Ed Block – författare

Banners of Longing is a collection of sixty-four reflective and religious poems divided into four categories: Seasons, Sinners, Personae, and Meditations. These poems will move, console, inspire, and enlighten the reader prepared to appreciate religious and reflective verse. The poems in this collection examine everyday experiences, events, and perceptions in the light of faith. They also look--sometimes with wry humor--at familiar biblical characters in a twenty-first-century light. The collection as a whole presents a spirituality of presence, gratitude, and graceful living in the world.Including selected poems from the author''s earlier collection, Anno Domini, Banners of Longing acknowledges its many debts to such religious poets as Gerard Manley Hopkins, Mary Oliver, Denise Levertov, and Dana Gioia. The spiritual influence of contemporary theologian Elizabeth Johnson and the late Cistercian monk and spiritual writer, Thomas Merton, are also unmistakable. Many of these poems first appeared in such distinguished journals as Spiritus, Parabola, and the famed Jesuit journal, Review for Religious.

A collection of--often brief--poetic reflections, loosely based on the liturgical year, but interspersed with poems on selected Gospel passages, Anno Domini will quickly engage even the beginning reader of religious poetry. It will also appeal to seminarians and college students interested in religious poetry. Anno Domini provides a selective take on some key religious themes that will, by turns, move, console, and inspire. The poems in this collection examine everyday perceptions, experiences, and events under the inspiration of faith. They also look at some familiar Gospel stories in a twenty-first century light. The collection as a whole presents a spirituality of presence, gratitude, and graceful living in the world. A book of meditative verse, less cerebral than the poetry that Louis Martz examined in The Poetry of Meditation, but like Killian McDonnell's Wrestling with God, Anno Domini is a non-polemical yet thoughtful and serious contribution to Christian poetry. Meant for readers new to religious verse, it will appeal to busy people who need a moment's break for the experience of gratitude and grace as well as Christian poets seeking inspiration and models for the short religious lyric.