"poems that could save your life"

[limestone]

Coping poems

Have you heard of Daisy Goodwin and her chain of poetry books?
if not, she is like a poetry doctor and prescribes poems for peoples' problems.

Do you know a poem written by someone else, that helps you for a particular problem? If so, then reply here with the poem and problem/situation you feel it can help with.

[limestone]

because I don't have much time right now, I'll start off with a short one taken from Goodwins book. (so that my post makes sense etc) (if it doesn't make sense just yell!)

Stressed Out

Miscellaneous Poem

Clouds appear free of care
And carefree drift away.
But the carefree mind is not to be 'found' -
To find it, first stop looking around.

Wang An Shih

(page 119: 101 poems that could save your life: an anthology of emotional first aid: edited by Daisy Goodwin)

[FarSideGirl]

I'm really not into poetry

Think it might have something to do with the fact that I detested my Poetry Teacher in High School. Have pretty much hated it ever since.
Guess music is the closest I get to that.

[tattybluetrees]

Fear of the future:

Sleep to the noise of running water
Tomorrow to be crossed, however deep.
This is no river of the dead or Lethe
Tonight we sleep
On the banks of the Rubicon.
The die is cast. There will be tiime to audit
the accounts later. There will be sunlight later.
And the equation will come out at last.
-Louis MacNiece

[iamlost]

sounds like something i would be interested in. what are the titles of her books?

[Boris]

there are a few i know of, buti can't remember where they are off the top of my head. i'll find them once i remember.

[Saren]

I'm reading an anthology right now called "Staying Alive: Real Poems For Unreal Times"

I haven't gotten too far, but the title is promising.

[daria]

This is a poem that sometimes helps me when I'm feeling alone, maybe wishing I had someone to be there for me, but nobody's around, or I don't feel able to ask for help; it helps me to find the strength I need in myself.

::cough::

That sounds cheesy. Just read the poem.

"Courage," Anne Sexton

It is in the small things we see it.
The child's first step,
as awesome as an earthquake.
The first time you rode a bike,
wallowing up the sidewalk.
The first spanking when your heart
went on a journey all alone.
When they called you crybaby
or poor or fatty or crazy
and made you into an alien,
you drank their acid
and concealed it.

Later,
if you faced the death of bombs and bullets
you did not do it with a banner,
you did it with only a hat to
cover your heart.
You did not fondle the weakness inside you
though it was there.
Your courage was a small coal
that you kept swallowing.
If your buddy saved you
and died himself in so doing,
then his courage was not courage,
it was love; love as simple as shaving soap.

Later,
if you have endured a great despair,
then you did it alone,
getting a transfusion from the fire,
picking the scabs off your heart,
then wringing it out like a sock.
Next, my kinsman, you powdered your sorrow,
you gave it a back rub
and then you covered it with a blanket
and after it had slept a while
it woke to the wings of the roses
and was transformed.

Later,
when you face old age and its natural conclusion
your courage will still be shown in the little ways,
each spring will be a sword you'll sharpen,
those you love will live in a fever of love,
and you'll bargain with the calendar
and at the last moment
when death opens the back door
you'll put on your carpet slippers
and stride out.

[limestone]

Just do it



And the days are not full enough

And the days are not full enough
And the nights are not full enough
And life slips by like a field mouse
Not shaking the grass.

Ezra Pound

[Themnoria]

Something about that poem really depresses and fills me. I haven't read much Ezra Pound, but now I want to. Thanks for posting/re-posting that.

[Jude]

I LOVE those books!!

I have the "101 poems that could save your life".

I want the whole series but they're about £12.99 each

There's some good ones in there And there's a great range, as in one from old authors to really modern ones. I would definetely reccommend.

J

[becs]

I'm reading an anthology right now called "Staying Alive: Real Poems For Unreal Times"

I haven't gotten too far, but the title is promising.

I have that anthology too


Ezra Pound is amazing, I love that poem.

-Becs

[Oblivia]

This is a short poem I've memorized that helps me when I'm feeling hopeless and depressed...

Wave of sorrow,
Do not drown me now:

I see the island
Still ahead somehow.

I see the island
And its sands are fair:

Wave of sorrow,
Take me there.

Langston Hughes, "Island"

[Lyndsie]

Wow. I'm glade i Found this post. It's so helpful. I love a few of the poems, I found them helpful, each in their own way. i just had to let you know that this post was helpful to me. Thanks for making it.

[Purple_Moon]

If I Had My Life To Live Over

[tweaker]

Thank you Purple Moon--the "If I Had My Life to Live Over" poem really moved me.....a friend of my daughter's just passed away at only 18 years old and I have been thinking so much about how we never really know how much time we have here. I have spent way too much of it depressed and frustrated.....this post has some awesomely inspiring poems and I am glad to have found it...thanks again

[green]

here's a poem a found a few months ago thats really helped me to feel calmer during difficult times--

The tension is discernible
But beneath your skin
A growing time is happening
And you will be released to an Eden like garden
Your soul is allowed to leap here
And no one, not even self, will judge you
You are beyond the gridlock of existence
And the dance of trying to understand.

[pretty]

Feeling disconnected from and ashamed of the places I've been;

The Healing Time

Finally on my way to yes
I bump into
all the places
where I said no
to my life
all the untended wounds
the red and purple scars
those hieroglyphs of pain
carved into my skin, my bones,
those coded messages
that send me down
the wrong street
again and again
where I find them
the old wounds
the old misdirections
and I lift them
one by one
close to my heart
and I say holy
holy.

-Pesha Gertler

[beautiful_facade]

I'm reading an anthology right now called "Staying Alive: Real Poems For Unreal Times"

I haven't gotten too far, but the title is promising.

i have that too

angel

[Forget Me]

i LOVE the courage poem.

i like this one:

Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints in snow,
I am the sunlight and ripened grain.
I am the gentle Autumn rain.
When you awake in the morning hush,
I am the swift upflinging rush
of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there, I did not die.

Mary E. Frye