Book Review: Colette Lafia’s “Leaving the Shore” 

Colette Lafia’s “Leaving the Shore: Experiencing Poetry as Prayer” is a gentle invitation to dwell in the liminal spaces where language and longing meet. Published by Monkfish in 2025, the book doesn’t so much instruct as it beckons — gently coaxing the reader into a new way of being with words, and with the world.

Lafia, a seasoned spiritual director and poet, weaves her experience into every page. Instead of presenting poetry as something to be deciphered or conquered, she treats it as a living companion on the journey of prayer. The book’s structure mirrors this approach: rather than a rigid progression, each chapter feels like an opening, a window thrown wide to let in fresh air. Lafia’s reflections are interspersed with her own poems and invitations to pause, to breathe, to notice.

What makes “Leaving the Shore” distinct is its refusal to separate poetry from daily life or prayer from the ordinary. Lafia writes about reading poems slowly, letting their rhythms settle into your bones, and allowing a single line to become a prayer that lingers for hours — or days. There’s a humility to her approach, a sense that poetry isn’t about performance, but presence.

One of the book’s gifts is its accessibility. You don’t need to be a poet, or even a regular reader of poetry, to find meaning here. Lafia’s language is clear and warm, never slipping into abstraction for its own sake. She shares personal stories, moments of struggle and joy, and the small graces that come from paying attention. The effect is cumulative; by the end, you might find yourself reading not just poems but the world itself more prayerfully.

If there’s a gentle critique, it’s that Lafia’s tone is almost unfailingly soft — readers looking for sharp critique or high drama won’t find it here. But that’s hardly a fault; in a noisy, anxious world, the book’s quiet presence feels like an act of resistance.

“Leaving the Shore” is a book to keep by your bedside or on your morning table, something to dip into whenever you want to be reminded that poetry can be prayer, and prayer can be as simple as paying attention to the world, one line at a time.

Nicole Killian