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The Ordering of Love: The New and Collected Poems of Madeleine L'Engle [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

Madeleine L'Engle
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)


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This Book Is Bound with "Deckle Edge" Paper
You may have noticed that some of our books are identified as "deckle edge" in the title. Deckle edge books are bound with pages that are made to resemble handmade paper by applying a frayed texture to the edges. Deckle edge is an ornamental feature designed to set certain titles apart from books with machine-cut pages. See a larger image.

Book Description

March 15, 2005
Praise for The Ordering of Love
By Madeleine L’Engle

“In a brilliant marriage of myth and manner, histories sacred and profane, prayers of petition and of praise, these poems both articulate and illumine the trouble in the gap in which we live–the gap between human affections and Divine Love. L’Engle is unfailing in her willingness to see through–not around–human suffering, and in so doing announces no final severing of spirit and flesh but an enduring vision of resurrection in that crux, in the cross, in the One in Whom all things meet, continuing.”
–Scott Cairns, author of Slow Pilgrim and Philokalia: New and Selected Poems


“I love L’Engle’s poetry for the way it incarnates not only the great Truths of the faith, but all the little truths of our ordinary existence–our working and playing and loving and fighting and dreaming and idling and all the rest of it–and for the way it shows us that those big and little truths should not, cannot, be separated.”
–Carolyn Arends, recording artist and author

“Why is L’Engle one of the defining poets of our time? Because when life hurts, she does not shrink from the wounds. She clarifies the murk with hope as we feel the lift of grace.”
–Calvin Miller, Beeson Divinity School
Birmingham, Alabama


“We are, all of us, the richer for this carefully crafted and prayerfully rendered collection.”
–Phyllis Tickle, Author, The Divine Hours



“Poetry, at least the kind I write, is written out of immediate need; it is written out of pain, joy, and experience too great to be borne until it is ordered into words. And then it is written to be shared.”
–Madeleine L’Engle


Madeleine L’Engle’s writing has always translated the invisible and intricate qualities of love into the patterns and rhythms of visible life. Now, with compelling language and open-hearted vulnerability, The Ordering of Love brings together the exhaustive collection of L’Engle’s poetry for the first time.

This volume collects nearly 200 of L’Engle’s original poems, including eighteen that have never before been published. Reflecting on themes of love, loss, faith, and beauty, The Ordering of Love gives vivid and compelling insight into the language of the heart.


Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Madeleine L'Engle was the author of more than forty-five books for all ages, among them the beloved A Wrinkle in Time, awarded the Newbery Medal; A Ring of Endless Light, a Newbery Honor Book; A Swiftly Tilting Planet, winner of the American Book Award; and the Austin family series of which Troubling a Star is the fifth book. L'Engle was named the 1998 recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards award, honoring her lifetime contribution in writing for teens.

Ms. L'Engle was born in 1918 in New York City. She wrote her first book, The Small Rain, while touring with Eva Le Gallienne in Uncle Harry. She met Hugh Franklin, to whom she was married until his death in 1986, while they were rehearsing The Cherry Orchard, and they were married on tour during a run of The Joyous Season, starring Ethel Barrymore.

Ms. L'Engle retired from the stage after her marriage, and the Franklins moved to northwest Connecticut and opened a general store. After a decade in Connecticut, the family returned to New York.

After splitting her time between New York City and Connecticut and acting as the librarian and writer-in-residence at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Madeleine L’Engle died on September 7, 2007 at the age of 88.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 384 pages
  • Publisher: Shaw Books (March 15, 2005)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0877880867
  • ISBN-13: 978-0877880868
  • Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 1.2 x 7.4 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #811,198 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Madeleine L'Engle, the popular author of many books for children and adults, has interspersed her writing and teaching career with raising three children, maintaining an apartment in New York and a farmhouse of charming confusion which is called "Crosswicks."

Customer Reviews

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Beautiful, poignant poetry. kb  |  1 reviewer made a similar statement
Madeleine L'Engle is my 2nd favorite author out of my top 3. Ray-Ray  |  1 reviewer made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
85 of 86 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
When my best friend, Jenn, moved to Manhattan she commenced with church shopping. She searched the island looking for the congregation that seemed best suited to her theological leanings and preference for worship style. Nice people were also a big plus. She landed at All Angels Episcopal Church on the Upper West Side, despite the fact that she hadn't fancied herself Anglican in the past. It's a great parish, and I'd like to think that the fact that I'd become involved in the Anglican church not long before she departed for Manhattan might have nudged her to check this one out. I would like to think that, but it would be wrong. Because I know the real reason Jenn is at All Angels --- Madeleine L'Engle.

