The idea of this site is to present well known poems written in English that have an explicit or implied Christian subject and to offer you a concise evaluation of some of the choices that the poet has made about the organisation and style the poem. When you have read the poem and the short commentary that goes with it, you’ll have an insight into what the poem says by becoming a bit more aware of how the poem works. With this understanding, you’ll get a new insight into the spiritual and devotional character of the poem as well as the craft of writing poetry.
This kind of understanding includes, but uses more than, objective logical thinking. We are as humans deeply reliant for our well-being on the disciplines of objective and scientific thought. We live in a time in which science has captured the grounds on which claims to truth may be made. But we need other ways of thinking too.
Responding to any art stimulates our wider mental and moral abilities because we are practising insight, imagination, intuition and sympathy. As humans, we all naturally have these ways of thinking and perceiving. They are a gift and they use our full, undivided personality and sensibility as people. Practising the use of insight and imagination by reading poetry can be a way of finding things out that are useful to us and to our Christian life – especially if the poems we’re considering are ones that embody and investigate Christian ideas and feelings.
The poems chosen for consideration have stood the test of time. They also share other characteristics. With a few exceptions, they are all complete works. This is important if we are trying to get some insight into the order and wholeness of what we’re reading.
The principle underlying each consideration, or article, is to give a reader a way into the poem by careful selection of what is said about it, keeping things as short and straightforward as possible so that the points made are enough to draw the reader into his or her own reflections.
When you have read many of the poems, you’ll find that, taking them as a whole, you have been introduced to quite a wide range of stylistic matters, including examples of how to describe the general organisation of a poem and what kinds of things you might notice about its tone, vocabulary, imagery and musical effects, and so on. In the end, you’ll enjoy being an independent reader of poems. If you are a practising Christian, we hope that you will also have enjoyed using the poems to reflect on the meaning of a Christian faith.
The collection of poems here will grow continually so do return to the site to see new additions. Also, of course, please, if you wish, send comments of your own on the poems. You’ll find an email and a Facebook address on the Contact page.
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Christian Poetry Considered 