Authors /

Jeanne Murray Walker

Jeanne Murray Walker's most recent book is a memoir, Leaping from the Burning Train, which tells the story of her leaving fundamentalism.

Poetry

Wedding in the Appalachian Mountains

Clouds slosh over these rugged mountains and spill onto the hillside where our host has pitched a white tent from which ...
Poetry

Poem about the Environment

I have written the awful poem to rescue nature, a poem that starts: Alaska’s melting. ...
Books

Living a simplified life in France

Eric Freeze and his family moved to Nice—in order to spend less and live better.
Poetry

Little blessing for suicidal child

I am driving in late day sunlight when a girl in a silver car aims for me and quick as an email from hell, sails to my address.  Her stare obliterates me, empties...
Poetry

Invocation beside the ocean

You, who were not in the candleflame, not in the Mass this morning, season after season why do you keep silence? Come. Roll in on breakers...
Poetry

The news

For weeks afterward, photos zing at you, children weeping in another language, peering into doorways to find their parents, children gnawing on gristle,...
Poetry

Robin

In their beaks they carry the chaos of the world, odd strings, twigs and feathers, scrip-scraps, the two of them all week weave together...
Poetry

Clutter

I am finally down to what I need: one table to double for eating/writing, one pen, and enough alphabet to spell Your name when You choose to...
Poetry

Possession

The gang of purple iris outside my window have been calling me all day with soft sexual lips, the graffiti of their yellow stamen, their...
Poetry

Ritual

If God is the newest thing, the youngest thing, as Meister Eckhart said, then look, He’s here as my son hands baby Maggie to the priest, who crosses her with water....

Free Newsletters

From theological reflections to breaking religion news to the latest books, the Christian Century's newsletters have you covered.

Explore Newsletters
Poetry

Badlands: Utah

That July I headed in my rental car to see the eerie tall stone fuchsia/orange/ and purple hoodoos. Soon the boulders blazed up, sky poured golden fire that singed...
Poetry

Being so wild, how can anyone hold her?

This morning, early, a hummingbird flutters beside the hibiscus, untamed as your daughter’s...
Poetry

Election

Votes piled up like wrecked cars until I realized no path would open last night and I said: He’s not my President, as if I were a country unto myself....
Poetry

October, before anyone else is up

With its many brooms               the cold breeze is sweeping red leaves from...
Poetry

Here we come, world, June 6th, 2015

In her right hand she clutches red and purple wildflowers, her long flaxen hair tumbling from its bun, her slender fingers laced in his burly fingers, trying to knit one...
Poetry

The failing student

Her tattoos, her way of pulling back her lips the way a stallion does when he won’t take the bit....

More by Jeanne Murray Walker ›