URBAN ANGEL:
Exploring the soul of the city
Poems by Stewart Henderson and Penelope Wilcock
Collages and drawings by Ben Ecclestone
Alpha/Paternoster Publishing. 57 pages. £9.99
ISBN 0 9535757 2 1
The pictures, notably the eight double-page collages, are stunning. The 16 poems are more varied, but rich in hint and allusion, and at best intensely moving. The quotations are interesting, the contributors well established. The price is crucial.
This last makes it a book some Christians might feel guilty about buying for themselves. I wish it were three times the length, and cost just half as much again. A slim and lovely gift book, in other words, to pore over, wrap up, and then borrow back. But mostly a welcomingly positive mix of celebration and lament for eight earthly cities, suffused with longing for the heavenly one.
