Books – All Titles

Accompanied by Angels

Poems of the Incarnation

From the time she was a child in Toronto, celebrated poet Luci Shaw has sent Advent greetings to her friends and family, each with a carefully crafted original poem. What began as a youthful exercise has now become a beloved annual tradition. Though a number of these poems have appeared elsewhere, Accompanied by Angels gathers all of them for the first time into a collection for all readers for any season of the year.
Beginning with the joy, terror, and wonder of the annunciation, Shaw leads the reader on a poetic journey through the birth, life, and death of Jesus the Christ, culminating in the joyous and unexpected wonder of his resurrection. Her subjects run from the mundane to the sublime, from birds in flight and waiting old men to fiery angels and storm-ravaged ridges.
"These lucid, engaging narrative lyrics of both free and formal verse can serve as devotional reading for the devout or as compelling invitations to the seeker. Carefully crafted yet never pretentious or aloof, they bring the sacred close without denying its inexplicable mystery so that, reading them, we too may seem to be accompanied by angels." —Julia Kasdorf, author Eve's Striptease, and Sleeping Preacher

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Adventure of Ascent: Field Notes from a Lifelong Journey

February 2014

In this book, writer-poet Luci Shaw has given us a lifetime of exquisite reflections on nature, love, death, suffering, loss, faith, doubt, creativity, curiosity, lifelong learning—all of it drawn from the breadth of her own experience, harvested in penetrating and lyrical insights. Still active in her eighties, Luci now turns her attention to the season of edging toward the borders. Her spirit of adventure, her brave transparency, and her openness to all that life offers (as well as inflicts) makes her a captivating and hope-inspiring mentor. For most of us, growing older is a reality we put off as long as possible—until we realize with a shock that it is happening to us. We immediately look around to see how others on the path just ahead of us are dealing with it. So here is the intrepid Luci Shaw, taking readers on a virtual hike with her, with steps more deliberate and slow but also with surprising vistas that fill us with gratitude. In this book Luci serves as a fearless and eloquent scout. As she traverses new territory, she records her experiences lovingly, honestly, sorrowfully, joyfully—here's what it's like, and here's what to be ready for. These field notes will inform your own journey, no matter what your age.

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The Angles of Light

New & Selected Poems

A poem is a small fragment of experience viewed close up. It hints, suggests, touches, probes without preaching or pushing too hard. Poems are doorways to the inner life of objects, experiences, relationships...the stuff of the extraordinary ordinary.
"In...The Angles of Light Luci Shaw transforms the details of mundane experience into the elements of sacramental life...the glistening stuff of our lives is revealed to partake of the very mysterion that will heal and save." —Scott Cairns, author of The Recovered Body

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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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Colossians

Focus on Christ

Fisherman Bible Studyguides have been a trusted name in Bible study for almost thirty years. With outstanding authors, an emphasis on personal growth, and over eighty titles, the Fisherman guides offer a breadth and depth of biblical study not found in any other series. Fisherman studies are written with a commitment to the unique authority of the Bible in our lives. Nondenominational, nonsectarian, and suitable for new Christians and mature Christians, Fisherman have a broad appeal with a biblical base.

In Luci Shaw's study: Colossians: Focus on Christ, an eight-week New Testament study, readers study Paul’s letter to the Colossians and realize that aspects of heresy that threatened the early church are active in our own world. Paul provides an answer as he encourages us to focus on Christ.

Bible Newsletter Studyguide of the Year 1982

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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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Eye of the Beholder

Poems

January 2019

Luci Shaw is now 90 years old. The author of more than 35 collections of poetry and creative non-fiction over the last five decades, she describes her dedication to this art as a burden to "speak into a culture that finds it hard to listen." This collection of new poems - all composed over the last two years - is in many ways the culmination of a stunning career. The joy and responsibility of the poet is to focus on particulars within the universe, finding fragments of meaning that speak to the imagination. Ordinary things may reveal the extraordinary for those willing to take time to investigate and ponder. In this fresh collection of poems, Luci Shaw practices the art of seeing, and then writing what she sees, realizing that beauty is often focused in the Eye of the Beholder. Eye of the Beholder is meant to awaken in readers awareness of the extraordinary in the ordinary. They will find in this collection a focus for meditation and be excited into their own imaginative writing.

