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Harvesting Fog
Harvesting Fog is Luci Shaw's 30th book, released in 2010 by Pinyon Publishing. The title comes from a reference in the National Geographic Magazine about Lima, Peru, where there is little rain but a persistent, clammy fog. Residents of Lima collect water from the nets they hang outside, on which the fog condenses into water droplets. Shaw uses this as a metaphor for the gathering of images and ideas for poems that link transcendent with immanent, as Malcolm Guite has commented, "heaven in the ordinary."
"One might argue with Heidegger that only in poetry—particularly the lyric poem—can Being achieve adequate articulation, find a "local habitation and a name," become known. For a poet of profound religious sensibility such as Luci Shaw, whose poems so brilliantly and movingly locate authentic Being in the forms and processes of nature, the lyric impulse often approaches the incarnational. At one point she writes, "Something sacramental speaks/in the rinsing of hard stone by mountain run-off." The same could be said of the elegantly crafted poems, word made flesh, in Harvesting Fog."—B. H. Fairchild, author, The Art of the Lathe
"Only a person who believes such a thing is possible would write a poem titled "Reconstruction." It's a risky, Godlike choice about beginning anew. The reader continues and understands she is to envision a long life through imaginative changes of lens. Light becomes a bookish beetle, the Infant Jesus is "a small sack of God," an idea is "a glitter of ash" to be flung over the ocean. We understand the the size of a blessing "crowds out everything but itself."—Jeanine Hathaway, author The Self as Constellation
"[Here is] a balance of perfect form and feeling, praise and gravity. Luci Shaw see in the natural world a dynamic incarnation of God's love. These poems have faith richly woven into the fabric of daily life and change—luminous, full of surprises and moments of delicious, holy mischief."
—Betsy Sholl, Poet Laureate of Maine, author The Red Line, Rough Cradle
"Luci Shaw encourages in her readers the habit of awakening. Intensely personal, these poems draw deeply on the legacy she has embraced as an heir to Herbert, Hopkins, Dickinson and others whose shadows fall gently across her lines, giving them texture and adding to their quiet, contemporary beauty."
—Marilyn McEntyre, author, The Color of Light
"Sacramental poems that offer nourishment for the starving, with a topping of delightful whimsy, a "bowlful of cool" in the face."
—Paul Willis, author, Rosing From the Dead
"Acutely observed, full of fidelity to the nature of things, and yet each observation suggesting or opening towards something more than itself. Every patch of light is a word, a beginning...heaven in the ordinary."
—Malcolm Guite, author Faith, Hope & Poetry
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Breath for the Bones
Art, Imagination and Spirit:
A Reflection of Creativity and Faith
In the tradition of Madeleine L'Engle's Walking on Water and Dorothy Sayer's The Mind of the Maker, here is a rich and thought-provoking exploration of art, creativity, and faith. In this rich collection, Luci Shaw explores the intersection of the life of faith with the life of art. By helping the reader understand spiritual principles from looking at God's own creative life throughout Scripture and by providing the necessary tools for thinking Christianly about the arts, she challenges the artist in us all to ask how faith informs art, and how art can animate faith. Here is a fresh breath of encouragement to the imaginative mind…a clear guide to understanding both the theological framework of creativity and the call to be active participants in God's own creative life.
"Gentle and probing, rich in wisdom, and reflecting years of experience as a remarkable poet of faith, Luci Shaw's Breath for the Bones is worth pondering deeply. I commend it most warmly." —Jeremy Begbie, Associate Director, Institute of Theology, Imagination, and the Arts, University of St. Andrews
"'Beauty matters,' Luci Shaw says in this wide-ranging and lovely new book. Grounded in her lifelong commitment to art and faith, Breath for the Bones is part contemplation and part practical companion for artists of faith—giving readers wise and sustaining guidance for what may be the deepest journey they ever make." —Erin McGraw, Author of The Good Life
"Breath for the Bones is a marvelous repository for Luci Shaw's accumulated wisdom about literature and imagination as they intersect with the Christian faith." —Leland Ryken, Clyde S. Kilby Professor of English, Wheaton College
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The Crime of Living Cautiously
Hearing God’s Call to Adventure
"Risk must be firmly grounded in trust. And trust, by definition, always includes risk, the risk of the unknown or the dangerous known. Reaching the riverbank and the safety of solid ground felt a bit like reaching heaven after an earthly life of belief in the midst of often perilous and uncertain circumstances." —from chapter one of The Crime of Living Cautiously
"Luci Shaw does not live cautiously—her life is an exuberant romp in the things of creation. Nor does she write cautiously—her poetry is a dive into the pool of spirited (Spirit?) language. This witness, a fusion of personal stories and revealing poems, welcomes us into the fullness into which Christ calls us." —Eugene Peterson, author of The Message.
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