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The Shambhala Anthology of Women's Spiritual Poetry celebrates the unique spiritual life of women through a rich selection of poetry written over the past four thousand years, from thirty-six different languages and cultures. It ranges from verse by the first recorded poet, a Sumerian priestess named Enheduanna (circa 2,300 BCE), to Anne Sexton; from early Buddhist nuns to Emily Dickinson; from Hildegard of Bingen to Tess Gallagher. Many of the translations are from distinguished authors and poets, such as Coleman Barks, Samuel Beckett, Stanley Kunitz, W. S. Merwin, Kenneth Rexroth, Arthur Waley, and Richard Wilbur.
In this book (originally published as Voices of Light), the spiritual impulse is expressed broadly as a visionary quest toward self-realization, as well as the desire for union with God, with the source of divine light, with a mystic lover, or with the source of nature. Many of the poets here also remind us that the spiritual is within everyone and unites us through empathy with the suffering and joy of others—a poetry of witness.
Contributors include: Anne Bradstreet, Sappho, Sylvia Plath, Hildegard of Bingen, Yosano Akiko, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Tess Gallagher, Anne Sexton, Beatrice of Nazareth, Carolyn Forché, Mary: Mother of Jesus, Denise Levertov, Emily Dickinson, H.D., Linda Hogan, Charlotte Brontë, Louise Erdrich, Lucille Clifton, Anna Akhmatova, Marianne Moore, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Praxilla, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, and many others.
| Price | Condition | Delivery | Seller | Action |
| $99.99 | Digital |
| WonderClub |
Pat Bean
reviewed The Shambhala Anthology of Women's Spiritual Poetry on June 03, 2017 The Shambhala Anthology of Women's Spiritual Poetry
I never would have bought this collection just by its title. I happened to hear someone reading "Here I Am Once More..." by Moroccan poet Rachida Madani and was transfixed. I had to have it.
I don't think the editor and I share quite the same interests. I haven't always been a huge fan of religious poems. But this... this is an extraordinary thing. I don't think I could help giving this five stars just for being what it is: A collection of poems by women from different countries, cultures, races, sexualities, religions, circumstances, and time periods, from Ancient Sumeria (over 4 thousand years ago) to the present day (as of the publishing date.)
No matter what the subject matter there's something powerful in that. How could I not be fascinated by looking through a little window into the lives, thoughts, feelings, experiences, and perspectives of almost a hundred women throughout the ages? Their voices aren't always heard in history, and hearing them through poetry is so intimate and immersive that it's spell-binding. I appreciated the diversity, the different religions and beliefs represented: Pagan, Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, Sufi, Native American, Aztec, Abrahamic. Even the ones that didn't appeal to me were still intriguing, just in seeing the beliefs and experiences of a woman in the time and context in which she existed. I enjoyed watching the beliefs change over time.
Whether the religious themes gripped me or not hardly mattered. The poems themselves are beautifully crafted, and there is so much more that you can find in them. To some extent the theme of the poems being "spiritual" is rather loosely interpreted. And not all of their thoughts on the subject are rosy. (There are at least two from the perspective of girls who are furious about being forced to become nuns.) What the poems are about varies greatly. There are poems about social issues, dealing with loss, slavery, war... all kinds of things.
It's not perfect, but I haven't been able to find anything quite like it. (If you have, do let me know.)
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