Mercy Wears a Red Dress

This title is printed to order. This book may have been self-published. If so, we cannot guarantee the quality of the content. In the main most books will have gone through the editing process however some may not. We therefore suggest that you be aware of this before ordering this book. If in doubt check either the author or publisher’s details as we are unable to accept any returns unless they are faulty. Please contact us if you have any questions.

The work of a wonderful secular poet, Billy Collins, provides a great model for Christian writers. His Coleridge conversation poems allow for real play and comedy, all in the service of profundity. These are veins that have not been suitably mined by poets who have access to the larger humanity that only Jesus can provide. But there’s more than comedy in this collection. The Sorrows of Mary offer a sober truth, as do the four Gospel sonnets; both sections provide a bracing interlude before we get back to high-spirited comedy in the St. Anthony poems–where the sainted speaker disdains direction and instead carries on about whatever is on his mind at the moment. In all, Mercy Wears a Red Dress offers a slice of the abundant life, a knowledge echoed in a Protestant hymn: I read the back of the book and we win.