Month: February 2022

bear with me…

I realise I may be pushing it, offering you a poem containing reference to ‘god’ two weeks in a row. For me, though, both last week’s poem and this week’s can work simply in humanistic terms, even if they speak differently to those with a faith in god (whatever she may look like). Where last week’s poem spoke of the power of appreciation and gratitude, this week’s is about acceptance; and I hope that even if you’re triggered by the word god you’ll hang in there long enough to read Kaylin Haught’s ‘God says Yes to Me‘.

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remember those emergency lanterns?

The ones Libby Purves referred to when she spoke of how poetry could function? Well, for me this poem, ‘testify‘ by Eve L Ewing, is a great emergency lantern. Does it shine a light for you?

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the nadir experience

Needless to recount again my extreme enthusiasm for Tennyson’s In Memoriam AHH. For today’s “poem that helps” I offer you ‘Be near me when my light is low’, poem 50 out of In Mem‘s 131-poem length. It’s in the public domain, so the text is below; but if you want a laugh, you can listen to a computer read it here. It’s hilarious. For what it should sound like, try this one.

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the same but different

I guess what makes a poem “helpful” is going to vary depending on what sort of help you need on any given day. This week’s poem helps me in a lot of ways, not least its opening reminder that ‘Reason is a fine thing, but… there are other ways/ to live’. “Sense” is not always head sense. What else do you find in Annie Lighthart’s ‘The Verge‘? (Garrison will read it for you at around the 19th line, the tall one after the lowest one, on the audiotrack.)

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