On foot
I wandered through the solar systems,
before I found the first thread of my red dress.
Already I have a sense of myself.
Somewhere in space my heart hangs,
emitting sparks, shaking the air,
to other immeasurable hearts.
Edith Södergran
Translated by Malena Mörling and Jonas Ellerström
The Orange
At lunchtime I bought a huge orange –
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave –
They got quarters and I had a half.
And that orange, it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.
This is peace and contentment. It’s new.
The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all the jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I’m glad I exist.
Wendy Cope
New Every Morning
Every day is a fresh beginning,
Listen my soul to the glad refrain.
And, spite of old sorrows
And older sinning,
Troubles forecasted
And possible pain,
Take heart with the day and begin again.
Susan Coolidge
If Once You Have Slept on an Island
If once you have slept on an island
You’ll never be quite the same;
You may look as you looked the day before
And go by the same old name,
You may bustle about in street and shop
You may sit at home and sew,
But you’ll see blue water and wheeling gulls
Wherever your feet may go.
You may chat with the neighbors of this and that
And close to your fire keep,
But you’ll hear ship whistle and lighthouse bell
And tides beat through your sleep.
Oh! you won’t know why and you can’t say how
Such a change upon you came,
But once you have slept on an island,
You’ll never be quite the same.
Rachel Field
Full Moon
She was wearing coral taffeta trousers
Someone had brought her from Isfahan,
And the little gold coat with pomegranate blossoms,
And the coral-hafted feather fan,
But she ran down a Kentish lane in the moonlight,
And skipped in the pool of moon as she ran.
She cared not a rap for all the big planets,
For Betelgeuse or Aldebaran,
And all the big planets cared nothing for her,
That small impertinent charlatan,
But she climbed on a Kentish stile in the moonlight,
And laughed at the sky through the sticks of her fan.
Vita Sackville-West
Seven Times One: Exultation
There’s no dew left on the daisies and clover,
There’s no rain left in heaven:
I’ve said my ‘seven times’ over and over,
Seven times one are seven.
I am old, so old, I can write a letter;
My birthday lessons are done;
The lambs play always, they know no better;
They are only one times one.
O moon! in the night I have seen you sailing
And shining so round and low.
You were bright! ah bright! but your light is failing –
You are nothing now but a bow.
You moon! have you done something wrong in heaven
That God has hidden your face?
I hope if you have you will soon be forgiven,
And shine again in your place.
O velvet bee, you’re a dusty fellow,
You’ve powdered your legs with gold!
O brave marsh marybuds, rich and yellow,
Give me your money to hold!
O columbine, open your folded wrapper,
Where two twin turtle-doves dwell!
O cuckoopint, toll me the purple clapper
That hangs in your clear green bell!
And show me your nest with the young ones in it;
I will not steal them away;
I am old! you may trust me, linnet, linnet –
I am seven times one today.
Jean Ingelow
Today
TODAY I will not live up to my potential.
TODAY I will not relate well to my peer group.
TODAY I will not contribute in class.
I will not volunteer one thing.
TODAY I will not strive to do better.
TODAY I will not achieve or adjust or grow enriched or get involved.
I will not put my hand up even if the teacher is wrong and I can prove it.
TODAY I might eat the eraser off my pencil.
I’ll look at clouds.
I’ll be late.
I don’t think I’ll wash.
I NEED A REST.
Jean Little
Freedom
Give me the long, straight road before me,
A clear, cold day with a nipping air,
Tall, bare trees to run on beside me,
A heart that is light and free from care.
Then let me go! – I care not whither
My feet may lead, for my spirit shall be
Free as the brook that flows to the river,
Free as the river that flows to the sea.
Olive Runner
To Sleep, Possum to Dream
possum descending a stairwell ) a stepladder
numbers of sleep rounded up ) possum defending
sealed caves of seal-sheep ) sea-clouds ) here merely daisies
) telling a petalled profusion of slumbering
possum ) enamelled ) possum logging out early
possum without compass seeks haystacks in haystacks
thorough innavigable cringly acres
impossumble n ’est pas français a possum’s nest
nest pas français a possum cantabile
possum untrainable ) the nest unscheduled stop
the nest is silence ) the deepest possumism
) opossum knows possum wakes only for possum
so accordingly all possumbilities hold . . .
Vahni Capildeo
Submerged
I have known only my own shallows –
Safe, plumbed places,
Where I was wont to preen myself.
But for the abyss
I wanted a plank beneath
And horizons . . .
I was afraid of the silence
And the slipping toe-hold . . .
Oh, could I now dive
Into the unexplored deeps of me –
Delve and bring up and give
All that is submerged, encased, unfolded,
That is yet the best.
Lola Ridge
The Moon in Your Hands
If you take the moon in your hands
and turn it round
(heavy, slightly tarnished platter)
you’re there;
if you pull dry sea-weed from the sand
and turn it round,
and wonder at the underside’s bright amber,
your eyes
look out as they did here,
(you don’t remember)
when my soul turned round,
perceiving the other-side of everything,
mullein-leaf, dogwood-leaf, moth-wing
and dandelion-seed under the ground.
H.D.
You Who Want
You who want
knowledge,
seek the Oneness
within
There you
will find
the clear mirror
already waiting.
Hadewijch of Antwerp
Boats in the Bay
I will take my trouble and wrap it in a blue handkerchief
And carry it down to the sea.
The sea is as smooth as silk, is as silent as glass;
It does not even whisper
Only the boats, rowed out by the girls in yellow
Ruffle its surface.
It is grey, not blue. It is flecked with boats like midges,
With happy people
Moving soundlessly over the level water.
