Miracle, and Other Poems

This single volume contains everything Virna Sheard ever published as a poet, and it radiates an almost stubborn belief in wonder. Written in the years before the Great War reshaped everything, these poems move from quiet devotional pieces to fierce declarations of love to sharp observations of Canadian winters and the people who endure them. The title poem asks what miracle might look like in a world increasingly dominated by machinery and doubt, and the answer Sheard gives is neither sentimental nor easy. The Boston Globe recognized in 1916 that Sheard belonged not to Canada alone but to readers of poetry everywhere, and reading these pages reveals why: her emotions are specific enough to ache, universal enough to feel like your own. This is poetry that refuses to abandon beauty even when beauty feels irresponsible, and that insistence feels radical now.