experience.   This includes a variety of denominations -- Catholic (Annie Dillard, Denise Levertov, David Craig), Orthodox (Scott Cairns, Anna Akhmatova), mainline Protestant (Mark Jarman), Calvinist (Lionel Basney), and evangelical (Luci Shaw, Calvin Miller). For some, this faith could only be called syncretistic--mixing Christianity with Zen (Ed Zahniser, Charles Wright) or Native American spirituality (Louise Erdrich). For others, this faith is more implicit and only eluded to.  For some, such as Wendell Berry, Julia Kasdorf, or Fred Chappell, it is unclear where they presently stand in relationship to the traditional Christian faith.  Others have a clear church affiliation but only speak of their faith on occasion, such as Donald Davie.

These poets represent a wide variety of political positions: liberal (Daniel Berrigan), radical (Ernesto Cardenal), and conservative (J. Bottum).  Many of these poets famously converted midcourse in life, such as T.S. Eliot and W.H. Auden; others, rather late in life, such as John Berryman; and others converted only to later abandon the Church, such as Robert Lowell.  Some of these are more famous for work in other genres, such as the novelists Diane Glancy, Walter Wangerin, or John Updike.

*Since students have asked, I have placed an asterisk next to some of my personal favorites and bolded the names of the more famous poets of the Modern period.

Click to go to the author's last name or general bibliography category:

## Vito Aiuto

- Self-Portrait as Jerry Quarry

## Tom Andrews

- The Brother's Country
- The Hemophiliac's Motorcycle

## Anna Akhmatova

- Collected Poems

## Sarah Appleton

- Ladder of the World's Joy

## \* W.H. Auden

- Collected Poems

## Margaret Avison

- Collected Poems (3 vols.)

## Julianna Baggott

- This Country of Mothers

## Jackie Bartley

- When Prayer is Far From our Lips

## Lionel Basney

- The Snow Plough Man (Christianity and Literature 50:3)

## Jill Pelaez Baumgaertner

- Leaving Eden

## Bruce Bawer

- Coast to Coast: Poems

## Bruce Beasley

- Signs and Abominations
- Summer Mystagogia
- The Creation

## Daniel Berrigan

- And the Risen Bread: Selected Poems, 1957-1997

## \* Wendell Berry

- The Collected Poems, 1957-1982
- A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems, 1979-1997

## John Berryman

- Collected Poems 1937-1971
- The Dream Songs

## James Bertolino

- New and Selected Poems

## John Betjeman

- Collected Poems

## Murray Bodo

- Song of the Sparrow: Meditations and Poems to Pray By
- The Almond Tree Speaks

## Bruce Bond

- The Throats of Narcissus
- Radiography

## J. Bottum

- The Fall & Other Poems

## Catharine Savage Brosman

- The Muscled Truce
- Places in the Mind

## \* George Mackay Brown

- Selected Poems, 1954-1992

## \* Scott Cairns

- Recovered Body
- Figures for the Ghost
- The Theology of Doubt
- Philokalia
- Compass of Affection

## Ernesto Cardenal

- Apocalypse, and Other Poems
- Cosmic Canticle

## Turner Cassity

- The Destructive Element : New and Selected Poems

## Charles Causley

- Collected Poems 1951-1975

## Fred Chappell

- Spring Garden: New and Collected Poems
- Midquest

## Kelly Cherry

- God’s Loud Hand
- Natural Theology
- Hazard and Prospect

## Michael Chitwood

- The Weave Room

## Paul Christensen

- Mind the Underworld
- Weights and Measures

## David Citino

- The Book of Appassionata: Collected Poems
- The Discipline: New and Selected Poems, 1980-1992

