- Feb 5, 2002
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Sally Read views her poetic craft as a vocation to take people ‘along the way of beauty’
LONDON — “The Catholic faith is absolutely steeped in poetry. It runs through Scripture, liturgy and prayer. We might even say that it is God’s chosen way of speaking with us.” The woman speaking is poet and writer Sally Read.
She was visiting London from her Italian home to promote her latest book: 100 Great Catholic Poems, recently published by Word on Fire. I arranged to meet her the day after she gave a talk on the book, organized by The Guild of Our Lady of Ransom, in the crypt of St. Patrick’s Church in the heart of London’s Soho district. Soho is an area known for poetry and artistic pursuits, if less so for the proclamation of the Gospel.
“Catholics often don’t realize that they have a fantastic poetic tradition outside of Scripture, a tradition that is truly great,” Read says. “For 2,000 years, Catholic poets have been describing their relationships with God and the world and God in the world — yielding some of the finest poetry ever written — like Dante’s Divine Comedy and the sonnets of Gerard Manley Hopkins.”
All true, but do we need another poetry anthology? “There are, of course, many Christian anthologies of poetry,” she admits, “and even some Catholic anthologies that are narrower in scope than this one. But this anthology is groundbreaking. It spans 2,000 years, revealing the arc of the Catholic poetic tradition and thus expressing the poetic Catholic heart.”
Continued below.
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LONDON — “The Catholic faith is absolutely steeped in poetry. It runs through Scripture, liturgy and prayer. We might even say that it is God’s chosen way of speaking with us.” The woman speaking is poet and writer Sally Read.
She was visiting London from her Italian home to promote her latest book: 100 Great Catholic Poems, recently published by Word on Fire. I arranged to meet her the day after she gave a talk on the book, organized by The Guild of Our Lady of Ransom, in the crypt of St. Patrick’s Church in the heart of London’s Soho district. Soho is an area known for poetry and artistic pursuits, if less so for the proclamation of the Gospel.
“Catholics often don’t realize that they have a fantastic poetic tradition outside of Scripture, a tradition that is truly great,” Read says. “For 2,000 years, Catholic poets have been describing their relationships with God and the world and God in the world — yielding some of the finest poetry ever written — like Dante’s Divine Comedy and the sonnets of Gerard Manley Hopkins.”
All true, but do we need another poetry anthology? “There are, of course, many Christian anthologies of poetry,” she admits, “and even some Catholic anthologies that are narrower in scope than this one. But this anthology is groundbreaking. It spans 2,000 years, revealing the arc of the Catholic poetic tradition and thus expressing the poetic Catholic heart.”
Continued below.
Renowned Catholic Poet (and Former Anti-Catholic Atheist) Sally Read Gathers ‘100 Great Catholic Poems’
Sally Read views her poetic craft as a vocation to take people ‘along the way of beauty’