Out on the church shopping circuit, rumor had it that the famed author was a long-time parishioner at All Angels and that fellow congregants often visited her since she didn't get out as much as in her younger days. The thought of whiling away hours chatting with L'Engle was more excitement than Jenn, book lover that she is, could bear. She took up residence in an All Angels pew (well, chair, they don't really have pews) post haste. In the years that followed she became an active member of the congregation, made friends, got confirmed, met her future husband, taught Sunday School, and got married --- all at All Angels. And she has Madeleine L'Engle to thank for all of that, despite the fact that she still has yet to meet the woman.

Such is the power of L'Engle. Trust me, if you'd read her work and had the potential opportunity to spend lazy afternoons in her company, you'd make your decisions on church membership accordingly as well.

Thankfully, the truth of the matter is that you don't have to trust me. L'Engle is nothing if not prolific with over fifty books --- fiction, nonfiction, and poetry --- to her credit. Her latest release is a collection of almost 200 poems, including 18 that have never been published before, and is an excellent starting place to acquaint or re-acquaint oneself with this potent literary force.

THE ORDERING OF LOVE is a magnum opus of sorts, spanning more than 30 years, from the mid '60s to the late '90s, and it includes everything from unbridled free verse to disciplined sonnets --- all of which tread the well-worn ground of love, faith, and suffering. In her introduction to the book, friend and fellow writer Luci Shaw notes "a good poem is layered, does not reveal itself all at once, in one reading." And, indeed, the understanding of these poems develops so much on subsequent readings that the words themselves seem to be ever-changing. One of my favorites is "The Birth of Love":

To learn to love

is to be stripped of all love

until you are wholly without love

because

until you have gone

naked and afraid

into this cold dark place

where all love is taken from you

you will not know

that you are wholly within love.

In poems like "Fire by Fire" one gets the distinct sense for L'Engle as an "everywoman" who writes about life as it happens and has a gift for seeing the whole spectrum of human experience in the seemingly mundane.

My son goes down in the orchard to incinerate

Burning the day's trash, the accumulation

Of old letters, empty toilet-paper rolls, a paper plate,

Marketing lists, discarded manuscript, on occasion

Used cartons of bird seed, dog biscuit. The fire

Rises and sinks; he stirs the ashes till the flames expire.

Burn, too, old sins, bedraggled virtues, tarnished

Dreams, remembered unrealities, the gross

Should-haves, would-haves, the unvarnished

Errors of the day, burn, burn the loss

Of intentions, recurring failures, turn

Them all to ash. Incinerate the dross. Burn. Burn.

L'Engle also has a very specific talent for turning the stories of Christianity on their heads and making us look at them in new ways. Her poem "Mrs. Noah Speaking" presents a perspective on the flood that we don't often hear but that sounds quite familiar. "The Ram: Caught in the Bush" tells the story of Abraham's almost sacrifice of Isaac from the point of view of the one who would actually go under the knife, conjuring up the image of Christ in the process.

If they ever do meet, I think Jenn and Madeleine L'Engle will get along quite well. Jenn has a knack for endearing herself to somewhat ornery souls and I suspect L'Engle is one, based on her work and the interviews I've read with her. Regardless, she has done her work in Jenn's life merely by living in the space of the written page. Even though Jenn hasn't stopped by at L'Engle's with fresh bagels from Zabar's, she has learned from L'Engle much about life --- the sometimes painful conundrum of faith, the ache of loss, the bliss of love, the assumption of small truths into the Big Truth of redemption --- on afternoons spent with her printed pages. And from a life as a member of All Angels, which she can thank L'Engle for as well.

--- Reviewed by Lisa Ann Cockrel
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Madeleine February 8, 2008
Format:Hardcover
This book is a wonderful compilation of many different poems. This is one of the only Christian poets I have ever read that I am able to enjoy (modern especially). She is honest and allows her own journey to pour into her writing with amazing depictions of the emotions she was feeling. We are in debt to Madeleine and lose out on her passing.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Extremely Interresting Book May 29, 2011
By Ray-Ray
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
I have this book on my Kindle. Madeleine L'Engle is my 2nd favorite author out of my top 3. I read a poem of hers out of this book every day.
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