A poem for fear of middle age
polkadotfish says:
It’s my birthday on 15 December and although I love birthdays I’m starting to feel the first pangs of getting older and feeling like I’m on the wrong side of forty. I think a poem to help me reflect on these new feelings would be an appropriate birthday present!
Guardian contributor How about Celia Celia by Adrian Mitchell:
When I am sad and weary
When I think all hope has gone
When I walk along High Holborn
I think of you with nothing on
It is sometimes easy to persuade yourself that you are beyond the age of romantic entanglement. But remember: there is always someone out there, often thinking of you in wholly inappropriate ways.
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A poem for exhaustion
SassyLiz writes:
Desperate English teacher running an understaffed department and facing a week of exhausted film and chocolate indulgence followed by a week of marking and planning seeks poetic salve for the soul and reigniting of vision and passion for education in a world of absent CEOs and the O word.
Guardian contributor From My Brilliant Image by Hafez:
I wish I could show you,
When you are lonely or in darkness,
The Astonishing Light
Of your own Being!
It sounds like, in your exhausting and challenging build upon to Christmas, you just need a little reminder of how special and remarkable you are. Hafez's words always make my patients seem a foot taller.
A poem for world worry
misskappus says:
Tucked up in bed with the wind raging outside, and Ted Hughes’ poem Wind which has been crashing around my head for the last few days. And feeling the roots of my house, my life, the world about us, moving. And the balls of my eyes denting.
Please can you prescribe an antidote poem to quell the storm within?
Guardian contributor Everything is Going to be All Right by Derek Mahon:
How should I not be glad to contemplate
the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window
and a high tide reflected on the ceiling?
There will be dying, there will be dying,
but there is no need to go into that.
The poems flow from the hand unbidden
and the hidden source is the watchful heart.
The sun rises in spite of everything
and the far cities are beautiful and bright.
I lie here in a riot of sunlight
watching the day break and the clouds flying.
Everything is going to be all right.
This is a wonderful poem written about lying in bed and worrying about the world, until a simple shaft of sunlight reminds the poet how easy it could be to look at life differently.
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A poem for feeling trapped
rebbre asks:
A poem on being trapped in a place that is not mine, not being able to spread my wings and fly further and continue a life of discovery. I am forever confined to the country of my son’s birth, far from my own, and far from the promises of my son’s father, my love of 10 years.
Guardian contributor I'd recommend Imtiaz Dharker's Front Door - it isn't online, but should be in a collection at your local bookstore.
I often prescribe this poem for people who feel a clash of cultures in their psyche, because it can turn consternation into celebration, and discordance into hope.
A poem for the loss of a loved one
MavieB says:
My dear mum died on 23 December 2016 and the first anniversary will be next Saturday. I would be delighted if you could recommend a shortish poem that I could learn by heart to remind me of the loving, warm and funny person who was my mum. A counterbalance for when I’m feeling sad at her loss.
Guardian contributor Elisabeth Fry's Do not stand at my grave and weep:
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 on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled 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.
I find this poem to be a wonderful and reassuring statement that death does not mean total loss. Your mum is still with you, you will hear her voice and see aspects of all that she shared with you, and taught you, around you in your home, in nature and in life.
A poem for a lonely marriage
AMcQuaid says:
I have been married for over 30 years, lonely for much of it and am now facing a ‘milestone’ birthday. Much of the time I am ambivalent about the relationship, but as my birthday approaches I find myself increasingly dissatisfied. I would love a poem to tick in my heart to keep me company.
Guardian contributor I'd recommend Sometimes by Sheila Pugh, which has been mentioned by commenters here already.
But also UA Fanthorpe's Atlas:
There is a kind of love called maintenance
Which stores the WD40 and knows when to use it;Which checks the insurance, and doesn’t forget
The milkman; which remembers to plant bulbs;Which answers letters; which knows the way
The money goes; which deals with dentistsAnd Road Fund Tax and meeting trains,
And postcards to the lonely; which upholdsThe permanently rickety elaborate
Structures of living, which is Atlas.And maintenance is the sensible side of love,
Which knows what time and weather are doing
To my brickwork; insulates my faulty wiring;
Laughs at my dryrotten jokes; remembers
My need for gloss and grouting; which keeps
My suspect edifice upright in air,
As Atlas did the sky.
Maybe it might help to look at your marriage and partner in rather a different way. Ursula Fanthorpe's wonderful poem reminds us that the less glamorous and less romantic sides of love are often the most important.
A poem for homesickness
Observatoire says:
Living in exile. Miss friends, country pubs, Indian restaurants, British irony, marmite, John Motson … In brief, occasionally homesick.
Guardian contributor You might try Claire Pollard's Thinking of England, written just after 9/11. Here is a video of it being read.
One of my favourite poems about the complex and difficult business of dealing with multiple identities.
A poem for protective parents
msbellows says:
My adult daughters, whom I’ve always described as “one of each” (whatever the question) and who’ve abraded each other emotionally for years, have finally decided they can’t be in the same room together. Neither one’s entirely wrong – it’s more a necessary passage that I trust will pass – but for the first time in 20+ years I don’t get to watch It’s A Wonderful Life with them as they laughingly bet on exactly when I’ll start crying this time at George Bailey’s frustrated and oh-so-relatable efforts to build a perfect life. A poem to help me patiently process, please?
Guardian contributor Perhaps Nettles by Vernon Scannell:
My son aged three fell in the nettle bed.
'Bed' seemed a curious name for those green spears,
That regiment of spite behind the shed:
It was no place for rest. With sobs and tears
The boy came seeking comfort and I saw
White blisters beaded on his tender skin.