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Friends for the Journey

Two Extraordinary Women Celebrate Friendships Made and Sustained Through the Seasons of Life
Co-Author Madeleine L'Engle

Born of a friendship spanning a quarter of a century, Madeleine L'Engle and Luci Shaw's Friends for the Journey considers the golden quality of deep and lasting friendships, showing that the common ground of love for God transcends even separation.

"In these pages two loving friends celebrate their intertwining journeys in ways that show, rather than tell, what heights of joy await those who enter into intimate friendship with God. This is a somersault of the spirit from two wise and childlike women who know the spiritual life in all its depth and wonder. Leaping from poetry to dialogue to journal-entries to story-telling they celebrate Christian love through the power of the baptized imagination. A feast for the soul." —Emilie Griffin.

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The Generosity

Poems

August 2020

"Rejoice, readers, as you receive the generosity of Luci Shaw's 76 new grace-infused parable poems. Autobiography once more merges with theology as these poems illuminate in splendored natural detail how the seasons of creation parallel and explain the seasons of her life as a poet. Again and again, these poems shower us with glorious epiphanies from the natural world as it reflects God's generosity at work such as "spring's impossible news of green." These poems confirm that in poetry as in faith "ripeness is all." Like Wordsworth, Luci is celebrated for being a highly gifted landscape poet whose works are rich in imagery from the physical world—meadows filled with seeds, flowers, and also poems which are like "shoots" in Luci's writing life. Animals, too, great and small (beetles, cricket, and voles to bears and whales) play a major role in Luci's poetics of creation; God is likened to a great bear who leaves paw tracks for us to follow. In their deep faith and vibrant colors and designs, the poems in Generosity might be considered Luci's Book of Kells. We need to be like Luci's father who carried her poems in his briefcase to show his friends." —Philip C. Kolin, Author, Reaching Forever: Poems; Distinguished Professor of English (Emeritus), University of Southern Mississippi

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The Genesis of It All

Illustrated by Sr. Huai-Kuang Miao and Sr. Mary Lane
In her inimitable style, Luci Shaw presents the Genesis narrative in fresh and contemporary language that sparks the imagination. You will delight in “watching” as God creates, first in black and white, and then bursting into color.
Experience the exhilaration of the Creation and the Creator as work of art and great artist, developed in richness and diversity. Whether you are young or old, you will find yourself in the picture as you reflect on the Creator’s purpose in bringing human beings into the world.
"A luminous and rambunctious book. Shaw imbues the Old Testament account of the Creation with a joyful bounce that will be irresistible to children of all ages. Her God is kindly, imaginative, and mischievous—a father who loves his creation and wants nothing better than to delight his children. Shaw's poetic talents and spiritual wisdom combine to breathe new life into a familiar story." —Suzanne Wolfe, author of The Unveiling.

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God for Us: Rediscovering the Meaning of Lent and Easter

December 2013

God For Us explores the meaning of Lent, its importance in spiritual formation, its significance in preparation for Easter, and the holy season of Easter itself. Luci's contribution includes the Fifth Week of Lent.

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God in the Dark

Through Grief and Beyond
God in the Dark is one woman’s record of her journey through grief and beyond. Poet Luci Shaw’s journal of her husband’s terminal cancer begins with the doctor’s first diagnosis and follows her through the early months of her widowhood.

In these pages, we see the complexities of a fragile three-way relationship—between a man, a woman, and God. With deep insight and honesty, Luci Shaw probes the paradoxes of faith with which we all struggle—when we are honest enough to admit it.

This story moves in and out of shadow, and if her insights seem sharp and bleak one moment, only to be clear and hopeful the next—she can only say, simply, “This is how it was This is how I lived it.”