## Paul Claudel

- Five Great Odes

## Peter Cooley

- Sacred Conversations

## Robert Cording

- Heavy Grace
- What Binds Us to This World

## Alfred Corn

- Stake: Poems, 1972-1992
- Present
- Contradictions

## David Craig

- Mercy’s Face
- The Roof of Heaven

## Morri Creech

- Paper Cathedrals

## Andrew Stephen Damick

- Songs of Time and Season

## Kate Daniels

- Four Testimonies
- The Niobe Poems

## Donald Davie

- Collected Poems
- To Scorch or Freeze: Poems About the Sacred

## William Virgil Davis

- One Way to Reconstruct the Scene
- Winter Light

## Peter Davison

- Breathing Room
- The Breaking of the Day

## Bruce Dawe

- Sometimes Gladness: Collected Poems, 1954-1992

## John F. Deane

- Toccata and Fugue: New and Selected Poems
- Manhandling the Deity

## Annie Dillard

- Tickets for a Prayer Wheel
- Mornings Like This

## Lynn Domina

- Corporal Works

## Stuart Dybek

- Brass Knuckles

## Michael Edwards

- To Kindle the Starling
- Where
- The Magic, Unquiet Body

## \* Maura Eichner

- Hope is a Blind Bard

## \* T.S. Eliot

- Collected Poems and Plays

## Louise Erdrich

- Jacklight
- Baptism of Desire

## Jill Alexander Essbaum

- Heaven

## Sybil Estess

- Seeing the Desert Green

## William Everson (Brother Antoninus)

- The Complete Poems (3 vols.)

## B.H. Fairchild

- The Art of the Lathe
- The Arrival of the Future
- Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest

## Laura Fargas

- An Animal of the Sixth Day

## Robert Fink

- The Tongues of Men and of Angels

## John Finlay

- Mind and Blood: The Collected Poems

## Robert Fitzgerald

- Spring Shade: Poems 1931-1970

## Carolyn Forche

- Blue Hour
- The Angel of History
- The Country Between Us

## Nigel Forde

- Fluffy Dice
- The Dust Behind the Door
- Teaching the Wind Plurals

## Madeleine DeFrees

- Blue Dusk
- Spectral Waves

## Lise Goett

- Waiting for the Paraclete

## *Dana Gioia

- Daily Horoscope
- Interrogations at Noon
- Nosferatu
- The Gods of Winter

## Margaret Gibson

- Earth Elegy: New and Selected Poems
- Icon and Evidence: Poems
- Signs (1979)
- Long Walks in the Afternoon (1982)
- Memories of the Future: The Daybooks of Tina Modotti (1986)
- Out in the Open (1989)
- The Vigil: A Poem in Four Voices (1993)
- Autumn Grasses (2003)
- One Body (2007)

## Diane Glancy

- (Ado)ration
- Brown Wolf Leaves the Res and Other Poems

## Patricia Hampl

- Woman Before an Aquarium
- Resort and Other Poems
- Virgin Time

## Kevin Hart

- New and Selected Poems

## Raw Heaven

- Cornucopia: New and Selected Poems 1975-2002

## \* Geoffrey Hill

- New and Collected Poems (1952-1992)
- The Triumph of Love
- Speech! Speech!
- The Orchards of Syon
- Without Title

## James Hoggard

- Medea in Taos and Other Poems

## David Brendan Hopes

- The Penitent Magdalene
- Blood Race

## *Andrew Hudgins

- After the Lost War: A Narrative
- The Neverending
- Babylon in a Jar: New Poems
- Ecstatic in the Poison

## Josephine Jacobsen

- In the Crevice of Time: New and Selected Poems

## \* Mark Jarman

- Questions for Ecclesiastes
- Unholy Sonnets
- To the Green Man
- IRIS
- Epistles

## Jean Janzen

- Tasting the Dust
- Three Mennonite Poets
- Babel's Stair

## Rod Jellema

- Country Fair
- A Slender Grace

## Elizabeth Jennings

- Collected Poems, 1953-1985

## David Jones

- The Anathemata

## Barbara Jordan

- Channel

## Ilya Kaminsky

- Musica Humana
- Dancing in Odessa

## Julia Kasdorf

- Sleeping Preacher
- Eve's Striptease

## X. J. Kennedy

- Dark Horses: New Poems
- The Beasts of Bethlehem

## Jane Kenyon

- Let Evening Come
- Otherwise: New and Selected Poems

## Leonard Kress

- The Centralia Mine Fire

## John Knoepfle

- Selected Poems

## Sydney Lea

- Prayer for the Little City
- The Blainville Testament
- To the Bone: New and Selected Poems
- Ghost Pain
- Pursuit of a Wound

