Summary from Amazon
‘In this collection of reflective prose and poetry, author Roger Housden offers 20 poems and essays that celebrate and illuminate the life of marriage. Poems can teach us in ways that surpass other forms of understanding, especially when the subject concerns matters of the heart. 

When the heart’s whispers are too faint for us to hear in ordinary ways, poetry can speak to us with another kind of eloquence. From the leap of joy that a couple takes on their wedding day to a fiftieth wedding anniversary that acknowledges the deep connection that a life together can bring, marriage takes us on a journey that passes through seasons and stages, peaks and valleys. This book honors that journey through twenty poems that celebrate and illuminate some of these major stages and provides not only inspiration for the journey but also solace and wisdom.’

In Roger Housden’s Twenty Poems to Bless Your Marriage, we are tendered poems and essays that voice the heart. The selection of poetry offers succour and wisdom on the long path of loves journey.

Housden separates the poems into sections covering: The Joy, The Journey, The Work, The Love, The Union, and The Saving Grace. He introduces the poetry with essays conveying the core of the poems’ glimmer. If you are seeking the lyrical whispers of your heart; this is the book for you.

Housden curates an inspiring, wise and delicate book for all stages of partnerships and marriage. Love is universal, yet aided by these poems and their essays of reflection; this book enables us to experience the universal in a very personal way.

Housden reminds us that the temple of a long term relationship is built on the banal foundations of life; we need to see ourselves for what we are, in order to be seen in the eyes of our partner, and, to cherish our sacred space.

His book familiarises us that in love we see and meet the Divine. And that love is contagious; In Stephen Dunn’s poem I Came Home Wanting to Touch Everyone we see a family, even the usually unfriendly cat, greeting the returning father with loving hugs and touches.

Just as the selected poems state; the lifetime journey of love is illuminated with joys and hardships; we can share in the solace of the poems’ words. These poems and essays ring true.

My favourite poems in Housden’s book are: Know Deeply, Know Thyself More Deeply, by D. H. Lawrence and The Well of Grief, by David Whyte.

 Review eARC graciously received by Net Galley