Rachel Donahue interviews Dr. Carolyn Weber about how poetry has shaped her life and faith, and also her newest release, Four Questions God Asks. Carolyn is best known for her memoir Surprised By Oxford, which has been turned into a movie (available on Apple, Angel or Amazon) but Carolyn is also a poet and the trajectory of her entire life has been altered by how deeply she engaged with a John Donne poem which helped her understand the gospel as a graduate student.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Surprised by Oxford (2022)

• Four Questions God Asks - Carolyn Weber

• Surprised by Oxford - Carolyn Weber

• Holy is the Day - Carolyn Weber

• Sex and the City of God - Carolyn Weber

• Holy Sonnets - John Donne

• ‘Batter My Heart, Three Person’d God’ - John Donne

• Rime of the Ancient Mariner - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

• Surprised by Joy - C.S. Lewis

• Homegoing: Poetry for a Season - Carolyn Weber

• Summering - Carolyn Weber

• Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier

• Ties that Blind - Dr. Alan Godwin

• George MacDonald Press - David Jack

• Introduction to Poetry - Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem

and hold it up to the light

like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem

and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem’s room

and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope

and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose

to find out what it really means.

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Special Thanks to:

Son of Laughter for our theme song: “Cricket in a Jar.”

Evelyn Warnemuende for our artwork.

S.D.G. Morgan for audio engineering: sdgmorgan.substack.com & bammerhab.substack.com

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