How can I express the gratitude I have for Luci? One of the earliest poems I ever had published was accepted by Luci Shaw for Radix. I remember how thrilled I was later when she wrote an endorsement for my first full-length poetry collection, Poiema (2008). Next, I was further affirmed by this excellent poet when she accepted me as her editor for her poetry collection Scape (2013), which appeared as part of the Poiema Poetry Series. Perhaps the greatest honour she gave, was to ask me to write an endorsement for her for her eighteenth poetry book, An Incremental Life (Paraclete, 2025). I am clearly the one honoured by being asked to do this. The following is my endorsement as it appears in that book.
“For decades I have sat at Luci Shaw’s feet, listening to her lyrical wisdom, her playful music, her spiritual insight, and her deep connectedness to the natural world. In The Incremental Life, Luci Shaw shares her metapoetics ― choosing ‘words like matches, / striking them to see what happens next.’ As a nonagenarian, she acknowledges her shrinking life, yet invites us even into this experience. Still she wrestles with faith, and says to God, ‘Come, now. Fill / the gaps, mend the widening cracks in my aging /soul. I’m moving in your direction, but I move / more slowly, see more dimly, require more daily.’ As always, though, Luci Shaw is as wide-eyed as a child. ‘My heart,’ she writes, ‘is ambushed by simple beauty.’”
The following poem is from her collection, Accompanied by Angels: Poems of the Incarnation (Eerdmans, 2006), and is one she has granted permission for me to use in a forthcoming Christmas poetry anthology which I am planning for 2026.
A Blessing for the New Baby
Lightly as a falling star, immense, may you
drop into the body of the pure young girl like a seed
into its furrow, entering your narrow home under the
shadow of Gabriel’s feathers. May your flesh shape itself
within her, swelling her with shame and glory. May her
belly grow round as a small planet, a bowl of golden fruit.
When you suck in your first breath, and your loud
cries echo through the cave. (Blessings on you, little howler!),
may Mary adorn you with tears and caresses like
ribbons, her face glowing, a moon among stars. At her
breasts may you drink the milk of mortality that transforms
you, even more, into one of your own creatures.
And now, as the night of this world folds you in its
brutal frost (the barnyard smell strong as sin), and as
Joseph, weary with unwelcome and relief, his hands
bloody from your birth, spreads his thin cloak around you
both, we doubly bless you, Baby as you are acquainted
for the first time, with our grief.
*This is the fifth Kingdom Poets post about Luci Shaw: first post, second post, third post, fourth post.
Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of six poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Poiema/Cascade), plus three anthologies — available through Wipf & Stock. His new book The Role of the Moon, inspired by the Metaphysical Poets, is now available from Paraclete Press.
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