ARCBA Review: God's Poetry by Anne Hamilton

21 - 25 January

Australian Christian Readers Blog Alliance

is introducing

God's Poetry

(Even Before Publishing 1 September 2012)

by

Anne Hamilton

Original editon on sale at Light the Dark for $5.00

About the Author:

Anne Hamilton, a longtime writer and mathematician, has a number of publications to her name. Anne has a trilogy of short books about how maths integrates with God’s great creation called The Singing Silence, The Winging Word and The Listening Land. She has just had published her 27 year project, a young adult fantasy Many-Coloured Realm.

 

Short Book Description:
 

What’s in a name? Shakespeare said a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. But is that true? Are names simply labels to be swapped around indiscriminately? Or are they more significant? God’s Poetry is about identity and destiny as well as the ancient concept of the power of names to body forth purpose and meaning. It’s also about why most of us never come into the calling prophetically breathed into what we are called.

Genre: Non Fiction

My Review

God's Poetry isn’t a book of poems, but is about the identity and destiny encoded in your name. It’s not a traditional book of baby names either – it’s more a combination of poetry, literary fantasy, linguistic and mathematical concepts underlying the meaning and origin of words, especially names, and how these can have an unknowing impact on our personal dreams and destinies.

It’s worth making the point, even in a review, that Anne Hamilton makes several times in God's Poetry: while our names have a meaning, we are not bound to that destiny. We have a choice. And seeking understanding of the destiny implied in our name (given names and surname) can help us to pursue or change that destiny.

As you’ve probably guessed, God's Poetry is a complex book. It’s a symphony rather than a three-minute pop song (like Your Secret Name, which is a twenty-minute sermon lengthened into a lightweight 200-page book with the addition of some amusing and occasionally relevant anecdotes).

God's Poetry is the opposite – a 200-page book filled with seemingly irrelevant anecdotes that suddenly become important (much like some of the seemingly irrelevant asides in the Bible). The stories seem to be going off on tangents, yet come together to make her point. Names have been a passion of Anne’s, and the years of research and thought that have gone into God's Poetryare evident in her writing.

She incorporates a huge variety of ancient and modern languages and cultures into her research, to the point where I can see I will have to read it again to really understand some of the nuances. It’s well-written, and the ideas resonate with me as truth. It's definitely a book I will reread, as one reading just isn't enough to fully comprehend everything that was covered. Recommended.

Thanks to Anne Hamilton and Even Before Publishing for providing a free book for review.