Healing Poetry

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting

over and over announcing

your place in the family of things.

——from The Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

There are a large number of poems that could be offered as potentially healing. I’m offering here a handful that I’ve come across, and written about briefly, because they seem to me to resonate especially well with the process of healing, and because any one of them seems like it could be a springboard—a trampoline?—to one’s own writing.

I. Poems that conjure a healing place

Last Night As I Lay Sleeping by Antonio Machado

The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry

The Lake Isle of Innisfree by WB Yeats

Island of the Raped Women by Frances Driscoll

Keeping Quiet by Pablo Neruda

What I Want by Alicia Ostriker

II. Poems about a quest

The Journey by Mary Oliver

Diving into the Wreck by Adrienne Rich

III. Poems that might offer company during a difficult time

The Guest House by Rumi

A Ritual to Read to Each Other by William Stafford

Satellite Call by Sara Bareilles

The Armful by Robert Frost

The Spell by Marie Howe

Talking to Grief by Denise Levertov

Sweetness by Stephen Dunn

My Dead Friends by Marie Howe

III. Poems for looking at the world in new ways

The Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird by Wallace Stevens

Eighteen Ways of Looking at Cancer by a group of women in a writing workshop

Report from a Far Place by William Stafford

who knows if the moon’s a by e.e. cummings

The Snowman by Wallace Stevens

Notes in Bathrobe Pockets by Raymond Carver

A New Path to the Waterfall, a collection by Raymond Carver and Tess Gallagher

The Summer Day by Mary Oliver

IV. Poems about the process of reading

Introduction to Poetry by Billy Collins

V. Poems for considering purpose

Every Craftsman by Rumi.

Satellite Call by Sara Bareilles

Posted by Diane Morrow on September 14, 2014 in Blog, Healing Grief, Healing Poetry

A couple weeks back I wrote about William Stafford’s poem, “A Ritual to Read to Each Other,” and those lines that seem like such clear instructions: the signals we give—yes or no, or maybe— should be clear; the darkness around us is deep. After writing about the poem, this song, “Satellite Call” by Sara Bareilles, came to mind. Itself a poem. It seems to me as if in these lyrics Bareilles is following William Stafford’s instructions. Sending out a satellite call into and across the darkness: You may find yourself in the dead of night Lost somewhere out there in the great big beautiful sky You are all just perfect little satellites Spinning round and round this broken earthly life This is so you’ll know the sound Of someone who loves you from the ground Tonight you’re not alone at all This is me sending out my satellite call I also think it’s just such a pretty song. The video here is a live version, her singing at the piano in Indianapolis. I’ve also included a link below to a video version with lyrics. I love the idea of writing going out like a satellite call. So that we can become both receivers and senders. If you could send out a satellite call what would you say? And if you could receive one, what would you most like to hear? The song is from her album, Blessed Unrest. A video of the song with lyrics is here. The piece about Stafford’s poem is...

A Ritual to Read to Each Other by William Stafford

Posted by Diane Morrow on August 30, 2014 in Blog, Healing Grief, Healing Poetry

I came across this poem thanks to Daniel Sperry, a cellist who has been working on a CD of William Stafford poetry combined with cello music. In his Kickstarter campaign, which I stumbled across (and which is now fully funded) he includes a few lines from William Stafford’s poem, “A Ritual to Read to Each Other,” which I don’t believe I’ve ever heard before. It inspired me to go find the whole poem. The poem begins: If you don’t know the kind of person I am and I don’t know the kind of person you are a pattern that others made may prevail in the world and following the wrong god home we may miss our star. I like the way this poem calls us to responsibility. We may not know much, but the little we do know we have some responsibility to share, if even in conversation—to share something of ourselves, at least now and then—to say something true, perhaps, rather than what is expected, or might be approved of. Or to simply make the effort to show kindness. Even when it’s a risk. Even when we can’t know how it will be received. The poem continues: For there is many a small betrayal in the mind, a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood storming out to play through the broken dyke. Here he seems to be talking about the listening piece of conversation. How we receive what is offered to us—what is shared with us in conversation. a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break. How important it might be not to shrug or look away in response. How fragile the sequence can sometimes be. The pain that can be let loose on the other side when we turn away—those horrible errors of childhood storming out to play through the broken dyke. And we are the ones, at least some of the time, who can keep that dyke from breaking? Simply by paying attention? And looking for opportunities to keep the sequence from breaking? Two more stanzas and then the poem closes: For it is important that awake people be awake, or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep, the signals we give—yes or no, or maybe— should be clear; the darkness around us is deep. Ah, such urgency. I appreciate that. And I’m wondering now why he gives this poem the title he does. So that we might realize this is something we may need to read and understand not once, but over and over, like a ritual, or a practice? Maybe? May you be awake this week. May you be encouraged in becoming awake—and staying awake. The full poem can be found at WilliamStafford.org, a site set up by the Friends of William Stafford. Daniel Sperry’s Kickstarter can be found here. The photo was found at morningmeditations.com See also: A piece on Kindness by Naomi Shihab...

