Building Jerusalem: Elegies on Parish Churches
Ebook
A new collection of poems by well-known poets echoing the love of the parish church in the British literary memory.
Nostalgia and love of parish churches is deeply embedded in the British psyche. Following the success of Poems in the Porch, a collection of hitherto unpublished poems on parish churches by Sir John Betjeman, Kevin Gardner has now assembled a new anthology of poems on the same theme yet with a greater diversity of post-war authors – Philip Larkin, R. S. Thomas, John Betjeman, C. Day Lewis, U. A. Fanthorpe and many others.
The collection is introduced by a fascinating critical introduction, 'Anglican Memory and Post-war British Poetry' and will appeal to church and poetry lovers alike in their droves.
A new collection of poems by well-known poets echoing the love of the parish church in the British literary memory.
The kind of ostensibly religious book to reach a wide market and penetrate deeply into the general trade audience.
Poems in the Porch by John Betjeman and edited by Kevin Gardner was one of Continuum`s best selling titles, serialized in The Times and covered widely in the religious media.
Professor Gardner is a leading authority on post war poetry and widely respected throughout the English speaking world.
`The prospects for this book are very commercial. It is the sort of volume I would buy like a shot` Michael Schmidt, Managing Director Carcanet Press
'A positive delight' Bevis Hillier
`I congratulate Professor Gardner for his enterprise in bringing out this scholarly and entertaining book` Christopher Howse, Daily Telegraph.
Foreword by leading figure: Andrew Motion, A.N. Wilson, Simon Jenkins or similar
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Anglican Memory and Post-War British Poetry
POEMS
Fleur Adcock
At Great Hampden
Kilpeck
Simon Armitage
Harmonium
Peter Armstrong
Rains
Cliff Ashby
Fountains Abbey
Juliet Aykroyd
The Angels of Muchelney
George Barker
At Thurgarton Church
John Betjeman
A Lincolnshire Church
St Saviour's
Aberdeen Park
Highbury, London, N.
Sunday Morning, King's Cambridge
Uffington
Charles Causley
At St Hilary
St Protus & St Hyacinth, Blisland
Glen Cavaliero
Fenland Churches
A Redundant Church
Gillian Clarke
Top Church
Jack Clemo
In Roche Church
Anne Cluysenaar
About the Church
Tony Connor
St Mark's, Cheetham Hill
Iain Crichton Smith
In Luss Churchyard
Kevin Crossley
Holland Angels at St Mary's
In Latter Days
Simon Curtis
Leaving Towcester Vicarage
Donald Davie
The Priory of St Saviour, Glendalough
C. Day-Lewis
Seen from the Train
U.A. Fanthorpe
Greensted Church
St James's, Charfield
'Soothing and Awful'
Roy Fuller
Youth Revisited
Roger Garfitt
Rites of Passage
John Greening
A Huntingdonshire Elegy
A Huntingdonshire Nocturne
Geoffrey Grigson
West Window
John Heath-Stubbs
Churchyard of Saint Mary Magdalene, Old Milton
Michael Henry
St Martin in the Field
Slipper Chapel
Geoffrey Hill
Epiphany at Saint Mary and All Saints
Loss and Gain
Brian Hinton
All Saints
Jeremy Hooker
St Cross
Frances Horovitz
Country Afternoon
Ted Hughes
Heptonstall Old Church
Elizabeth Jennings
Somerset
P.J. Kavanagh
Westwell Churchyard, Oxfordshire
Philip Larkin
Church Going
A Stone Church Damaged by a Bomb
Peter Levi
Shobdon
Herbert Lomas
Christ Church
St Martin-in-the-Fields
Roland Mathias
Brechfa Chapel
Hubert Moore
Crossing the Church
Andrew Motion
For Now
Norman Nicholson
Of this Parish
John Ormond
Cathedral Builders
Peter Porter
An Angel in Blythburgh Church
At Whitechurch Canonicorum
The Rider Haggard Window, St Mary's, Ditchingham
Neil Powell
At Little Gidding
Iken
Leiston Abbey
Providence
Rodney Pybus
Suffolk Church
Vicki Raymond
Boveney Church
Peter Reading
St James's
Anne Ridler
Edlesborough
Vernon Scannell
In a City Churchyard
David Scott
Locking the Church
Peter Scupham
Dissolution
Minsden
Rule
Service
Stone Head
Jon Silkin
The Cathedral Chair
C.H. Sisson
In Kent
Knole
Muchelney Abbey
Jon Stallworthy
At the Church of St John Baptist, Preston Bissett, May 1974
Anne Stevenson
Pennine
Seán Street
Churchyard
Knowlton, Cranborne Chase
Kim Taplin
Fairford Windows
R.S. Thomas
The Belfry
Country Church
Anthony Thwaite
Dunkeswell Abbey
At Dunwich
Eccles
Manhood End
The Mole at Kilpeck Church
Reformation
Andrew Waterman
Ludham, St Catherine's Church, The Rood Screen
Rowan Williams
Please Close this Door Quietly
Clive Wilmer
East Anglian Churchyard
Near Walsingham
The Ruined Abbey
Andrew Young
The Ruined Chapel
A church without a poem is a steeple without a bell, a choir without a hymn. Thank you Kevin Gardner for composing such a glorious sound, and from friends old and new. It will enhance every church visitor's bliss.
A plangent, devastating elegy for a Church of England apparently in its death throes … One reads it with mingled admiration of the verse and sadness at the dereliction of so many English parish churches.
An anthology that gave me even more pleasure than I expected.
A treat from cover to cover
- Title: Building Jerusalem: Elegies on Parish Churches
- Author: Kevin J Gardner
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Continuum
- Print Publication Date: 2016
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781472924360, 9781472924353, 1472924355, 1472924363
- Resource ID: LLS:9781472924360
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-05-13T22:06:47Z
Dr Kevin J. Gardner is Professor of English at Baylor University, Texas. He has published numerous scholarly essays on British poetry. His books include Poems in the Porch (Continuum) Faith and Doubt of John Betjeman (Continuum) and Betjeman and the Anglican Imagination (SPCK).