January #BookOfTheMonth: Hope in Dark Places
Added about 4 years ago by Sacristy Press
January is often considered the most miserable month of the year: Christmas cheer is over (in the secular world, at least…) and there seems to be no end to the long, dark nights. However, David Grieve shows in our January #BookOfTheMonth that there is still plenty of Hope in Dark Places.
The deeper darkness,
that smear you only just see out of the corner of your mind’s eye as
you contemplate ending it all,
that not-so-much-no-go area
as a darkness-he’s-gone-further-into-than-anyone-else,
is where Christ is.
Hope in Dark Places explores the depths of depression through the poetry of David Grieve. You will be moved to tears and laugh unexpectedly. You will feel the raw reality of suffering and feel Christ’s presence in its midst.
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In this collection David Grieve bravely offers fresh light on an age-old experience. These moving and perceptive poems will help those both inside and outside the darkness they so eloquently describe.John Pritchard, former Bishop of Oxford
In these brave poems, David, deeply conscious that he is a loved child of God, never flinches from, nor spares us from, the reality of the Depression that he lives with and in so doing he leads us all into a deeper awareness both of the experience of Depression and how, for him, Christ is found as a companion within it. These are poems to be taken slowly and lived with. They will be a real gift to many of us.
Mark Bryant, former Bishop of Jarrow
Careful reading (Philip Larkin, Exodus, the Psalms) and looking — a pietà in Durham Cathedral — inform Grieve’s work, alongside the domestic. Humour energises word-play, as when both he and the cat have ‘lost our marbles’ under the sofa, and he remembers ‘God is good at shifting furniture.’ Like the best hymn-writing, this is poetry that does not disown either the craft of its making or the faith that ultimately informs it, and keeps it buoyant.
Martyn Halsall, The Church Times
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Please note: Sacristy Press does not necessarily share or endorse the views of the guest contributors to this blog.