Books

Gary has published four books.

What News Horatio? (2022)
Introducing a new book of poetry by Gary Bouchard in which the title of every poem is a headline from the newspaper, each poem is infused with bits of Hamlet, and readers discover that we are all more-or-less habitual offenders, stumbling down a vaguely familiar road toward redemption. Watch a trailer for the new book here and order your copy today!

Colin’s Campus: Cambridge University and the English Eclogue (2000)
This book examines the link between the world of 16th and 17th century Cambridge University and the Pastoral poetry that emerged from three poets whose imaginations were shaped there: Edmund Spenser, Phineas Fletcher, and John Milton.
Purchase here.

Southwell’s Sphere: The Influence of England’s Secret Poet (2019)
Once feared by Queen Elizabeth I and admired by William Shakespeare, Robert Southwell, s.j. (1561–1595), clings today to a thinning canonical presence in English literature among a sphere of other writers incongruously called the metaphysical poets. Southwell’s Sphere lifts this sixteenth century Jesuit priest and prolific writer from the obscurity in which he too often resides and places him instead at the center of a sphere of English poets upon whom his life and works exerted an observable influence.
Purchase here.

Twenty Poems to Pray (Liturgical Press, 2019).
Drawing from the poetry of generations of esteemed writers, Gary shows how poems often express the longings of the human heart as a kind of prayer. Emily Dickinson, Rev. Rowan Williams, Pope John Paul II, Christina Rossetti, Robert Frost, and Fr. Kilian McDonnell, OSB, among others, offer readers an inspiring path to reflect upon and pray with poetic verse.
Purchase here.