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.”