Revised Versions: Poetry as Bible Reading in Three Modern Examples

This article explores how poetry can shape our biblical reading practices by examining three poems by three well-known contemporary poets—Scott Cairns, Mary Szybist, and Lucille Clifton. Paying particular attention to form, it considers how the poetic devices of each offer creative ways of reading the biblical text and open up fresh consideration of meaning and meaning-making. One of the features of these poems is how they relate spatially to the biblical text each regards: beside the biblical text, inside the text, and beyond the text.