Tag: hope

different pictures of happiness

It’s that time of year when I start fulminating, inwardly or out loud, about DFS ads and the Family Merrie Christmas Ideal as perpetuated therein. I don’t know why it’s DFS in particular that gets the sharp end of my tongue—everyone’s at it—but there’s just something about those cosily-jumpered families laughing and snuggling on their spanking new sofas which gets my goat. The latest iteration has caused me, as it does every year, to think about families, the different shapes happiness can take, and the difference between loneliness and solitude. I like the way this poem by Minnie Bruce Pratt explores that difference (among other things). Here is ‘The Sound of One Fork‘.

Read More

clamouring toward it

A poem, today, to remind us that good things can happen. No, not Sheenag Pugh’s ‘Sometimes‘. Although I’m always happy to revisit that, line 6 is a bit close to home at the moment. Instead I offer you a poem by the wonderful Mary Oliver which someone brought to a poetry group I facilitate (on 6th November. A lot of poems reminding us to be hopeful were brought that day!). See what you make of Mary Oliver’s ‘Halleluiah‘.

Read More

our small durance

Oooooh I do like me a nice bit of intertextuality.* When this poem plopped in my inbox I was very glad to meet it. I’d be very interested to see what you make of ‘Gerard Manley Hopkins‘ by Leontia Flynn. For ease of reference, here’s the poem with which Flynn’s poem has such a close relationship.

Read More

too much reality

There’s a lot of reality to deal with at the moment. As ever, I’m helped by poetry—and by sharing it; and by the conversations it stimulates. For some reason this poem in particular has been calling me over the last few days. Perhaps ‘The Gate‘ by Marie Howe might be helpful for you too. Let me know.

Read More

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.)

Read More

ways to persist

Lots of us find this time of year difficult at the best of times and, as we have noted before, these are not the best of times. So for the next while I want to share some poems which I find helpful. I would also be delighted to hear from you about poems which support you to carry on. (Drop me an email or comment below and we can have your poem in the column sometime soon.) But for today I want to share Ellen Bass’s ‘The Thing Is‘ which I find breathtakingly honest and stark and beautiful, and which definitely inspires me.

Read More

more rain, and leaves

Last week the rivers were rising in Cumbria and the water flowed brown and white and angry through the centre of towns. The big rain down did rain and brought trouble to many. This rain poem, however, has a mood of hope and possibility: here’s the charming ‘The rain was ending‘ by Lawrence Binyon.

Read More

the gifts of loss

This week—today, in fact, if you read this on a Friday—I’m having to do a big bit of letting go. The house where my Mum and Dad lived is now sold, and I’m up in Scotland, emptying the last bits of furniture, locking the door and walking away for the last time. Like much that has happened in my life (let alone in the wider world) over the last couple of years, this feels too big and disturbing to understand at once. I feel as though I can’t think and feel all the “necessary” things, and get in a sort of panic. Just the right time, then, to read a poem about letting go and feel it find me in the way that poetry (like music) can. Here is ‘Moving Forward‘ by Rilke.

Read More

answering light

Someone brought ‘Child waking’ by Edith Scovell to the 42 group last week. The poet’s name was vaguely familiar but I had no sense of her work. I loved ‘Child waking’, though, so since then I’ve been scuttling about the interweb looking for Scovell’s work. And I give you: ‘Deaths of Flowers‘.

Read More
error: Content is protected !!