Martin Wroe

Poems that arrive like gentle reminders that life is happening — right now, right here — and it’s trying to tell you something. Following the quiet cult success of Julian of Norwich’s Teabag — described by Bono in the New York Times as his ‘favourite book no one’s heard of’ — poet and broadcaster Martin Wroe returns with this luminous new collection. His work bridges the spiritual and the secular with the grace of someone who’s not trying to win an argument — it just tells the truth beautifully and often makes you laugh along the way. This breath that calls to stillnessThis heart that holds a universeThis fleeting understandingThat both are still expandingEvery day is a poem. The trees bowing to each other in the breeze. The cyclist pedalling through the air. That song about you on the radio. A robin waiting for you to answer her question. A loved one whose life is disappearing. Poem or prayer, psalm or song, all the same exercise in getting silence to cough up some truth. Every day is a poem. And everyone we meet. This heart does not existThis heart is a metaphorThis heart is a poemThe truest thing of all

Every human day is freighted with baffling questions. About pain and love, about joy and purpose. In an age when we're shy of certainty and suspicious of authority, many of us no longer turn to the great houses of faith for inspiration. But for all we've let go, there are good habits to hold onto. Drawing on wisdom from the ages and insights from the everyday, this humane collection of daily readings is the ideal travelling companion on the bumpy road to peace, love and understanding.

‘My trip is this teabag, giving up its love This perforated planet, in my steaming mug’ Every day is a poem. From the first cup of tea in the morning as the recycling lorry trundles down the street to those final random thoughts before we drop off at night. As the children grow up and someone we love dies; as we rage against life and love brings us home. ‘Dear Life, Dear All, Dear Me, Dear You A prayer, a sign, some shy synchronicity Some days all we ask for is some kind of clue’ Martin Wroe lives with Meg, a painter, in North London where their devotion to each new day begins with tea. At one time on staff at The Independent and later The Observer and a former chair of the Greenbelt Arts Festival, Martin is an associate member of the Iona Community and a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4’s Thought for the Day.

Some days arrive with questions so vast we feel like strangers on earth. Other times our joy makes us feel entirely at home in ourselves. So where do we find inspiration for living a good life? Drawing on lifelines thrown down by poets, thinkers and dreamers, the sceptical and the faithful, Malcolm Doney and Martin Wroe suggest that how we live may be more important than what we believe. How do I make a good decision? Can I forgive him? Will this darkness pass? Do I say something or keep quiet? Less of an instruction manual and more of a sketchbook, these are lines for living rewarding days.

Three writers offer words in search of wonders. The author Cole Moreton, the poet Mark Halliday and the journalist Martin Wroe collaborate on a collection of poems that are full of honesty, doubt and beauty.

Meditations and prayers from the heart of medialand. Written by Martin Wroe, and illustrated by Sunday Times, Spectator and Private Eye cartoonist Nick Newman. The trouble with talking to God is that God doesn't always answer - well, not like anyone else. And while you're waiting, a thousand other voices come on the line instead... This honest and open collection of personal thoughts addressing God will appeal to anyone who is no longer satisfied with easy answers about God and the human condition, but who hasn't given up on faith.