The Kingdom Of Ordinary Time Poems

Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize: “Thought-provoking, poignant, brutal, amusing, and always beautiful.”—Elizabeth Berg Hurrying through errands, attending a dying mother, helping her own child down the playground slide, the speaker in these poems wonders: what is the difference between the self and the soul? The secular and the sacred? Where is the kingdom of heaven? And how does one live in Ordinary Time—during those apparently unmiraculous periods of everyday trouble and joy?

Until the age of twelve, Georgia Lee Kay-Stern believed she was Jewish — the story of her Cree birth family had been kept secret. Now she’s living on her own and attending first year university, and with her adoptive parents on sabbatical in Costa Rica, the old questions are back. What does it mean to be Native? How could her life have been different? As Winnipeg is threatened by the flood of the century, Georgia Lee’s brutal murder sparks a tense cultural clash. Two families wish to claim her for burial. But Georgia Lee never figured out where she belonged, and now other people have to decide for her.

“Gorgeous, ferocious, lacerating, sexy, and profoundly compassionate.”—Michael Cunningham Magdalene imagines the biblical figure of Mary Magdalene as a woman who embodies the spiritual and sensual, alive in a contemporary landscape—hailing a cab, raising a child, listening to news on the radio. Between facing the traumas of her past and navigating daily life, the narrator of Magdalene yearns for the guidance of her spiritual teacher, a Christ figure, whose death she continues to grieve. Erotic, spirited, and searching for meaning, she is a woman striving to be the subject of her own life, fully human and alive to the sacred in the mortal world.

Announcing the 2007 recipient of the prestigious Yale Younger Poets prize Fady Joudah's The Earth in the Attic is the 2007 winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition. In his poems Joudah explores big themes--identity, war, religion, what we hold in common--while never losing sight of the quotidian, the specific. Contest judge Louise Gl ck describes the poet in her Foreword as "that strange animal, the lyric poet in whom circumstance and profession . . . have compelled obsession with large social contexts and grave national dilemmas." She finds in his poetry an incantatory quality and concludes, "These are small poems, many of them, but the grandeur of conception is inescapable. The Earth in the Attic is varied, coherent, fierce, tender; impossible to put down, impossible to forget."

ONE OF PUBLISHERS WEEKLY'S TOP 10 POETRY BOOKS OF FALL 2017 NPR'S MOST ANTICIPATED POETRY BOOKS OF 2017 A striking, full-length debut collection from Virgin Islands-born poet Nicole Sealey The existential magnitude, deep intellect, and playful subversion of St. Thomas-born, Florida-raised poet Nicole Sealey’s work is restless in its empathic, succinct examination and lucid awareness of what it means to be human. The ranging scope of inquiry undertaken in Ordinary Beast—at times philosophical, emotional, and experiential—is evident in each thrilling twist of image by the poet. In brilliant, often ironic lines that move from meditation to matter of fact in a single beat, Sealey’s voice is always awake to the natural world, to the pain and punishment of existence, to the origins and demises of humanity. Exploring notions of race, sexuality, gender, myth, history, and embodiment with profound understanding, Sealey’s is a poetry that refuses to turn a blind eye or deny. It is a poetry of daunting knowledge.

"The book is full of strong, memorable poems that stick with readers like a friend during a long, hard night. " - The Christian Science Monitor Here, readers will find solace in works that are bracing and courageous, organized into such resonant headings as "Such As It Is More or Less" and "Let It Spill." From William Shakespeare and Walt Whitman to R. S. Gwynn and Mary Oliver, the voices gathered in this collection will be more than welcome to those who've been struck by bad news, who are burdened by stress, or who simply appreciate the power of good poetry.

The forty-seven new works in this volume include poems on crickets, toads, trout lilies, black snakes, goldenrod, bears, greeting the morning, watching the deer, and, finally, lingering in happiness. Each poem is imbued with the extraordinary perceptions of a poet who considers the everyday in our lives and the natural world around us and finds a multitude of reasons to wake early.

This perennial bestseller is now available in a tenth-anniversary edition that showcases Joyce Rupp's poems, a new preface by the author, and a new design. Joyce Rupp's characteristic creativity and reverence for the divine are on full display in this collection of prayer resources for birthdays, holidays, holy days, transitions, and many other occasions, helping readers enter more deeply and reflectively into the liturgical and seasonal celebrations of their lives. Ideal for personal use, or as a gift for loved ones celebrating a landmark occasion, Out of the Ordinary: Prayers, Poems, and Reflections for Every Season is an invaluable resource for ministers, spiritual directors, and lay leaders alike, who turn to its prayers, reflections, and rituals for personal and communal occasions both "ordinary" and profound.