Her penetrating question “Where is God's promised presence?” troubles us all, compelling us to investigate more urgently the mysterious ways of the Almighty.

"A very honest and haunting book." —Frederick Buechner

"A gripping story." —Leland Ryken

"Luci Shaw is a poet with rare vision, a Christian of profound faith." —Philip Yancey

"I believe God in the Dark will become a classic in its field." —Ingrid Trobisch

ECPA Gold Medallion Nominee, 1990

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The Green Earth

Poems of Creation

The Green Earth: Poems of Creation is a unique and beautiful new book from poet Luci Shaw. Shaw's lines are generous and exacting. In her broad and beautiful introduction Shaw describes her intent to praise through observation. Shaw follows her goal with the delight and detailed awe of a child. Here, any vessel Shaw's words leap toward is illuminated by her radiant description. Truly, the precious is Shaw's topic. The real success of this book is that the world itself and each odd or potentially overlooked object in it become precious. The book is filled with green. Shaw's words pierce the camouflage of the natural world and guess, so eloquently, at the mystery behind, around and within it. As she says in "A Song for Simplicity", "For all that's timeless, untutored, untailored, and untooled/ for innocence unschooled/…for these, thank God." —Image A Journal of the Arts & Religion

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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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Horizons

Exploring the Creation
Calligraphy by Timothy Botts
Renowned poet Luci Shaw and artist and calligrapher Timothy R. Botts have pooled their considerable talents to produce a lush and profound book about the wonders of God's magnificent Creation. Botts has won two Gold Medallions for his outstanding design and calligraphy in Doorposts and Windsongs. Four-color illustrations.

"Luci Shaw's unique gift of poetry, of imagery, and of penetrating thought makes this a book to be savored, not merely read. ..When you are through, you will be the richer for having read it. I loved it!" —Ruth Bell Graham.

ECPA Gold Medallion Nominee, 1993

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Life Path

Personal And Spiritual Growth
through Journal Writing
Life has a way of slipping away while we're not looking. And many of us are so numbed by mundane routine that we hardly miss its passing. Keeping a journal can bring back memories of those . . .

  • timeless moments when the mists part and you catch a glimpse of a loving Father.
  • rare insights where you suddenly see your life from a new perspective.
  • welcome moments when the pain subsides and the healing begins.

You'd think such moments would be unforgettable, but they are not. You will forget them. They will quickly slip through your fingers if you don't tie them to your heart in a journal.

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Listen to the Green

Poems

This first published book of Luci Shaw's poetry introduced readers to her love of green creation. The promise of these early poems has been amply fulfilled in the volumes to follow.
"Exquisite and moving. True poetry is rarely met with, I was quite brought under the spell of the real thing." —Calvin Linton, George Washington University.
"The poem titles announce a lithe, eclectic mind. The poems themselves reveal a close knowledge of Scripture, a wide-ranging responsiveness to human experience, a gleeful zest in word-craft...A lovely precision of diction and careful authenticity of emotion are prevailingly present." —Christianity Today

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The O in Hope cover art

The "O" in Hope

By Luci Shaw,
Illustrated by Ned Bustard

November 2021

What do an orangutan, an ostrich, an orange, and the ocean all have in common?
They all begin with the letter O!
But other words also have an O―words like mouth or moon or wow,
and even the word hope.

Combining a joyful poem from the much-celebrated poet Luci Shaw with playful cut-paper art created by Ned Bustard, The O in Hope helps us experience the goodness of God's gifts of hope and love.

This delightful book can be enjoyed by children and the adults who read with them. Also included is a note from the author to encourage further conversation about the content.

Discover IVP Kids and share with children the things that matter to God!