We soothed him till his pain was not so raw.
At last he offered us a watery grin,
And then I took my billhook, honed the blade
And went outside and slashed in fury with it
Till not a nettle in that fierce parade
Stood upright any more. And then I lit
A funeral pyre to burn the fallen dead,
But in two weeks the busy sun and rain
Had called up tall recruits behind the shed:
My son would often feel sharp wounds again.
... might remind you that your daughters are adults and no matter how protective you are, and keen to help, in the end it is their challenge and their responsibility to make you happy in their visit to you at Christmas time.
A poem for unrequited love
Dennis89 says:
Unrequited love. I’ve fallen for a work colleague but the feelings do not appear to be reciprocated. The usual remedies to console this feeling don’t seem to work as I’m continually in contact with her and my mind cannot escape. It’s a slow form of torture.
Guardian contributor Dennis, I think you might need Wendy Cope's Two Cures for Love:
1. Don’t see him. Don’t phone or write a letter.
2. The easy way: get to know him better.
Please excuse to the two 'him's. The first cure, with her being ever present around you, may not work. The second cure, get to know her better, might be the answer. Sometimes, when you are sitting in an office gazing into space, it is easy to project wonderful qualities on colleagues that may not really exist. Turning a fantasy into more of a reality might cure you.
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A poem for the time-crunched
KimthePim asks:
Have you anything to slow down time? It’s charging forward, already Christmas, it will be here and gone and onto spring before I can catch my breath!
Guardian contributor I think you need Leisure by WH Davies:
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
I think this is the poem for you, to remind you to stop the tumble dryer mind for a moment, breathe, look around you, and be in the moment. And you'll find much more time in your day.
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A poem for courage
RCraven says:
Anything that might help a frazzled mother of a one-year-old find herself (and self-confidence) again before returning to work in the new year would be much appreciated.
Guardian contributor Christopher Logue's Come to the Edge:
Come to the edge.
We might fall.
Come to the edge.
It's too high!
COME TO THE EDGE!
And they came,
and he pushed,
And they flew.
I often prescribe this poem for lack of courage, as though you are the lion in The Wizard of Oz. Going back to work after childbirth, particularly for the first time, is unbelievably stressful. The sense of vulnerability, which you may not have felt before, plus fear that the 'milk dream' will be playing with your thought processes is enough to make anyone anxious about their workplace and their performance. But as Christopher Logue so beautifully puts it, you will soon find yourself flying, not falling.
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A poem for just being
ID0783190 asks:
How can I just ‘be’, especially at a time of year when all the focus is on ‘having’?
Guardian contributor I recommend Feelings of Unreality by John Burnside, from Of Gravity and Light - it begins:
What we need most, we learn from the menial tasks:
the novice raking sand in Buddhist texts,
or sweeping leaves, his hands chilled to the bone,
while understanding hovers out of reach;
the changeling in a folk tale, chopping logs,
poised at the dizzy edge of transformation;
And so on it goes. I love this poem, because it reminds us that we learn most from doing, not having. Most importantly, we learn from looking after ourselves, doing the menial things like cooking, cleaning or washing. Those crucial elements of self care give us self-respect and an openness to all kinds of surprising insight and wisdom.
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A poem for hopelessness
quickspace says:
I sometimes find that essentially I am a pointless sack of bones desperate for some sort of meaningful reason for getting up each day and that a brief illusion of happiness might help me forget that I will painfully return to the same nothingness that was there before I was born, and that the bit in between will be made up of moments of absolute humiliation and I will somehow let down the people I love by fucking up in some way and I have no real power other than to hurt myself and others.
Guardian contributor I recommend Everybody Sang by Siegfried Sassoon:
Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom,
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark-green fields; on - on - and out of sight.
Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted;
And beauty came like the setting sun:
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror
Drifted away ... O, but Everyone
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.
I often prescribe this poem for depression, and an overwhelming sense of hopelessness. I love the sense in this poem of a sudden, unexpected unfurling of possibility and excitement. I give this to patients to let them know they have something to look forward to.
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Join us for a Poetry pharmacy session with William Sieghart
One day as he was crossing a street, National Poetry Day founder William Sieghart saw a man be hit by a car. After getting his heart beating again, William was left with blood on his hands – and a poem in his head: Ambulances by Philip Larkin. It did not comfort him, but it offered complicity, William says: “Poetry is not a lullaby. Poems help you feel you are not mad, that what you are going through has been experienced by others.”
Motivated by his wish to “get people to drop their fear of the P-word”, William began setting up a tent at literary festivals with two armchairs and a prescription pad and allocated visitors 10-minute slots. Hours later, people would still be queuing to get their poem – and have their stories and feelings heard. After collecting poems to help people with everything from feeling overwhelmed by news to sexual repression, from loneliness to romantic boredom, William published The Poetry Pharmacy: Tried-and-True Prescriptions for the Heart, Mind and Soul.
Given that Christmas and New Year can be stressful times of year, we thought we’d have William in to prescribe poems for those in need of a tonic-in-verse. All you have to do is post a description of your situation in the comments and William will prescribe you a poem on Friday 15 December at 1pm GMT.
Thanks to the kind folks at Penguin, we have 10 copies of The Poetry Pharmacy to give away to the first 10 commenters to post their problem or scenario for William – so get typing!
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Goodbye everyone, it has been lovely. I hope these poems have helped.
My book is called The Poetry Pharmacy - if you want to recommend a poem to me or contact me, please email on william@thepoetrypharmacy.com