Cold and dark days demand tenderness. Here are some heart-wrenching but ultimately hopeful poems you can hunker down with for a whimsical and warm winter.
Wild Geese by Mary Oliver
Of course, I had to start with my favourite poem of all time. In Wild Geese, Mary Oliver deploys her honest and potent natural imagery and vulnerably implores readers to be less critical of themselves.
Often, we get lost in feeling we aren’t good enough or doing enough, but we all deserve to treat themselves with the softness we give to others. Mary Oliver reminds us that just like wild geese, the world around us has a beautiful pattern, and we will find our place in it again and again and again – we have the time.
Standout quote: ‘You do not have to be good. / You do not have to walk on your knees / for a hundred miles through the desert repenting’
Read Wild Geese here.
The Thing is by Ellen Bass
In The Thing is, Ellen Bass asks us to give the world our whole selves. She asks us to hold life by the face and decide to love it and live it once again, to give it our all and not just let it slip past us.
Though grief can sometimes feel like it weighs down the very essence of our flesh, we are able to return from it. Those moments where grief eclipses everything are the most earnestly human – it’s on us to be brave and look her directly in the eyes.
Standout quote: “Then you hold life like a face / between your palms, a plain face, / no charming smile, no violet eyes, / and you say, yes, I will take you / I will love you, again.”
Read The Thing is here.
Yes, That’s When by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Sometimes the most soul-touching poems are so because of their simplicity. In Yes, That’s When Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer also draws on natural imagery, but instead depicts the feeling of entering the forest and being freed from your physical body as you become one with the interconnected natural world.
In the woods, you can forget your body and know yourself as just a small part of the intricate and much more important world around you. This poem reminds us of the insignificance of human concerns, as every one of us is just another wild iris, waterfall or mushroom.
Standout quote: “And I aspen. I mountain. / I river. I stone. I leaf. I path. I flower. / I like when I evergreen, current and berry.”
Read Yes, That’s When here.
Honorary Mentions
Lost by David Wagoner – read here.
Standout quote: “You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows / Where you are. You must let it find you.”
Scheherazade by Richard Siken – read here.
Standout quote: “Look at the light through the windowpane. That means it’s noon, that means
we’re inconsolable. / Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us. / These, our bodies, possessed by light.”
Miss you. Would like to take a walk with you. by Gabrielle Calvocoressi – read here.
Standout quote: “Wish you. Wish you would come back for a while. / Don’t even need to bring your skin sack. I’ll know you.”
