For Your Bookshelf: "St. Peter's B-List"

For Your Bookshelf: “St. Peter’s B-list”

 

Date published: June 22, 2016

This soul-stirring collection of more than one hundred poems—composed by a wide variety of contemporary award-winning poets—awakens readers to the beauty and humor in the broken, imperfect striving of the saints for holiness.

St. Peter’s B-list: Contemporary Poems Inspired by the Saints, edited by Mary Ann (Buddenberg) Miller, BA ‘85 MA ‘90, is a collection of contemporary poetry about the saints, including “St. Peter’s Square 1979” by Alan Berecka, BA ‘91. This work invites readers to view the saints as they never have before.

Poems depicts saints through all of their trials and tribulations on their paths to heaven in distinctly human dimensions: as mothers, brothers, children and sufferers. By illuminating their daily lives, the poems capture the struggle of seeing God's action in everyday life.

Miller  is a professor of English at Caldwell College in Caldwell, New Jersey. Her research interests are located at the intersection of theology and literature, reflected in her work on St. Peter’s B-list.

“While these poems are not prayers themselves, they give credence to the concept of seeking intercession in the midst of many hardships,” writes Miller in the introduction. “Most of us, I think, imagine we would be on St. Peter’s B-list, invited to the dimly lit bar after space is allocated for the canonized in the well-lit banquet hall.”

Featuring many different forms of poetry, the works as well as their subjects shed light on different dimensions of human life and the many forms that redemption can take. Whether reading for personal prayer, enjoyment, meditation or curiosity, St. Peter's B-list is a thought-provoking read that will surely stir the soul of the reader.

This collection is available in paperback ($15.95) from AveMariaPress.com.

Originally published in Tower Magazine, Summer 2014.