

Since 1900, the Christian Century has published reporting, commentary, poetry, and essays on the role of faith in a pluralistic society.
© 2023 The Christian Century.
Poems for a difficult life of faith
Like Paul, Spencer Reece has journeyed to see what he would suffer as a servant of Christ.
Unlocking the gates of Genesis through poetry
Jessica Jacobs breathes new life into ancient voices.
What is poetry in the face of war?
Mosab Abu Toha’s poems are about Gaza. Reading them I saw all people who suffer.
Wreckage and euphoria
Barbara Crooker’s new poetry collection is a journey through loss that reveals the world’s beauty.
For love of Dante
Angela Alaimo O’Donnell writes, in 39 poems, a charmingly backhanded love letter to the Italian poet.
Emily Dickinson, botanist
Before the beloved poet tended words, she tended the earth.
The poetic space of the liturgy
What if we suspend our disbelief, collapse our ironic distance, and allow ourselves to go in?
The wisdom of dreamwork
“I don’t interpret dreams,” says poet and spiritual director Rodger Kamenetz. “I bring them to life.”
Understanding Czesław Miłosz
Eva Hoffman, a fellow exile from Poland, writes about the Nobel-winning author like no one else could.
Praying the hours with W. H. Auden
The poet’s Horae Canonicae sequence is an underappreciated spiritual classic.
The making of God
“I don’t believe in God as character,” says poet Pádraig Ó Tuama, “but I do believe in God as plot.”
Anthony Hecht’s poetic vision
W. H. Auden’s most distinguished heir wrote poems that bear witness to history with great depth of feeling.
A magical world of daily bread
In Luci Shaw’s new collection of poems, ordinary objects trespass their boundaries.
The Iowa poet-priest who mastered haiku
Raymond Roseliep quietly became one of the most highly regarded haiku poets in the English language.
A Job who’s read Job
Poet Michael Shewmaker imagines a suffering Christian in Kilgore, Texas, with three unhelpful friends.
A poet converted by her own writing
Denise Levertov’s intuitive grasp of incarnation drove her politics, her poetry, and eventually her religious discernment.
Marjorie Maddox’s capacious poetry
She can (and will) do anything with this English language she so clearly loves.
A poet’s truth at the graveside
At the interment, the holy words I needed to hear weren’t from the Bible.
On the road to Emmaus, “burning” is a positive word.
by Jenna Smith