Songs of Bethlehem

About the Book

Songs of Bethlehem: Nativity Poems follows my journey from Israel to cleaning stalls at a horse barn in North Carolina. The poems range from free verse images such as “Barn smell: scents from the Ark” to sonnet rhymes like “But this child’s beating heart / alters Roman policy from the start.” The poems reflect the geography of Palestine and the political tensions between the occupation of the Roman army and the messianic faith of Jerusalem. The poems chart the making of a poet as I explored the incarnational history that surrounds the biblical narrative whose characters inhabit the place of Bethlehem. From “The Magi’s Epiphany” In the end a child brought us down to earth, The old abstractions fell apart in Bethlehem. What I once knew by dream, I now know by proof.

About the Author

Kemmer Anderson is a graduate of Davidson College where he studied Bible maps of Israel and the Middle East. After serving in the army, he worked in the Negev and lived in the Old City of Jerusalem in 1971. He returned to Israel with his wife Martha for an archeological dig in 1983. During that time he was studying the renaissance poets John Donne, George Herbert, and John Milton for a M.A. degree in English. He has taught for 38 years at the McCallie School in Chattanooga, TN. He is the author of the poetry book, Wing Shadows Over Walden Ridge.