Poetry and religion have been linked since the first written texts of humanity, even before the Psalms of the Hebrew Bible. Exploring the relationship between poetry and religion within the realm of poetry in English, this volume begins in medieval times and ends with a collection of poems published in 2010, with strong emphasis given to the metaphysical poets of the seventeenth century. Nineteen essays cover the work of poets from various periods and continents, ranging from Julian of Norwich and the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing to Thomas Traherne, George Herbert, John...

Complete poems are bulky and too heavy to carry around. Collected poems pretend to be complete, but usually are not. Selected poems are altogether unpretentious and reader-friendly. But they can be problematic. Who decides what poems are important for inclusion in a volume of selected poems? When the selection occurs during the author's lifetime, may one assume that the author was involved? What motivates the choice of one poem over another? How do readers' preferences influence this choice? How do new readers and familiar readers of a poet negotiate the poems that are left out of the...