CHRISTMAS BLESSINGS: Prayers and Poems to Celebrate the Season

Most of the selections in this short poetry collection are classics, some of which have been immortalized as Christmas carols. There's Martin Luther's "Away in a Manger," Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day," Edmund Sears's "It Came Upon A Midnight Clear" and Christina Rossetti's "What Can I Give Him?" There is also a sampling of 20th-century poetry, including some fine contributions from Madeleine L'Engle, Henri Nouwen, e.e. cummings and G.K. Chesterton. But many of the other contemporary poems, unfortunately, are not destined for the ages; contributions such as "Grandfather's Christmas Rocking Chair," "The Sights and Sounds of Christmas," and "Angels" don't manage to rise above their sentimentality. In contrast, Barbara Crooker's contemporary poem "The Meteorology of Loss" manages to be both fresh and melancholy while musing on a time-honored subject: the absent friends we remember at Christmas. (Oct. 21)