This paper by Dana Greene was presented at the recent SSCS conference “Wondrous Fear and Holy Awe” at the University of Notre Dame. Here is the abstract:
Anne Channing Porter’s poetry gives witness to an inner life nurtured by a love of the natural world and purified by suffering from a turbulent marriage. At age eighty-two she was named a National Book Award finalist for her first collection of poems. In these she aims for transparency and the revelation of mystery inherent in everyday life. A convert to Catholicism, Porter rejected the designation “religious” poet, nonetheless her poems combine a contemplative seeing, an incarnational awareness of spirit in matter, and a prophetic urgency to live as “Love’s apprentice,” responding with compassion toward those of “humble goodness.”
