Francis: A Life in Songs by Ann Wroe review – of saints and supermarkets

This beautifully understated life of Francis of Assisi, told in spare, unpreachy verse, illuminates our own times too

This is unlike any poetry collection I have read. Ann Wroe, accomplished biographer of Shelley, Pontius Pilate and Orpheus, has elected to recount the life of Saint Francis of Assisi as he lived it – through song.

Not known as a poet (she is obituaries editor on the Economist), Wroe has launched into rhyme as if (as must be the case) she has always been at home in verse. It is with a feeling of incredulous excitement that one realises that this is no less than a devotional book – beautifully published by Cape, with an image of Saint Francis taken from a medieval fresco in Subiaco, Italy, on its blue cloth-bound cover. In our secular age, the book seems literarily heretical – triumphantly unfashionable. But do not imagine it to be conventionally devout. It does what poetry is meant to do, and seldom does: it takes you to another place while making you reflect on what it is to be here.