## John Leax

- Country Labors
- Tabloid News

## J. T. Ledbetter

- Negative Capability

## Li-Young Lee

- Rose
- The City in Which I Love You
- The Winged Seed: A Remembrance

## Madeleine L’Engle

- Lines Scribbled on an Envelope, and Other Poems
- A Cry Like a Bell
- Weather of the Heart

## \* Denise Levertov

- The Stream & the Sapphire
- Collected Poems

## C.S. Lewis

- Poems

## Bob Lietz

- Dangerous Light
- Storm Service

## Robert Lowell

- The Collected Poems
- Life Studies and for the Union Dead

## Marjorie Maddox

- Body Parts

## Jennifer Maier

- Dark Alphabet

## *Paul Mariani

- The Great Wheel
- Salvage Operations
- Deaths And Transfigurations

## Howard McCord

- The Great Toad Hunt and Other Expeditions

## Marilyn Chandler McEntyre

- In Quiet Light: Poems on Vermeer's Women
- Drawn to the Light: Poems on Rembrandt's Religious Paintings

## Calvin Miller

- The Singer Trilogy

## Vassar Miller

- If I Had Wheels or Love: Collected Poems

## Gary Miranda

- Turning Sixty
- Listeners at the Breathing Place

## *R.A.K. Mason

- Collected Poems

## Janet McCann

- Looking for the Buddha in the Barbed-Wire Garden

## Walter McDonald

- Night Landings
- All that Matters
- All Occasions

## Robert McDowell

- The Diviners: A Book-Length Poem
- On Foot, In Flowers
- Quiet Money

## Thomas Merton

- The Collected Poems

## *David Middleton

- The Burning Fields
- As Far as Light Remains
- Beyond the Chandeleurs

## *Czeslaw Milosz

- New and Collected Poems (1931-2001)

## Gabriela Mistral

- Selected Poems

## *Marriane Moore

- The Complete Poems

## Pat Mora

- Aunt Carmen’s Book of Practical Saints

## Robert Morgan

- Green River: New and Selected Poems

## Edwin Muir

- Complete Poems

## *Les Murray

- The Boys Who Stole the Funeral
- Learning Human: Selected Poems
- New Collected Poems
- Fredy Neptune: A Novel in Verse
- The Biplane Houses

## Marilyn Nelson (Waniek)

- The Fields of Praise: New and Selected Poems
- Carver: A Life in Poems

## Stella Nesanovich

- Brightness that Made My Soul Tremble
- Vespers at Mount Angel

## Kathleen Norris

- Journey: New and Selected Poems

## Raymond Oliver

- Private Stock

## Gregory Orr

- New and Selected Poems

## *Eric Pankey

- Apocrypha
- The Late Romances
- Cenotaph
- Oracle Figures
- Reliquaries

## Molly Peacock

- Take Heart

## Charles Peguy

- The Mystery of the Charity of Joan of Arc
- The Portal of the Mystery of Hope

## John Poch

- Poems

## Jessica Powers

- Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers

## Marjorie Power

- Living with It

## Reynolds Price

- The Collected Poems

## Wyatt Prunty

- Unarmed and Dangerous: New and Selected Poems

## Irina Ratushinskaya

- Wind of the Journey
- Dance With a Shadow
- Pencil Letter

## John Reeves

- A Book of Hours

## *Anne Barbara Ridler

- Collected Poems

## Len Roberts

- Black Wings
- Dangerous Angels

## Michael Symmons Roberts

- Corpus
- Burning Babylon
- Raising Sparks
- Soft Keys

## Larry Rubin

- Unanswered Calls

## Nicholas Samaras

- Survivors of the Moving Earth

## Thom Satterlee

- Burning Wyclif

## Ku Sang

- Wastelands of Fire: Selected Poems of Ku Sang

## *Gjertrud Schnackenberg

- The Throne of Labdacus
- Supernatural Love: Poems, 1978-1992

## Otto Selles

- New Songs: A Collection

## Martha Serpas

- The Dirty Side of the Storm
- Cote Blanche

## Luci Shaw

- The Angles of Light: New & Selected Poems
- The Green Earth: Poems of Creation

## Robert B. Shaw

- Solving for X
- The Post Office Murals Restored
- Below the Surface
- The Wonder of Seeing Double.