I will take my trouble and drop it into the water
It is heavy as stone and smooth as a sea-washed pebble.
It will sink under the sea, and the happy people
Will row over it quietly, ruffling the clear water
Little dark boats like midges, skimming silently
Will pass backwards and forwards, the girls singing;
They will never know that they have sailed above sorrow.
Sink heavily and lie still, lie still my trouble.
Winifred Holtby
Three Good Things
At day’s end I remember
three good things.
Apples maybe – their skinshine smell
and soft froth of juice.
Water maybe – the pond in the park
dark and full of secret fish.
A mountain maybe – that I saw in a film,
or climbed last holiday,
and suddenly today it thundered up
into a playground game.
Or else an owl – I heard an owl today,
and I made bread.
My head is full of all these things,
it’s hard to choose just three.
I let remembering fill me up
with all good things
so that good things will overflow
into my sleeping self,
and in the morning
good things will be waiting
when I wake.
Jan Dean
There Is No Frigate Like a Book
There is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away,
Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of prancing Poetry –
This Travel may the poorest take
Without offence of Toll –
How frugal is the Chariot
That bears the Human soul.
Emily Dickinson
This Poem . . .
This poem is dangerous: it should not be left
Within the reach of children, or even of adults
Who might swallow it whole, with possibly
Undesirable side-effects. If you come across
An unattended, unidentified poem
In a public place, do not attempt to tackle it
Yourself. Send it (preferably, in a sealed container)
To the nearest centre of learning, where it will be rendered
Harmless, by experts. Even the simplest poem
May destroy your immunity to human emotions.
All poems must carry a Government warning. Words
Can seriously affect your heart.
Elma Mitchell
Uppity
Roads around mountains
’cause we can’t drive
through
That’s Poetry
to Me.
Eileen Myles
Stanzas
Often rebuked, yet always back returning
To those first feelings that were born with me,
And leaving busy chase of wealth and learning
For idle dreams of things which cannot be:
Today, I will not seek the shadowy region;
Its unsustaining vastness waxes drear;
And visions rising, legion after legion,
Bring the unreal world too strangely near.
I’ll walk, but not in old heroic traces,
And not in paths of high morality,
And not among the half-distinguished faces,
The clouded forms of long-past history.
I’ll walk where my own nature would be leading:
It vexes me to choose another guide:
Where the grey flocks in ferny glens are feeding;
Where the wild wind blows on the mountain side.
What have these lonely mountains worth revealing?
More glory and more grief than I can tell:
The earth that wakes one human heart to feeling
Can centre both the worlds of Heaven and Hell.
Emily Brontë
Antidote to the Fear of Death
Sometimes as an antidote
To fear of death,
I eat the stars.
Those nights, lying on my back,
I suck them from the quenching dark
Till they are all, all inside me,
Pepper hot and sharp.
Sometimes, instead, I stir myself
Into a universe still young,
Still warm as blood:
No outer space, just space,
The light of all the not yet stars
Drifting like a bright mist,
And all of us, and everything
Already there
But unconstrained by form.
To lie down here on earth
Beside our long ancestral bones:
To walk across the cobble fields
Of our discarded skulls,
Each like a treasure, like a chrysalis,
Thinking: whatever left these husks
Flew off on bright wings.
Rebecca Elson
‘Phenomenal woman’ – Society, Fashion and Body Image
Here are poems about navigating society, and the face – and body – we present to the world. Not all of them are sisterly and supportive: bitter rivalry drips from the pens of Dorothy Parker and ‘Ephelia’. (The eighteenth century in particular delivered some wonderfully spiteful poetry by men and women alike.) Women have always suffered stricter social constraints than their male counterparts, and here they condemn the straitjacket of decorum and dress. Anna Wickham, writing soon after the heyday of corsets and crinolines, laments the ‘trailing gown’ that hampers her beloved, and Selina Nwulu’s warrior woman edits her wardrobe before battle.
Dora Greenwell beautifully captures the agonies of shyness, and Sylvia Plath probes the fear of ageing in a glossy world that prizes female beauty and youth. Here too, though, are writers rejoicing in themselves, forgiving their imperfect legs in defiance of magazine messaging and embracing wobbling armfuls of remembered pleasure. Cellulite and lightning-bolt stretchmarks don’t daunt phenomenal women. Mythical Andromeda is reimagined here, sturdy enough to unchain herself, shrugging off the sea-monster without requiring rescue.
Phenomenal Woman
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I’m telling lies.
I say,
It’s in the reach of my arms,
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It’s the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can’t touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them,
They say they still can’t see.
I say,
It’s in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
Now you understand
Just why my head’s not bowed.
I don’t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing,
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It’s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need for my care.
’Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
Maya Angelou
Lullaby
Sleep, pretty lady, the night is enfolding you;
Drift, and so lightly, on crystalline streams
Wrapped in its perfumes, the darkness is holding you;
Starlight bespangles the way of your dreams.
Chorus the nightingales, wistfully amorous;
Blessedly quiet, the blare of the day.
All the sweet hours may your visions be glamorous –
Sleep, pretty lady, as long as you may.
Sleep, pretty lady, the night shall be still for you;
Silvered and silent, it watches you rest.
Each little breeze, in its eagerness, will for you
Murmur the melodies ancient and blest.
So in the midnight does happiness capture us;
Morning is dim with another day’s tears.
Give yourself sweetly to images rapturous –
Sleep, pretty lady, a couple of years.
Sleep, pretty lady, the world awaits day with you;
Girlish and golden, the slender young moon.