The Lion Christian poetry collection

by Mary Batchelor

A companion volume to "The Lion Prayer Collection", this book is an anthology of over 700 poems covering 1300 years of Christian poetry. There are mini-biographies of the poets at the back of the book. It is arranged by theme rather than historical order.

Genres: Poetry

592 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me a year and a half to make my way through this huge volume of poetry, but I was determined to read each poem from beginning to end. I underlined passages, wrote notes and comments in the margins, looked up additional context or definitions, and generally tried to interact with it more like a conversation. Some poems I loved, some I disliked and there were plenty that I did not understand. The poems are organized by theme, such as nature, pilgrimage, daily life, relationships, the Trinity, etc. The poets span over a thousand years. I found it interesting that you could almost always tell a more modern poem stylistically before even seeing when the poem had been written or by whom. I appreciate the work of Mary Batchelor, who compiled all of these. While I scratched my head at the inclusion of some of the poems, on the whole I enjoyed having such a wonderfully assembled resource of Christian poetry to read, mull over and meditate upon. I consider myself to be a newbie to poetry appreciation and this was a great primer to give me exposure to a lot of poets and poetry over the ages.