## Robert Siegel

- The Beast and the Elders
- In a Pig's Eye
- The Waters Under the Earth
- A Pentecost of Finches

## Elizabeth Smither

- Professor Musgrove's Canary
- A Pattern of Marching
- The Tudor Style
- The Lark Quartet

## Margaret D. Smith

- A Holy Struggle: Unspoken Thoughts of Hopkins

## Elizabeth Spires

- Worlding

## Kim Stafford

- A Thousand Friends of Rain: New and Selected Poems

## William Stafford

- The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems

## Kevin Stein

- Chance Ransom
- Bruised Paradise

## *Timothy Steele

- Sapphics and Uncertainties: Poems 1970-1986
- The Color Wheel
- Toward the Winter Solstice

## Frank Stewart

- Flying the Red Eye

## John Heath Stubbs

- Collected Poems

## \* Allen Tate

- Collected Poems

## John Terpstra

- The Church Not Made with Hands
- Two or Three Guitars: Selected Poems

## *R.S. Thomas

- R. S. Thomas (Everyman Paperback Classics)
- Collected Poems 1945-1990

## Daniel Tobin

- Where the World is Made

## Alberta Turner

- Lid and Spoon
- A Belfrey of Knees

## John Updike

- Collected Poems, 1953-1993
- Americana and Other Poems

## Jean Murray Walker

- A Deed to the Light
- Stranger Than Fiction
- Gaining Time
- A Deed to the Light

## T. H. S. Wallace

- Raw on the Bars of Longing

## Chad Walsh

- The End of Nature
- Hang Me Up My Begging Bowl.

## Walter Wangerin

- A Miniature Cathedral and Other Poems

## *Richard Wilbur

- New and Collected Poems
- Mayflies: New Poems & Translations

## Nancy Willard

- Swimming Lessons: New and Selected Poems

## Paul Willis

- Poison Oak
- Genesis Poems
- The Deep and Secret Color of Ice
- How To Get There

## Rick (Didacus) Wilson

- Off the Back Roads
- Between a Rock and a Heart Place

## *Terri Witek

- Fools and Crows
- Carnal World

## Karol Wojtyla

- The Place Within: The Poetry of John Paul II

## Franz Wright

- Walking to Martha's Vineyard
- God's Silence

## Charles Wright

- The World of the Ten Thousand Things : Poems 1980-1990
- Applachia
- Black Zodiac
- Negative Blue: Selected Later Poems

## Ed Zahniser

- Sheenjek & Denali
- A Calendar of Worship & Other Poems

## Poetry Collections and Scholarship Involving Christian Faith or Scripture

### Anthologies

#### Christian Poets & Poetry

Craig, David and Janet McCann, Ed. Odd Angles of Heaven: Contemporary Poetry by People of Faith. Wheaton: Harold Shaw, 1994.

_____. Ed. Place of Passage: Contemporary Catholic Poetry. Ashland, OR: Story Line, 2000.

Davie, Donald. New Oxford Book of Christian Verse. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1988.

Impasto, David, Ed. Upholding Mystery: An Anthology of Contemporary Christian Poetry. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1997.

Martin, Regis. Garlands of Grace: An Anthology of Great Christian Poetry. Ignatius P, 2002.

Witherington, Ben. The Poetry of Piety: An Annotated Anthology of Christian Poetry. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002.

#### More General Anthologies which include Christian Poets

Bloom, Harold, Ed. American Religious Poems: An Anthology. Library of America, 2006.

Brown, David and David Fuller. Ed. Signs of Grace: Sacraments in Poetry and Prose. Morehouse P, 1996.

