An Anthology of Contemporary Catholic Poetry

Growing up in late 1950s and early 1960s New Orleans meant by definition that you were part of a Catholic culture. My family wasn’t Catholic, but most of my neighborhood friends and school classmates were. Within relatively easy walking distances were several Catholic churches and schools – Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Our Lady of Divine Providence, St. Mary Magdalene, St. Christopher’s, and St. Philip Neri. Our Lutheran church could only be reached by driving. My parents almost sent me to a Catholic high school. Because the Catholic church was so dominant, you didn’t think of “Catholic” as anything but normal.  

We certainly didn’t think of “Catholic” poetry or fiction as something distinct. Poetry was poetry, and fiction was fiction. We did learn about the importance of Catholic faith when we studied T.S. Eliot, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Henry Cardinal Newman, or Reformation writers, or the religious wars of the 16^th and 17^th centuries. But no one talked about a distinct Catholic literature, even if it might have existed. If anyone had asked me to name a Catholic writer, I would have said G.K. Chesterton, Flannery O’Connor, or Giovanni Guareschi, author of the Don Camillo stories (which I read in high school and loved them all). And that would have exhausted my knowledge.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Sweet Gal, You Made Me Think – poem by Jonathan Rogers at Rabbi Room Poetry.

 

A Letter from Rome – poem by Morri Creech at The Hopkins Review.

 

A Savannah Poet – Richard Kreitner at Jewish Review of Books.

 

I Have Waited for September – poem by Roy Peterson at Society of Classical Poets.

 

Poetry Prompt: Wordle Your Way – Tweetspeak Poetry. 

“The Wild Duck,” poem by John Masefield – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.