Mark Burrows, Poetry Editor of the SSCS journal Spiritus, has co-edited this multi-author collection of essays which one reviewer has described as “an important resource for students of Christian spirituality.” According to the book’s introductory blurb:
This book explores the much debated relation of language and bodily experience (i.e. the ‘flesh’), considering in particular how poetry functions as revelatory discourse and thus relates to the formal horizon of theological inquiry. The central thematic focus is around a ‘phenomenology of the flesh’ as that which connects us with the world, being the site of perception and feeling, joy and suffering, and of life itself in all its vulnerability. The voices represented in this collection reflect interdisciplinary methods of interpretation and broadly ecumenical sensibilities, focusing attention on such matters as the revelatory nature of language in general and poetic language in particular, the function of poetry in society, the question of Incarnation and its relation to language and the poetic arts, the kenosis of the Word, and human embodiment in relation to the word ‘enfleshed’ in poetry.
The table of contents, Preface, and much of the Introduction by Burrows is available in a Preview PDF linked on the publisher’s page for the book.
Citation for the book:
Burrows, Mark S, Jean Ward, and Małgorzata Grzegorzewska, eds. Poetic Revelations : Word Made Flesh Made Word. The Power of the Word, Volume 3. London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017.
Citation for the quoted book review:
Staudt, K. H. “Poetic Revelations: Word Made Flesh Made Word (The Power of the Word III) ed. by Mark Burrows, Jean Ward, and Malgorzata Gregorgzewska (review).” Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality, vol. 17 no. 2, 2017, pp. 263-265.