Lou Ella Hickman

Sister Lou Ella Hickman has a master’s in theology from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio and is a former teacher and librarian. She is a certified spiritual director as well as a poet and writer. Her poems have appeared in numerous magazines such as America, First Things, Emmanuel, Third Wednesday, and new verse news as well as in four anthologies: The Night’s Magician: Poems about the Moon, edited by Philip Kolin and Sue Brannan Walker; Down to the Dark River edited by Philip Kolin; Secrets edited by Sue Brannan Walker; and After Shocks: The Poetry of Recovery for Life-Shattering Events, edited by Tom Lombardo. She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2017 and 2020.

Sample Poem

Praise for she: robed and wordless

These terse little poems are often bright nuggets of insight into the psyches not only of the Biblical women who speak through this poet’s imagination, but they are also deep insights into our own psyches. Although the voices imagined here are the voices of many women from the Bible, the truths revealed are universal.  

—David Bottoms, former Georgia Poet Laureate and author of We Almost Disappear

If Sister Lou Ella Hickman had not found her voice before writing this collection of poetry, she certainly found it in the writing. Through imaginative contemplation, she offers a panorama of encounters with scriptural or contemporary women—women who have been told to keep their clothes on (or off) and remain quiet. This is a most approachable collection of poetry. It is poetry to be befriended, poetry with which to sup, and poetry with which to feel your heart burn. 

—Dr. Marlene Marburg, PhD, poet, spiritual director and formator

In she: robed and wordless, Sister Lou Ella invites us to ponder the workings of God in the lives of biblical women―many familiar, others more obscure―all touched by grace and mystery in the encounter with the divine.

—Anthony Schueller, Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament, Editor of Emmanuel Magazine

Each poem in this collection is a jewel. Hickman lays bare sentiments appropriate to the biblical scene sketched. We come to know these women, whether they are named or unnamed, because the sentiments are familiar to us. But is not that what good poetry does—introduce us to strangers in whom we discover ourselves?

—Dianne Bergant, CSA, former Carroll Stuhlmueller, CP, Distinguished Professor Emerita of Old Testament Studies at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago

Sister Lou Ella Hickman has written a remarkable book of poems about the women of the Bible—the holy, the unholy, and the wholly silent. The poems here are poignant monologues, penetrating meditations on these women's mea culpas, prayers, or perils to their souls' health. Eve laments her "weakness and everything in between"; Delilah is shadowed by "the dark orchard between [her] thighs"; Lot's daughter "lives in whispers"; Magdalen "heard inner music"; and the Blessed Mother's words are "like mirrors,/ reflecting both surprise and treasure." Sister Lou Ella is both gifted poet and wise theologian. I rejoice in her achievement.

—Philip C. Kolin, University Distinguished Professor, University of Southern Mississippi