Denise Levertov and the Poetry of Justice and Intercession

To lose one book is careless; to lose two is culpable; to lose two books by the same author is unpardonable; to lose two books by Denise Levertov is expensive – because I will replace them!

Conversations with Denise Levertov was left on a train on the way back from and External Examiners Board. The Stream and the Sapphire, her collected religious poetry is now available for whoever follows us into the accommodation where we recently had a holiday. (Photo taken on said holiday) If they pick it up and read it, then they will discover one of the sharpest most compassionate spirits in contemporary poetry; they will hear a voice that beckons them into deeper water, that urges them to look and see a bigger sky, that tugs at those nameless longings another reat writer described as God putting eternity in our hearts. So I've just re-ordered it and rather than writing the abandoned copy off, I pray a blessing on the book and whoever reads it. It has been a balm in Gilead for me, and a pocket companion who seldom fails to say the right thing.

Here's a quotation I wrote down in a wee journal I kept a few holidays ago – it encouraged me to write prayers of intercession for worship that both saw, and felt and touched the hurts and wounds of the world:

A poetry articulating the dreads and horrors of our time is necessary in
order to make readers understand what is happening, really understand
it, not just know about it but feel it: and should be accompanied by a
willingness on the part of those who write it to take additional action
towards stopping the great miseries which they record.

"additional action
towards stopping the great miseries which they record" – a definition of and justification for intercessory prayer, perhaps?