Description

---

One of America's finest living poets has breathed new life into the early Christian mystics.

From Saint Paul to Julian of Norwich, the original texts of these mystical fathers and mothers of the Church have been pored over, pressed for further revelation, and set in verse to provide readers with fresh encounters of their wisdom and provocations.

At the heart of this undertaking is Scott Cairns’ conviction that the words of the mystics sacramentally partake of the Word Himself, and as such are inexhaustible, generative powers. These particular selections cohere in their common claim that Love is the most compelling name of God, and also the most apt attribute of the Holy One in Whom we live and move and have our being. In that spirit, these luminous texts are understood to partake of Love, and concurrently to witness to His presence and His promise that, as “our Courteous Lord” averred to Julian, “All will be well, all will be well, all manner of things will be well.”

About the Author

---

Librettist, essayist, translator, and author of ten poetry collections, Scott Cairns is Curators’ Distinguished Professor Emeritus at University of Missouri. His poems and essays have appeared in Poetry, Image, Paris Review, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, and both have been anthologized in multiple editions of Best American Spiritual Writing. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2006, and the Denise Levertov Award in 2014.