Contemporary Catholic Poetry: An Anthology

April Lindner is a professor at Saint Joseph’s University, Philadelphia’s Jesuit university, and the author of three young adult novels: Love, Lucy, a retelling of A Room With a View; Catherine, a contemporary retelling of Wuthering Heights; and Jane, a retelling of Jane Eyre, all published by Poppy/Little, Brown Young Reader. Her digital-only novella, Far From Over, was published by NOVL.

She is also a poet, with two collections in print: This Bed Our Bodies Shaped, from Able Muse Press, and Skin, winner of the Walt McDonald First Book Prize from Texas Tech University Press. She writes literary criticism and edits poetry anthologies. The mother of two adult sons, Lindner lives in Havertown, Pennsylvania with her husband, pet chickens, and three rescued pups--Nico, Lily, and Miles. 

Ryan Wilson was born in Griffin, Georgia, in 1982, and raised in nearby Macon. His books include The Stranger World (Measure, 2017)-- winner of the Donald Justice Poetry Prize -- How to Think Like a Poet (Wiseblood, 2019), and Proteus Bound: Selected Translations 2008-20 (Franciscan UP, 2021) and most recently, In Ghostlight (LSU, 2024). His work appears in periodicals such as Best American Poetry, Birmingham Poetry Review, First Things, Five Points, The Hopkins Review, The New Criterion, The Sewanee Review, and Yale Review. He is Editor-in-Chief of Literary Matters (literarymatters.org), and he teaches at The Catholic University of America and in the M.F.A. program at the University of St. Thomas—Houston.

This is the definitive anthology of contemporary Catholic poetry in America and an important contribution to American letters more broadly. While deserving celebration among Catholic readers, the poets represented here merit much broader recognition. The wonderful poems in this anthology will delight, challenge, and move anyone interested in poetry.
—Lee Oser, Professor of English, College of the Holy Cross; Immediate Past President, Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers

"The poems speak intimately of heartfelt truths, describe local haunts, and address ordinary people directly. They meditate on living, on dying, and on the passage of time. They tell us stories, they tell us lies, and they tell us stories that reveal the truth through lying …. They enchant us with beauty and appall us with terror. Above all, poems remember." —Mike Mastromatteo, Our Sunday Visitor/Catholic Courier

"For at least the last 20 to 30 years, something has been happening in what we now call Catholic literature. It might be a mini-renaissance of a kind, and it might be a full-blown renewal. But something is clearly astir. And then you read an anthology like Contemporary Catholic Poetry, edited by April Lindner and Ryan Wilson, and you tell yourself that something’s not only astir but flourishing and growing. It’s a stellar anthology, with the poems and poets chosen with care and informed understanding." Glynn Young, Tweetspeak

"This book introduced me to some great poets I hope to read more of. The poems both evoked realities I’ve not experienced and resonated with ones that I have. Like so many great poems, these served as windows offering glimpses of transcendent realities in the commonplaces of life." -- Bob Trube, Bobonbooks.com
What an extraordinary collection of poets have been brought together here by April Lindner and Ryan Wilson in this profoundly moving panoply of twenty-three American voices covering the past five decades, each in their way paying homage to the deep spiritual and existential concerns that haunt us all. Read it, friends, page by page by page, soak it all up and take in the music and pathos and beauty of what real poetry has to offer us.
—Paul Mariani, author of Deaths and Transfigurations, The Mystery of It All, and All That Will be New

This volume is a jewel in the crown of Paraclete Press, already a trend-setter in the publication of deeply spiritual and meditative poetry for modern readers.The poems presented here are the kind of poetic lines that fast become inscribed on the hungry heart.This splendid volume would be an ideal gift for those in ministry and religious life, as well as for the general reader. It is a testament to the power of poetry as prayer in paraphrase.
—Royal Rhodes, PhD, The Donald L. Rogan Professor of Religious Studies Emeritus, Kenyon College
This anthology should be a standard assignment in every Catholic school in the English-speaking world.  From Julia Alvarez and Dana Gioia to James Matthew Wilson and David Yezzi, we have the most superb verse by poets eager to speak of human affairs through a Catholic lens that takes in the full range of despair, doubt, joy, love, uncertainty, death, and faith.  "I conjure the perfect Easter," one of them writes, "I am the Angel with the Broken Wing," says another, and "Nightly angst, ennui, and gloom / Refine the human need for some perfection," says still another.  These are thoughts given in eloquent words that young Catholics should ingest throughout their high school career.  So, let's go, diocese superintendents: you now have a tool to make English a thoroughly Catholic experience. Use it. —Mark Baurelin, editor at First Things, and author of The Dumbest Generation Grows Up
"Selective, startling, judiciously arranged—Contemporary Catholic Poetry is quite simply a gift to lovers of poetry, whatever their religious beliefs." 
—Micah Mattix, Poetry Editor, First Things, Professor of English, Regent University, and Co-editor of Christian Poetry in America Since 1940: An Anthology
The best thing about this carefully curated collection is that the poems gathered herein are anything but pious hymns and odes; rather, they address the concrete particularity of the everyday and the mystery of grace in a broken but beautiful creation. That’s what makes them Catholic: the faith that inhabits these poems isn’t sprinkled on top; it glows from within and illuminates the world around us.
–Gregory Wolfe, Publisher, Slant Books, author of Beauty Will Save the World 
If the words "contemporary" and "Catholic" anywhere in proximity to the word "poetry" raise your eyebrows in alarm at fears of low artistic merit or dubious faith, April Lindner and Ryan Wilson’s anthology Contemporary Catholic Poetry will challenge these assumptions in unexpected ways. With its wide array of prolific and award-winning poets and its expert preface tracing the development and flourishing of Catholic poetry in Europe and America, this collection will be one that teachers, editors, poets and poetry lovers alike can return to time and again to be fed by mastery of form, image and narrative and be strengthened with hope in an unbroken continuum for the Catholic Intellectual Tradition.
—Mary Ann B. Miller, founding editor, Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry; professor of English, Caldwell University

Bravo! This is a remarkable introduction not only to contemporary Catholic poetry, but to poetry in general. The poems are carefully chosen, consistently powerful, and truly catholic in their range. The introductions are engaging and useful. Rare is the book that's ideal as either a gift or a textbook. This one is.
—Mike Aquilina, chairman of the board, International Poetry Forum, and author of Rhymes' Reasons

"The twenty-three poets anthologized in this collection, all born in or after 1950, are rememberers who pay attention well; they are artists who paint the walls of our world with language. The writers in this volume witness to this, responding to their perceptions of God at work in the world in ways that are as varied and unique as each of their particular lives. Their poems propose to readers that faith is not simply a set of moral precepts to fastidiously fulfill, but a landscape in which to wonder, wander, suffer, doubt, and ask. Beyond familiar favorites, this collection allowed me to encounter a number of new-to-me poets whose work surprised and delighted." -- Carla Galdo, New Verse Review: A Journal of Lyric and Narrative Poetry