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Polishing the Petoskey Stone

Selected Poems
This volume selects the best work from Shaw's four earlier volumes—Listen to the Green, The Secret Trees, Postcard from the Shore and The Sighting—and includes a number of new poems. First published by Shaw Books, it has been reprinted by Regent College Publishing, with a new cover photo by Luci Shaw, showing examples of a Petoskey stone—a fossilized coral found only in Michigan—which gives the book its title.
"Her animating intelligence descends into the concrete facts of our existence to discover the divine force that shapes the world and maintains it in being." —Harold Fickett, author, The Holy Fool, The Living Christ
"In Luci Shaw's poems each object, each event, is turned over in the poet's mind until its opaque surface is polished and luminous, revealing the hidden patterns within. Among her very best, these poems take their proper place with work selected from earlier volumes-a most happy and significant achievement and an occasion for celebration." —Robert Siegel, author, WhaleSong, A Pentecost of Finches

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Postcard from the Shore

Poems
With Shaw's own cover photograph of shells and foam, this volume of poems demonstrates the poet's passion for the sea and its creatures. A beach-comber, she collects whatever catches her eye, decorating her home with bowls and bottles full the ocean's gifts as reminders of the shore. Into this book she has welcomed, like shells and pebbles and driftwood, other diverse images, making of them objects of her art.
"Luci Shaw's sensuous and precise writing reflects a profound and experienced theology, and her haunting poems heighten our ability to be attentive to the lighted moments given us." —Corbin S. Carnell, Professor of English, University of Florida.
"Postcard's images take a sharp life and stay with me. This astonishing precision of sense makes the new immediately familiar, and the old immediately new." —Walter Wangerin, author, The Book of the Dun Cow, and the novels, Jesus, and Paul.
"This is no ordinary 'having-a-wonderful-time' postcard, though it is obvious that Luci Shaw does have a wonderful time with words. She pulls the reader into this collection with strong images and crisp language, which is its own type of word made flesh." —Jill Pelaez Baumgaertner, Dean of Arts and Sciences, Wheaton College.

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A Prayerbook for Spiritual Friends

Co-Author Madeleine L'Engle
Here is a collection of read-aloud, read-together prayers that will draw close friends even closer—to each other, to God, and to the fascinating authors of these prayers.
In a brief foreword, Madeleine L'Engle and Luci Shaw talk about the prayers they offer and reflect on the experience of prayer in their lives and in their friendship. Then, successive page spreads feature prayers from both authors about a specific topic or for a special occasion. The prayers are interactive—voices responding to each other, praying for each other, praying together—and designed to be prayed aloud, together, by spiritual friends. With the prayers, L'Engle and Shaw suggest settings that might enhance the experience.
Topics and occasions for the prayers are as universal as the experiences of all friends. The prayers themselves are as unique as the personalities and experiences of the partners who wrote the book and those who use it.
This is a book that will build prayer and friendships—a perfect gift for friends to share.

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The Risk of Birth

A gift book of Christ-Poems

Madeleine L'Engle's poem The Risk of Birth, included in this anthology, sets the tone of these collected poems from twelve contemporary authors from C. S. Lewis to John Leax. The Incarnation, in all its glory and risk, is celebrated here, addressing questions such as: What did the Incarnation mean to Jesus and his Father? How does it affect the universe at large, including us? This slim volume provides us with simple and splendid views of history's focal event.

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Sea Glass

New and Selected Poems

May 2016

Luci Shaw's poems have delighted, nurtured and inspired readers--and other writers--for decades. They regularly appear in periodicals such as Books & Culture, The Christian Century, Crux, Image, Nimble Spirit, Rock & Sling, Stonework and Weavings. And Shaw draws upon them as a retreat facilitator, workshop leader and public speaker. Sea Glass is the fifteenth collection of Shaw's poems. It combines 38 new poems with a "best of" selection of poems from eleven of her previous books: Listen to the Green The Secret Trees The Sighting Postcard from the Shore Polishing the Petoskey Stone Writing the River The Angles of Light Water Lines What the Light Was Like Harvesting Fog Scape The result is a celebration of, as Scott Cairns says, "Shaw's familiar and reassuring voice pressing for wisdom, substantial faith, and a glimpse of the Real upholding all we see."

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SCAPE

October 2013

Luci Shaw's poetry is already widely known and celebrated. Scape, her 2013 collection of new poetry, explores metaphors of spiritual significance, paying attention to the small and seemingly irrelevant events of living and listening to nature. Wise, thoughtful, and probing, her sensuous lyrics find fresh connections and relationships between God and his created universe.

"More than a book, Scape is a sacred offering, a scape we can hold that directs our gaze and supports us, in the long, shivering road up, up."
—Suzanne Paola, author, The Lives of the Saints

"Luci Shaw notes in one of her new poems that, 'without the impediment / of gravity the dancer / cannot dance.' And it's just that wise understanding of the weights and balances of life that her poems get so right. . . . Such abstractions live in the particulars of an egg's brownness, a snail's glistening trail, a sparrow's 'economical and precise' pecking, and the taut feel of a trout on the line. Luci Shaw's poems incarnate the 'slow pleasure of being.'"
—Robert Cording, author, Common Life

"Luci's most witty, brilliant book. . . . One after another, these poems ground the reader utterly in the concrete and physical—and then, with the jet engine of metaphor, they take off into the world of spirit."
—Jeanne Murray Walker, University of Delaware

"Luci Shaw is a poet of spirit, of nature, and of body. Her gift is an observant eye that looks straight into the face of what she sees. . . . This new collection is made strong by her eye that is faithful to what is, and the ability to describe her world—whether her eye is on the spires or on the sparrow."
—Diane Glancy, Azusa Pacific University

"'The maples drop their syllables until / the grass burns with words.' Once again, Luci Shaw, master of the deceptively simple lyric, captures the 'glory leaking through' ordinary experience. Spun in wonder, freighted with feeling and faith, these poems dart with the grace of small birds or drift like brilliant leaves from old trees. Such a pleasure to read this fine collection!"
—Julia Spicher Kasdorf, author, Poetry in America

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The Secret Trees

Poems

This second published book of poems by Luci Shaw burrows beneath the surface appearances of things to discover their essence. The title poem "Behind the Walls" honors the inner lives of trees cut down and milled for the skeleton of a house. Of the finished home she says: "Where others/notice siding, shutters, paint,/I shall see behind the walls/the secret trees/standing as straight and strong/as pines in the free groves outside."
"With each publication Luci Shaw makes it clearer that she belongs in the front rank of contemporary American poets...Her aesthetic insight invests the familiar with newness and poignance, often (in the manner of the Metaphysicals) by startling juxtapositions of seemingly discordant metaphors which, at the the planned moment, blend into a chord. Her compressed images burst, unfold, resonate, echo in the mind long after the poem is read." —Calvin Linton, The George Washington University

Campus Life Book of the Year, 1976

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The Sighting

Poems

From the Fore Word: "John, on Patmos, opens his account of his astonishing revelation with these words from God: "Write what you see" and concluded with the same command: "Fear not...Write what you have seen."... Consciously or unconsciously most of my writing has sprung from an impulse rooted in this
mandate...People perish where there is no vision." —Luci Shaw
"Luci Shaw's sensibility is so thoroughly baptized that she can write about anything...and the effect will be a proclamation, direct or often indirect, of the Creator-God who gives us power to be creators in our turn. She has a formidable command of the tools of poetry...This is a seamless garment." —Chad Walsh, Editor, The Beloit Poetry Journal

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Sightseers into Pilgrims

A Sampler of Contemporary Christian Poets
Here a brief biographical description of each poet is followed by a sampling of that poet's work. Whether you are a veteran or novice at what Shaw calls "the habit of poetry" you will find something in this volume for yourself, as you are introduced to the work of nineteen poets with diverse styles and backgrounds who are drawn into community in this small volume.

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The Swiftly Tilting Worlds of Madeleine L'Engle

Essays in Her Honor by Walter Wangerin Jr, Eugene H. Peterson, Katherine Paterson & Others
This festschrift, written to celebrate the 80th birthday of one of America's most beloved writers, herself a long-time friend of Luci Shaw, includes many perceptive essays, ranging from the personal to the academic, that honor L'Engle and her pervasive influence.

"Madeleine L'Engle's friendship and her example point...my gaze to the beautiful, the sacred, the high adventure of creative life in the service of God." —Emilie Griffin, author, Wilderness Time, Wonderful & Dark Is This Road

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A Syllable of Water

Twenty Writers of Faith Reflect on Their Art
In a Syllable of Water, some of today's leading writers of faith reflect on all aspects of the writing vocation and process in ways that will inform and inspire.

Philip Yancey, Richard Foster, Luci Shaw, and others discuss everything from the tools of a writer to the ways that they spend their time when they are not writing.

Editor John Wilson and poet Diane Glancy, reflect on the value of the editor-writer conversation, as well as the power of revision.

Other writers including Doris Betts, Harold Fickett, Virginia Stem Owens, Scott Cairns, and Eugene H. Peterson offer sage advice on how to approach nearly every imaginable genre from fiction and nonfiction to memoir, poetry, and translation.

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Thumbprint in the Clay

Diving Marks of Beauty, Order, and Grace

March 2016

"The thumbprint . . . is for me a singular clue to human identity. . . . Just as each human thumbprint is unique, its pattern inscribed on the work of our hands and minds, the Creator's is even more so―the original thumbprints on the universe," declares poet Luci Shaw. We worship an endlessly creative God whose thumbprints are reflected everywhere we look―in sunsets, mountains, ocean waves―and in the invisible rhythms that shape our lives, such as the movement of planets around the sun. And this creative and ever-creating God has also left indelible thumbprints on us. We reflect God's imprint most clearly, perhaps, in our own creating and appreciation for beauty. A longing for beauty is inherent to being human. We don't create things that are purely practical; we desire them to be aesthetically pleasing as well. Beauty is also powerful, in its redemptiveness, generosity, inspiration. In reflecting on the role of beauty in our lives, Luci Shaw writes, "Beauty is Love taking form in human lives and the works of their hands." So come, join Luci Shaw as she ponders through the beauty of poetry and prose the places, sometimes unexpected, where she encounters God's fingerprints, and let it help you learn to see them in your life as well.

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Water Lines

New and Selected Poems

This beautiful gathering of contemporary lyric poems by best-selling author and poet Luci Shaw celebrates both the magnificence and the meaning of water in its myriad forms.
Water Lines includes sixty-three new and selected poems by Shaw, all reflecting the evocative nature of water. The steady hush of falling rain, the white noise of a waterfall, the glittering sounds of a fountain, the washing of ripples against rocks in a clear northern lake, the surging of a mountain stream—Shaw shows how these watery wonders refresh the ear and eye and, further, penetrate the soul.
As with all her poetry on creation, Shaw sees the invisible, thinks the universal, and finds in the natural world superb metaphors for human life: "I think it's the fluidity of water—the way it constantly renews itself—that reminds me of the possibility, and the need, for change and renewal." Water Lines vividly captures water's effects on our senses and invites us to explore this persistent reality, which "pools in the Creator's hand," Shaw says, "and falls, like blessing, on all our heads."
Filled with luminous images and insights, Water Lines is a book to give, to receive, to savor.
"This shining reservoir of poems confirms how deeply we thirst for the elemental. Luci Shaw offers us cup after cup of the wondrous cycle of water... With her keen insight and precise language she links us to earth, God, and others, her 'water lines' wrapping around us, making us more whole." —Jean Janzen, author The Upside Down Tree, Tasting the Dust
"These new and selected poems of Luci Shaw reveal what readers have long known: she is a poet whose seeing eye misses nothing, whose words capture visions. I read her work with wonder and delight." —John Leax, author, Out Walking, The Tabloid News

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Water My Soul

Cultivating the Interior Life
Poet and author Luci Shaw guides you into a deeper understanding of how to cultivate the life of the soul in relationship to God. Water My Soul speaks of the interior life in images of garden and wilderness, seed and soil, watering and waiting—metaphors for the process that leads to the spouting of the seed, the greening of the leaf, and the eventual harvest of flower and fruit. This book speaks straight to the heart, helping you enjoy a lifelong partnership with God as you cultivate a rich inner life—a life characterized by growth in wisdom and godliness.

"Luci Shaw is one of our best writers. Read this wonderful book, and for heaven's sake pick up some copies for your friends!" —Annie Dillard

"Water My Soul is a profoundly rooted book that reminds us all to slow down, breathe deeply, and experience God at work. Luci Shaw displays the wisdom of a woman who has lived well and the child-like wonder of a believer who continues to discover new reasons to believe. This book will be a classic—a volume to be reread whenever life seems to spin out of control." —Dale Hanson Bourke, Publisher, Religion News Service

ECPA First Place Gold Medallion, 1990

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What the Light was Like

Poems

"This is what a sacramental poetry sounds like," says fellow poet Paul Mariani of Luci Shaw's new collection, What the Light Was Like. Shaw holds up both world and words to the light, revealing to us what has been there all along and teaching us how to see it for ourselves—with honesty, precision and patience.
"When William Stafford died, I wondered who there was to carry on in his spirit—humane, attentive, droll, faithful, and for whom writing was as natural as breathing. And, reading What the Light Was Like I see it has been Luci Shaw all along." —Mark Jarman, author, Body and Soul: Essays on Poetry
"In Luci Shaw's poems, which manage the almost impossible feat of being sacerdotal without being sanctimonious, God reveals himself through nature."
—Andrew Hudgins, author Babylon in a Jar

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A Widening Light

Poems of the Incarnation
"I can think of no other anthology which celebrates with such intensity the entire drama of the Christian faith. Here we have a host of poets praising God, and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest.' A Widening Light moves the reader through recognitions and meditations toward prayer." —Harold Fickett
"Luci Shaw has compiled perceptions both delicate and powerful of Jesus the baby prince, the Man, the golden Lion, Jesus Christ the Lord. For those who love poetry and those who think they don't, I recommend a slow and thoughtful reading of this lovely book. Each page reflects from a different angle the Light of the World.” —Elisabeth Eliot
"A Widening Light ranks as one of the very best anthologies of Christian poetry." —John H. Timmerman

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WinterSong

Christmas Readings
by Madeleine L'Engle and Luci Shaw
Have a cup of coffee and put a log on the fire, settle into a comfortable chair and enjoy a winter's day with the writings of novelist Madeleine L'Engle and poet Luci Shaw. Participate in the winter season: the wonder, the solemnity, the power, and the miracles. These readings reflect on the winter world around us, drawing joy from winter days, hope from Christmas celebrations, and promise for the New Year. This elegant collection is the natural outflow of the long-standing friendship between Madeleine L'Engle and Luci Shaw. Sharing similar themes and a reflective style of writing, they combine their two rich literary worlds. Newbery Award Winner Madeleine L'Engle is widely known for her children's books, and adult fiction and nonfiction. Both women are widely known throughout the United States and Canada for their workshops on writing and journaling, lectures, and retreats.

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Writing the River

These poems were written during Luci Shaw's residence in Sudden Valley, near Bellingham, WA. Following her first husband's death she had built a small home in the woods, with a stream flowing under the deck outside her bedroom. This setting became, for a time, the metaphor of her new life.
"This creek is like my stream of consciousness. All day and all night it is in the background of my listening and thinking. It is there as I write, or stoke the woodstove, or sleep (dreaming), or make soup. I often peer out at it, or step onto the deck to listen to it, as if I need to check it... I think it is myself I am checking. It is my metaphor—intensely personal. I am writing a stream. I am living a creek." —from the Journal Entry Introduction.
"Writing the River traces the steps of a writer who cocks her ear to listen for reality. The book is a record of her search into everything—rivers and bread and closets—and sometimes, as if by miracle, she finds what she is looking for." —Jeanne Murray Walker, author, A Deed to the Light

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