Thomas Gardner artistically describes Jesus--"the Word made flesh"--as a poem penned by God for the world, and John--author of the Fourth Gospel--as the poem's interpreter. John's structural patterns, repetitions, and narrative interventions invite readers to experience for themselves the beauty of the divine poem. John in the Company of Poets deepens this invitation by re-imagining the biblical text through the eyes of such artists as Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Wendell Berry, and T. S. Eliot, offering a literary reading of the Gospel based upon their powerful poetic replies. Poets are our best readers, contends Gardner, and his deft analysis forges a fresh path into the issues and tensions of John's Gospel.

In these new poems, John Agard writes From the Devil's Pulpit, giving a Devil's eye view of the world, sweeping from Genesis across time. A sometimes poignant, bawdy, witty and sophisticated shape-shifter, even sex-switcher, Agard's Devil engages with the world of myth, metaphysics, theology, politics and the arts - not to mention Wimbledon Centre Court and Lords cricket ground.

Today s pastors often expected to be multitasking marvels who can make their churches "successful" are understandably confused about their role. Craig Barnes contends that the true calling of a pastor is to assist others in becoming fully alive in Christ to be a "minor poet." The pastor absorbs the wisdom of major poets the biblical poets as well as the church s theological poets and distills its essence for parishioners. / The Pastor as Minor Poet calls pastors to continually search for a deeper, truer understanding of what they see both in the text of Scripture and in the text of their parishioners' lives. Discerning the subtexts beneath these texts reveals the core truths that allow pastors to preach the heart of the Word and to understand the hearts of the people to whom they minister. Written with a seasoned pastor s depth of understanding and a poet's sensibility and sensitivity, this book will minister to and inspire pastors everywhere.

Stately and assured, Kim Bridgford triumphs over private, public, mythic and literary bullies in her newest volume, Bully Pulpit, a sustained book of poems that ranges wide and deep, shining a searchlight on the world of threats. Her crisp meters and deft turns of phrase take on "mobbing" to "bullycides," intelligently moving us from examples of survivor-figures (like Rosa Parks) to literary victims (like Desdemona) and on to film icons, too. The growl of Norma Desmond bursts forth, and the electric and charming voices of the Triplets of Belleville. Are these the subjects of poetry? You bet they are, especially in Bridgford's valiant hands. Molly Peacock

The Christian gospel, says Brueggemann, is too easily preached and heard. Too often technical reason and excessive religious certitude reduce the gospel to coercive, debilitating pietisms that mask the text's meaning and freeze the hearers heart. With skill and imagination, Brueggemann demonstrates how the preacher can engage in daring speech?differently voiced and therefore differently heard. This speech, as suggested by the Bible itself, is "poetic" speech, enabling the preacher to forge communion in the midst of alienation, bring healing out of guilt, and empower the hearer for "missional imagination." As an alternative to theological/homiletical discourse that is moralistic, pietistic or scholastic, Brueggemann proposes preaching that is artistic, poetic, and dramatic. The basis for the 1989 Lyman Beecher Lectures at Yale Divinity School, Finally Comes the Poet is a unique and transforming guide for powerful preaching.