The High Roof of Heaven

This anthology of Old English poetry brings together sacred texts from two of the great surviving Anglo-Saxon poetic codices: the Vercelli Book, including one of the most famous of medieval texts, the Vision of the Rood, and the Exeter Book, source of the Advent Lyrics, Riddles and Physiologus. The Venerable Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica gentis anglorum is the source for the only surviving work by the poet Cædmon. John Gallas, has not simply translated these texts but has crafted beautiful and accessible contemporary poetry, retaining the half-line alliteration of Old English poetic structure, while transmitting the joy in God and exuberant imaginative style of the original authors.

John Gallas is an award-winning Aotearoan poet now living in the UK. After attending the University of Otago. he won a Commonwealth Scholarship to Merton College, Oxford to study Medieval English Literature and Old Icelandic. He is a Fellow of the English Association and author of sixteen collections of poetry. This is his fifth collection of translations.