-
I recently came across this devotional and have been captivated. The daily readings, which stretch from November 24 to January 7, include some of the most profound reflections on the season that I have ever seen – in both concept and scope, classic and contemporary – all gathered together into a single volume.
First Presbyterian Church News
-
Beneath the verse stirs a burning, unquenchable flame. Faith and radical optimism permeate these poems
St. Anthony’s Messenger
-
Written in spare language, deceptively simple yet with measured directness…Clement’s poetry seems to well out of the quiet of a centered being.
Friends Journal
-
A fresh offering, different from the many anthologies that already house the older works. Pastoral tales mix with urban tales, old with the new, European with American. This is a book to read aloud and savor, pulling it out each year to re-read old favorites and perhaps read a new story or two.
Redeemed Reader
-
Tender, humorous, and with a light touch, Huleatt’s biography of Clement also conveys the strains to which any long marriage is subject.... The interplay between Clement’s poems and the narrative of her life kept me absorbed from beginning to end.
John Wilson, First Things Magazine
-
Each of the Clement poems is a small, beautiful gem; she uses nature metaphors so simply and so adroitly that you find yourself almost stunned into silence....I’m not sure whether I would call this a book. A better description might be “a profoundly moving experience.”
Glynn Young, Tweetspeak Poetry
-
Huleatt’s voice is captivating as she traces the history of a compassionate life lived. This moving collection on the life of a true poet is stellar. The final poem in the collection brought me to tears.
Sheryl Luna, poet, author of Pity the Drowned Horses
-
The genesis of The Heart's Necessities, so well written by Becca Stevens, is a complex and interesting one. The journeys of being led from one discovery to another are very profound. Jane Tyson Clement was a wonderful poet and person … I was so interested in her and her husband’s commitment to the Bruderhof and their life in faith.
Carolyn Gelland-Frost, poet, author of Dream-Shuttle
-
A gem of a book… Poetry by an obscure dead poet, but with a twist: this poet, Jane Tyson Clement, has a huge fan in jazz/indie rock musician and singer Becca Stevens, and Plough Publishing has put the two of them together. It’s an exciting book on many levels, especially when you hear the poetry put to music.
Independent Publisher Magazine
-
Through hard-won religious commitment, Jane Tyson Clement’s poems rose from feminine eloquence, in the manner of Edna St. Vincent Millay and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, to something closer to universal:
‘Too late we break the siege
of the close-bastioned heart
and find the city starved,
dry to the bone, and dark.’
Sarah Ruden
-
This beautiful homage to Jane Tyson Clement and her poetry, which will continue to resonate with readers and, through Becca Stevens’s compositions, music lovers, also celebrates the kind of artistic collaboration that spans time and opens us to our own ‘heart’s necessities.’
Booklist
-
The poetry is brilliant, and it’s inspired Becca to write stunning music.
David Crosby
-
The tales collected in Easter Stories: Classic Tales for the Holy Season don’t always mention Jesus, nor even the usual tropes like sunlight and springtime. But each reveal a particular melody of the Easter story. The lovingly crafted volume, edited by Miriam LeBlanc and published by Plough, features original woodcuts by Lisa Toth for each tale…. Reading these Easter tales invites our own stories to be shaped, too, by the Story, for our own hearts to thaw and for our imaginations to be steeped in the waters of resurrection.
Tessa Carman, Mere Orthodoxy
-
It’s hard to go wrong with writers such as these. . . . Born of obvious passion and graced with superb writing, this collection is a welcome – even necessary – addition.
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
-
The heart of Easter can be found in the pages of this collection of read-aloud tales. Step inside the works of well-known authors such as C.S. Lewis, Leo Tolstoy, Oscar Wilde, and others, as they explore the true meaning of the Easter season. Short and spiritual, these stories are perfect to be read again and again.
US Catholic
-
This thoughtfully curated collection is remarkable for its range and breadth. The stories come from all over the world and represent many genres, such as parables, animal fables, historical fiction, fairy tales and Christian fantasy. Most of the stories are from the first half of the 20th century, but the earliest is from an 1857 edition of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and the most recent selections were written in 2015. Definitely read these stories at Easter, but keep the book close and pull it out whenever you and your family need a reminder of the great Easter themes of transformation, reconciliation and the triumph of life over death.
Clare Walker, National Catholic Register
-
This stunning collection of some of the best spiritual writers of all time came out in 2001 from the exceptionally thoughtful, high-quality publishing house founded by a simple-living community. What a delight to have seasonal readings from theological voices like Jürgen Moltmann, mystics like Bernard of Clairvaux, poets — from Sylvia Plath to T.S. Eliot to Jane Kenyon — contemplatives such as Henri Nouwen, and storytelling writers like the late Brennan Manning.
Byron Borger, Hearts and Minds Books
-
Clement writes with simplicity and directness, a gentle, probing insistence, and conviction. One lays down the book in thought, and with thankful heart.
Friends Journal
-
Beautiful – offers quietude in the midst of cacophony and literary cynicism.
Poughkeepsie Journal