Craig, David and Janet McCann, Ed. Francis And Clare in Poetry: An Anthology. Saint Anthony Messenger Press and Franciscan, 2005.

Hart, Kevin. The Oxford Book of Australian Religious Verse. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1996.

Hirshfield, Jane. Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women. NY: Harper Perennial, 1995.

Murray, Les. Anthology of Australian Religious Poetry. Melbourne: Collins Dove, 1986.

Olsen, W. Scott and Scott Cairns. Ed. The Sacred Place : Witnessing the Holy in the Physical World . U of Utah P, 1996.

#### Poetry Responding to Scripture & Jesus

Atwan, Robert and Laurance Wieder. Chapters into Verse: Poetry in English Inspired by the Bible. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993.

_____., et al. Divine Inspiration: The Life of Jesus in World Poetry. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998.

Carbo, Nick and Denise Duhamel, Ed. Sweet Jesus: Poems About the Ultimate Icon. Anthology Editions, 2002.

Curzon, David.Ed. The Gospels in Our Image: An Anthology of Twentieth-Century Poetry Based on Biblical Texts. NY: Harcourt, 1995.

_____. Modern Poems on the Bible : An Anthology. NY: Jewish Publication Society, 1993.

Domina, Lynn, Ed. Poets on the Psalms. Trinity UP, 2008.

### Topical Scholarship

Daiches, David. God and the Poets. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1984.

Edwards, Michael. Poetry and Possibility. NY: Macmillan, 1988.

Jarman, Mark. "Poetry and Religion." in Poetry After Modernism. 2nd ed. Robert McDowell. Ed. Brownsville, OR: Story Line P, 1998. 37-77.

Jasper, David. The Study of Literature and Religion. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989.

Mariani, Paul. God and the Imagination: On Poets, Poetry, and the Ineffable. U of Georgia P, 2002.

Rosenthal, Peggy. The Poets' Jesus: Representations at the End of a Millennium. NY: Oxford UP, 2000.

### Reflections on the Poetic Vocation

Clark, Suzanne. The Roar on the Other Side: A Guide for Student Poets. Moscow, Idaho: Canon P, 2000.

Dudley-Smith, Timothy. "The Poet as Hymn Writer." in The Christian Imagination: The Practice of Faith in Literature and Writing. Leland Ryken. Ed. Grand Rapids: Harold Shaw, 2002. 387-396.

Jellema, Rod. "Poems Should Stay Across the Street from the Church" in The Christian Imagination: Essays on Literature and the Arts. Leland Ryken. Ed. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981. 327-336.

Leax, John. "Unwelcoming the Christian Poet." in The Christian Imagination: Essays on Literature and the Arts. Leland Ryken. Ed. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981. 347-356.

_____. Grace is Where I Live: Writing as a Christian Vocation. Wheaton: Baker: 1998.

Siegel, Robert. "Musings: On a Life with Poetry." in  Reality and the Vision: 18 Contemporary Writers Tell Who They Read and Why. Philip Yancy. Ed. Dallas: Word, 1990. 39-47.

Walker, Jeanne Murray. "On Poets and Poetry." in The Christian Imagination: The Practice of Faith in Literature and Writing. Leland Ryken. Ed. Grand Rapids: Harold Shaw, 2002. 369-386.

### Spiritual Practice & Poetry

Countryman, Louis William. The Poetic Imagination: An Anglican Tradition. NY: Orbis, 2002.

Farley, Edward. "The Place of Poetics in Theological Education: A Heuristic Inquiry." Theological Education 22.1 (1994): 133-148.

Hays, Richard. B. "'Writing for God After All'--Scripture, Poetry, and Proclamation." Theological Education 22.1 (1994): 1113-120.

Poetry As Prayer Series. 7 vols. NY: Pauline P. 1999-2003.

Rosenthal, Peggy. Praying the Gospels Through Poetry: Lent to Easter. St Anthony Messenger Press, 2001.

"All manner of thing shall be well/ When the tongues of flame are in-folded/ Into the crowned knot of fire/ And the fire and the rose are one." -- T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding