Praying through Poetry

Praying through poetry can offer a way into praying that articulates things to us which previously we could not express, making us think more deeply about faith, life, relationships, God and all that there is. We will work with a variety of themes and poets offering a space to taste the gift that poetry can bring in opening up our experience of prayer.

• 3 September 2024 – A Special Place … to the poet or to you. ‘Liverpool, it’s a special place. You feel it when you make your first step’ – Jurgen Klopp
• 1 October 2024 – Stormy Weather. ‘Then October adds a gale, Wind and slush and rain and hail’ – Flanders and Swann
• 5 November 2024 – Remember, remember. ‘I’d like to hear that one again.’
• 3 December 2024 – Holy, heavenly Love. Hymns and Prayer Poems
• 4 February 2025 – An ‘Auden’ Poem. ‘A poet can write about a man slaying a dragon, but not about a man pushing a button that releases a bomb.’ W.H. Auden
• 4 March 2025 – Names and named. A poem about a named person
• 1 April 2025 – Fantastical Beasts. No matter how small or insignificant, every living creature has a purpose.
• 6 May 2025 – Morning Poems. ‘The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep.’ Rumi
• 3 June 2025 – Mothers. ‘I need a father. I need a mother. I need some older, wiser being to cry to. I talk to God, but the sky is empty.’ Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
• 1 July 2025 – Time. ‘Time has wings’; ‘There is time and place for everything.’; ‘Time is a great healer.’; “A stitch in time saves nine.’

Mark Russell-Smith is a retired Anglican Priest and Missionary living in York for whom poetry of all sorts is providing a rich resource for and challenge to Contemplation and Prayer.