George Hobson is a poet and a retired Episcopal/Anglican priest who has lived over half his life in France working for ecumenical renewal. He has taught theology in many developing countries, including Rwanda, Burundi, Haiti, Armenia, and Pakistan. An American, he has lived in France for over half his life, serving both French-and English-speaking churches. He studied theology at Oxford in the 1980s and earned his doctorate in 1989. After serving for five years at the American Cathedral in Paris as Canon Pastor, he traveled extensively in developing countries accompanied by his wife, Victoria, teaching courses in theological colleges.He has published 7 volumes of poetry :Rumours of Hope (2005); Forgotten Genocides of the 20th Century, a collective work (2005); Faces of Memory (2017), Love Poems for my Wife, Victoria (2019), The Parthenon (2019), May Day Morning in Yerevan (2020), Heights and Depths (2021), A Far Country Here (coming soon).His poem Sun-Patch, printed in Rumours of Hope, won second prize in the International Bridport Competition in 1995.He has also published two works of theology :The Episcopal Church, Homosexuality, and the Context of Technology (2013) and Imago Dei: Man/Woman Created in the Image of God (2019).for more information : https://www.georgehobson.com/Endorsements for George Hobson’s poetry collections1) “Readers will find here a bold and distinctive poetic voice—or, rather, an ensemble of voices that express Hobson’s complex vision of the world…His poetic ɶuvre…deserves to be set beside the luminous work of other great Christian poets of our time such as Michael O’Siadhail and Malcolm Guite.” (Richard Hays, Duke University, from the Foreword for The Parthenon)2) “There is an extraordinary richness in these poems. Every stanza unfurls a multiplicity of insight, a wealth of allusions. Holding it altogether is an unforgettable vision of creation praising God in all its teeming difference. Set within this, Hobson gives us a poignant evocation of the ‘pulsating land’ of Armenia that makes you feel you are there yourself. An extraordinary collection.” (Endorsement for May Day Morning in Yerevan, Jeremy Begbie, Cambridge University)3) “George Hobson’s words are like feelers slowly exploring the contours of the world around, feeling for the presence of grace and reporting what they find. These poems have a remarkable physicality, both in the simple evocation of the stuff of a God-drenched world, and in the startlingly fresh metaphors…that slip into the fabric and give it a further sheen.” (Endorsement for The Parthenon, Rowan Williams, Cambridge University)4) “What a triumph this is—a trinity of (narrative) poems in which George Hobson partners with God to tell stories bursting with the results of his life-long contemplation and devotion. Read them aloud until their plangent images and rhythms swell and settle, leaving you enlightened and grateful.” (Endorsement for Faces of Memory, Luci Shaw, Regent College)5) “Forgive me for taking so long to write you about Faces of Memory. I didn’t want to rush my reading and miss anything. It can take me a bit of discipline to slow my mind enough for the pace good poetry demands, and yours is more than good. There is music in it, and truth, and illumination, and so much texture. I really enjoyed your word pictures (the hills and clouds linking arms like an old couple retiring for the night, Victoria a viola yielding finest music if well played), the ingenious shapes on p. 107, the raw and tender story of your experience in the rapids with your father and how you found your way back to each other once you had become a Christian ( when “Christ sat in the stern of your canoe”). You have used your stories to crack open giant, hard-shelled mysteries such as death, and loss, and the passing of time, and all in the highly concentrated constraints of poetic form. I don’t know how you did it and I stand in awe.” (Appreciation of Faces of Memory, Jo Swinney, writer)6) “George Hobson’s exquisite poetry comes from a life infused with love; love of people, place, and God. Love enables him to see and transmit beauty, even amid personal and communal suffering.” (Endorsement for The Parthenon, Maria Apichella, University of Maryland, European Division)7) “George’s writing is specific and sensory. I saw, smelt, and tasted: dewy gardens, purple plums, umber fields, grey goats, the sound of bells, and rain….Yet these poems are not escapist poems. George has travelled the world to pray with those who suffered trauma, and his poems, in this book and in earlier collections, look at evil with eyes wide open; the genocides in Rwanda and Armenia, and, going further back in time, the horror of slave ships….Like the Psalmists, George cries out to God. Life is good, but it is fragmented and filled with anguish.” (Maria Apichella, University of Maryland, European Division, from the Foreword for Heights and Depths)8) “Each word and line of George Hobson’s captivating poems expresses a jubilant delight in the natural world around us and in the creative force that not only brought it into being but pervades it, and illumines us if we are willing. The images he limns and the rhythms in which he speaks make one want to dance and sing in celebration with him.” (Endorsement for Rumours of Hope , Olivia De Havilland)9) “George Hobson is a seer, that is, one who helps us to see deeply and well. Nothing is trivial—as the centre piece work in this collection, ‘The Bells of Swettl’, shows so profoundly, one day, in its progression from dawn to dusk, can be a metaphor for a whole life in its painful, glorious particularity. By sharing with us the significance of these details in his own life, Hobson’s work wakens us to the mystery and glory to be found in the ordinary details of our own lives. It helps us see what a blessing and grace it is to be a God-image person in a world of miracles.” (Endorsement for Rumours of Hope , Loren Wilkinson, Regent College)10) “George Hobson has proved himself again to be an accessible, readable, yet penetrating poet. In this volume he takes us once again into a world where beauty speaks to desolation, and grace to sorrow. I can’t imagine anyone not being enriched by this collection. “ (Endorsement for A Far Country Here, Jeremy Begbie, Cambridge University)11) “An anonymous French poet described the poetic process as ‘half vagrancy, half pilgrimage’, which befits Hobson’s poetic journey. I say journey, because George is on one. Always the beggar poet seeking daily bread. He moves from scavenger to pilgrim through the terrain of his abiding curiosity. This keeps the reader alert to the nuances of language….As George reads the ‘far country here’, he brings—returns—all readers to wonder.” (Endorsement for A Far Country Here, Nancy Miller, Bermudian poet)12) “Hobson’s meticulously crafted poetry invites us to renew our attention to basic human experience and to our natural environment. Those familiar with the author’s writings on the horrors of modern history or the disturbing underpinnings of the Western techno-scientific project will know that his lyricism is no mere escapism, but rather a ringing affirmation in spite of everything, of the essential goodness of creation and a call to gratitude for the gift of life itself.” (Endorsement for A Far Country Here, Peter Bannister, composer and theologian)Read more about this authorRead less about this author