Our last awakening

Author Janet Morley
Publisher SPCK £9.99
Format pbk
ISBN 9780281073542

Yet again Morley has edited a superb anthology to inform and sustain, this time ‘for living in the face of death’. These fifty poems can be read in any order, at any time, by dipping in, or focusing on one poem. Her commentary enlarges our perception of each. They enhance my awareness of dying and its stages and are feeding into my funeral ministry, preaching, and pastoral care. Each poem is an adventure, an experience lived through or imagined. One that inspired me is U.A.Fanthorpe’s ‘The Unprofessionals’, an absorbing unassuming paean to those who ‘come, unorganised, inarticulate’ to ‘sit with you’, ‘answering the phone’ and ‘talking sometimes’ and doing other things ‘until the blunting of time’ – when the bereaved are beginning to cope. Pastoral care and wisdom at their unobtrusive best.

JEREMY HARVEY