“This is the world I want to live in”: Poetry Links

The other day I asked my Twitter friends for poetry recommendations, and in the conversation that followed I was reminded of how much I appreciate being in touch with such knowledgeable, generous people. I love my online bookish circle: between you you’ve read everything, and you’re very good at coming up with suggestions that are perfect for my taste, interests and sensibility.

That conversation was a gift, so in return I wanted to share a collection of poems I love and which are available online. I’ve been reading more poetry this year, for no particular reason other than that I’ve been remembering to. The links that follow are to old favourites as well as to more recent discoveries, and the one thing they have in common is that they make me feel something.

• “Gate A-4” by Naomi Shihab Nye: This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.
  
  
• “Splittings” by Adrienne Rich: I believe I am choosing something new / not to suffer uselessly    yet still to feel

• “Blackie in Antarctica” by Margaret Atwood: Death / is, though. Ridiculous. And coming to you. / For us too.
  
  
• “June 78” by Karen Brodine: what if we knew the powers of this country / moved to provide for us and for all people— / how would that be—how would we feel and think / and what would we create?
  
  
• “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver: Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. / Meanwhile the world goes on.
  
  
• “Beyond Harm” by Sharon Olds: From then on, I had / that word to lose
  
  
• “Democracy” by Langston Hughes: I tire so of hearing people say, / Let things take their course. / Tomorrow is another day. / I do not need my freedom when I’m dead. / I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread.
  
  
• “Try to Praise the Mutilated World” by Adam Zagajewski: Remember June’s long days, / and wild strawberries, drops of rosé wine. / The nettles that methodically overgrow / the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
  
  
• “We Alone” by Alice Walker: This could be our revolution: / to love what is plentiful / as much as / what’s scarce.
  
  
• “The Mower” by Philip Larkin: [W]e should be careful / Of each other, we should be kind / While there is still time.
  
  
• “Twenty-One Love Poems: IV” by Adrienne Rich: and they still control the world, and you are not in my arms.
  
  
• “Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances” by Walt Whitman: To me these and the like of these are curiously answer’d by my lovers, my dear friends, / When he whom I love travels with me or sits a long while holding me by the hand

Is there a poem that moves you that you could link to? Don’t feel that you have to, of course, but if you can think of anything I would be very grateful if you were to share it in the comments.