I have a signed copy of Luci Shaw's book of poems, Writing the River. It occurs to me that a number of those poets whose work resonates most sympathetically with many of my own questions, and who reach deeply and disturbingly into that place within us where deep longing and spiritual perception come together, are women.  They include Elizabeth Jennings, Denise Levertov, Mary Oliver, Luci Shaw, Anne Stevenson – and recently discovered after a nudge from a fellow bibliophile, U A Fanthorpe.

In thinking through the points of connection and collusion which open poetry and theology to each other, I suppose it's obvious that the nature of the relationship between these two ways of speaking the world, and our place in it, might be significantly affected by the gender of the writer. Or is that not so obvious? Are there insights, ways of knowing and articulation, ranges of human experience and capacities for feeling and thinking, that presuppose not only differences of personal history, but differences of gendered embodied experience?

While I want to think this through much more thoroughly, it's simply the case that some of the insights I value most into the nature of God, what it means to follow faithfully after Christ, and how this is lived out in community within and beyond the church, have come from women poets and women theologians. And I can speculate with the next person as to what that says about me, my theology, my approach to the Bible, my understanding of ministry and the pastoral and personal relationships that underlie meaningful spiritual friendships. But I'd rather consider than speculate, and I'd rather illustrate than argue.

So here's a poem by Luci Shaw. It is called simply, "Virgin". Could a man have written this poem? Leave aside for a minute all the theological conundrums that surround the Incarnation, and what James Denney once called "Chalcedonian metaphysics". How else but in the experience of embodied womanhood could we have any sense of what the Annunciation meant and felt like, its implications from the inside of one particular woman's experience? I find the "as if" of this poem utterly heartbreaking in the positive sense of that phrase. The vulnerability and the courage, the gift and the given, the tenderness that has immeasurable consequence, the patience and the urgency that enables the birthing of human life – and these only some of the untold and inconceivable consequences of this requested incursion into the life plans of a young woman. And the radical surrender of "Let it be so…."

As a poem read at Advent, it places this young woman at the centre of the mystery of Emmanuel.

Luci Shaw, Writing the River, (Pinon Press, 1994), page 27.

Today is the Quartercentenary of the birth of John Milton, a towering presence in English poetry and a significant player in the political theory and machinations of the 17th Century. The masterpiece Paradise Lost is a tour de force of theology as well as poetry, though for some a theology inadequately Christian. Milton's influence on poetry, and his contributions to political and moral thought have decisively shaped English culture.

Years ago I learned by heart his sonnet "On His Blindness", one of the most moving statements of non-resignation I know; I'm not at all sure that in this sonnet Milton is resigned to providence, and I sense behind the poem lies deep complaint, not silenced by the reply of "patience to prevent that murmur". In any case today is Milton's 400th birthday, and I've been reading some of those lines which poured from the quill of "that one Talent". Here's his sonnet "On His Blindness":

My personal revenge will be your children's
right to schooling and to flowers.
My personal revenge will be this song
bursting for you with no more fears.
My personal revenge will be to make you see
the goodness in my people's eyes,
implacable in combat always
generous and firm in vistory.

My personal revenge will be to greet you
"Good Morning!" in the streets with no beggars,
when instead of locking you inside
they say, "Don't look so sad"
When you, the torturer,
daren't lift your head.
My personal revenge will be to give you
these hands you once ill-treated
with all their tenderness intact.

Tomas Borge was a leader of the Sandinista Revolutionary Front, imprisoned and tortured in Nicaragua during the struggles of the 1960's and 1970's. After the Nicaraguan revolution in 1979 he became Minister for the Interior, and faced his jailers and torturers in court. Given the freedom to choose the form and severity of punishment, he clearly stated his desired revenge – he chose to forgive them and in the courtroom declared them forgiven.

The above words are the song written by Luis Enrique Meja Godoy based on this redemptive scandal. Advent is a good time to remember events like this. As Harriet Walters said introducing the poem, this "is not wooly wishful thinking from a comfy armchair. It comes from the front line".