Books by Jeanne Murray Walker

Sonnets are familiar to us, but not relevant. What do they have to do with our fast-paced, tech-driven, ever-shrinking contemporary world? But what if the sonnet—invented 700 years ago—could come back like a cat with nine lives?  A sonnet in the twenty-first century might serve as a sacramental form, calling us from our work-mad lives to quietness and reflection.     In Pilgrim, You Find the Path by Walking, Jeanne Murray Walker invites the reader to join her on a journey told in 58 colloquial sonnets, beginning in the slangy streets of New York and ending in the holiness of silence and praise. Stops on the journey include reflections on death and grief, but also praise for a migrating butterfly, a knock on the door, the astonishing ocean.  This book is designed to be used as a devotional and read slowly; to be both a book of poetry and a spiritual companion.       

During her mother's long death from Alzheimer's, Jeanne Murray Walker learned to navigate the memories and history that connects her to her mother, her family and her own childhood in hopeful and beautiful ways.

In A Deed To the Light Jeanne Murray Walker asks probing questions about the depth of grief, about letting go, and about the possibility of faith. Her poems have been described by John Taylor, writing in Poetry, as "splendid, subtly erudite, uplifting, and funny."