Helen Steiner Rice

I've often declared before that my two favorite poets are Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson. How American of me!

I also really like the works of several other poets: Yehuda Amichai, Seamus Heaney, Edward Lear, Ogden Nash, and Masaoka Shiki stand out. 

Oh, and of course, E. C. Bentley, the creator of clerihews!

Now all of those are highly regarded poets in literary circles. But there is another who, while many academic sorts might turn up their noses at her work, I really like.

Helen Steiner Rice.

Rice wrote inspirational and Christian poetry. She also wrote poetry for greeting cards.

I read her poetry for encouragement and pleasure. She touched many lives.

Isn't that what good poetry should do?

I'm not alone in liking her poetry. Pope St. John Paul II also appreciated her poems, and no one can accuse him of being an intellectual lightweight.

I was inspired to post this because at our parish's ongoing rummage sale room I spotted a copy of Prayerfully, a collection of Rice's prayer poems.

Naturally, I bought it! 

I now own several collections of her works.

A few years back, I even wrote a clerihew about her (hooray for Bentley):

Critics of Helen Steiner Rice
say her poems are just too sweet and nice.
But I suspect those poems will be read
long after those critics are dead.

But let's end with one of Rice's:

The Bend in the Road

Sometimes we come to life’s crossroads
We view what we think is the end;
But God has a much wider vision
And He knows that it’s only a bend.

The road will go on and get smoother
And after we’ve stopped for a rest,
The path that lies hidden beyond us
Is often the path that is best.

So rest and relax and grow stronger
Let go, and let God share your load,
And have faith in a brighter tomorrow
You’ve just come to a bend in the road.

Pax et bonum