These short poems, one hundred in number, meditate on religious life, its patterns of deep darkness and gleaming light. Sarah Law has been inspired by the Carmelite nun Saint Therese of Lisieux (1873-97) for many years and in this collection blurs the borders of self and saint. The poems follow a loosely chronological and biographical trajectory, drawing on sparks of image and memory. The resulting work is intimate, lyrical, and innovative, and by turns dreamlike, confessional, passionate, and poignant. The whole forms a chapel from poetic threads and fragments of faith.
Sarah Law is an associate lecturer for the Open University and elsewhere. She has published six previous poetry collections, including Thérèse: Poems (2020), and a novel, Sketches from a Sunlit Heaven (Wipf and Stock, 2022), winner of an Illumination Book Awards Silver Medal. She edits the online journal Amethyst Review, for new writing engaging with the sacred, editing and publishing occasional collections and anthologies under Amethyst Press. She lives in Norwich in the UK.
“Saints and the interface between the mystical and the human are at the heart of Sarah Law’s poetry. In This Transfigured Chapel of the Threads, she steps back from the documented life of Thérèse of Lisieux and picks up phrases and ideas—the threads of the title—from her writings, to underpin these imagistic and philosophical poems. ‘I write what I want to believe’ says both the poet and the ventriloquized saint, in this very human, lucid book of contemplative and intriguing poems.”
—Rupert Loydell, author of The Age of Destruction and Lies
“Written with Sarah Law’s usual precision and grace, these poems take us deep into the spiritual struggles and epiphanies of one of the greatest saints in modern history. Through recording the unseen moments, the unrecorded thoughts (always as fruit of long research and discernment), Law’s work brings us to a marvelous closeness with Thérèse. This is poetry of quiet and extraordinary power borne of great contemplation—and it stokes great contemplation in the reader.”
—Sally Read, editor of 100 Great Catholic Poems
“Gentle. Tender. Lovely. Sarah Law skillfully takes the reader on a quiet journey, carefully and imaginatively unfolding a life honest in its humanity but devoted to the sublime. Each profound tale of contemplative grace and longing expertly provides a glimpse of the spiritual storm inside a cloistered saint. Through Thérèse, Law draws out beauty and the divine from everyday moments—often with questioning, but always returning to love’s restorative power. Read it slowly and with wonder.”
—Veronica McDonald, editor and founder, Heart of Flesh Literary Journal
“‘Here in my cell I am newly conceived,’ writes Sarah Law in this astonishing and absorbing meditation on the life of a beloved saint. Each poem offers a new insight on Thérèse’s experience, and the whole book is studded with bright imagery. Law is a writer of great imaginative empathy, which she balances with formal control—her brief, graceful poems land lightly as snowflakes. These poems invite a response of both heart and mind, and reading them is a remarkable pleasure.”
—Kathryn Simmonds, author of Scenes from Life on Earth
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