The Armful by Robert Frost

Posted by Diane Morrow on August 5, 2012 in Blog, Book, Healing Poetry

This poem by Frost can be about a lot of things, I suppose. For me, this week, it seems to be about revision–and how hard it can be to hold coherent images and ideas and how sometimes you just have to put them down and rearrange them–again. Madness, perhaps–but also it seems now a necessary madness. I went back to earlier chapters of One Year of Writing and Healing to pick up some threads to carry forward–and realized that deep revision is again necessary. Chapter 2 as it stands now is just wrong–and changing that begins to change everything. Madness. For every parcel I stoop down to seize I lose some other off my arms and knees, And the whole pile is slipping, bottles, buns, Extremes too hard to comprehend at once. Yet nothing I should care to leave behind. With all I have to hold with hand and mind And heart, if need be, I will do my best. To keep their building balanced at my breast. I crouch down to prevent them as they fall; Then sit down in the middle of them all. I had to drop the armful in the road And try to stack them in a better load. I’m heading back to teaching tomorrow. Launching a new semester. I’ll be returning to the work of these chapters and this site (which also needs some serious tinkering) when I can. Sitting down in the middle of it all and trying to stack the pieces in a useful way. Thank you again to everyone who has offered support and help along the way. It has been a joy to have emails pop into my box as surprises and encouragement as I work away at this. __________________________________ Photo from Quiet Commotion...

All Shall be Well?

Posted by Diane Morrow on July 17, 2012 in Blog, Healing Grief, Healing Poetry

For some reason a couple weeks ago, I found myself looking for the quote by Julian of Norwich about all being well. I found this: All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well which T.S. Eliot then included in the fourth quartet of his Four Quartets: And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well And I also found, unexpectedly, this song, which I quite like, by a young man by the name of Gabe Dixon. The song is called, “All Will Be Well.” ____________________________________________________________________ The photo at the top of this post is from Wikipedia. Julian of Norwich was a Christian mystic in the fourteenth century who is described as an anchoress. I had to look up the term and discovered it’s the female form of the term anchorite and refers to a kind of Christian hermit who devotes their life to prayer. Anchoresses lived in simple cells or anchorholds built against the walls of a church. The photo is of one such cell or anchorhold. She lived during a time of plagues. It’s possible (history about her is sketchy) that she could have become an anchoress after losing her husband and/or children. Or it’s speculated she may have become an anchoress to become quarantined. In any case, it does place her famous quote in an interesting context. Plagues were spreading and encroaching all around her and she was writing that all shall be well. Denial? Insanity? Radical...

Talking to Grief by Denise Levertov

Posted by Diane Morrow on June 18, 2012 in Blog, Book, Healing Poetry

The title for the chapter, “Making a Place for Grief,” was inspired by and begins with an excerpt from “Talking to Grief” by Denise Levertov: You long for your real place to be readied before winter comes. You need your name, your collar and tag. You need the right to warn off intruders, to consider my house your own and me your person and yourself my own dog. I think there’s a kind of brilliance in this poem, that resonates with so much that I understand about imagery and the way it can help us move through the more difficult passages of our lives. This notion here of imagining grief as a dog, perhaps a much-loved dog. And then taking that next step–speaking to him or her directly. Offering to make her a real place. A home. The chapter ends then with what seems to me a kind of mirror image: this excerpt from Rumi’s poem, The Guest House, that has become, I suppose, a kind of theme song here: This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. This is a kind of goal I’m setting for myself this summer–to become, as much as I’m able, a guest house in this way. To welcome what arrives. I remember the poem sometimes when I’m sweeping my steps and my patio in the morning. I remember the way a thought or an emotion–or a wave of emotion–or a person–a snatch of conversation–the line of a poem–or a song–any one of these could come and sweep us clean–prepare us for the next thing. May your summer be a guest house in the best possible way–or perhaps a broom–preparing you for the next thing. ____________________________________________________...

When I Am Asked by Lisel Mueller

Posted by Diane Morrow on June 11, 2012 in Blog, Healing Grief, Healing Poetry

I’m not at all sure that June is the right time for grief. But I’m in the process of revising my book, and that’s what I’ve been working on these last couple weeks. It’s interesting. I’ve tended, for a variety of reasons, to look at grief more in November—that’s when I tend to hear and feel most the voices of grief—and to feel a resonance between those voices and the waning light. Now, in a sense, I feel as if I’ve been looking at grief out of season. We’ve also had an especially mild summer so far, with cool, fresh mornings, the windows open, the kind of air that makes me want to be out of doors, walking, and out working in the yard and garden. I’ve been finding a rhythm of writing and then working outside. I’ve cleared and swept the patio and some of the flower beds. I’ve transplanted purple salvia—and dug up an enormous fern for a pot on the patio. I’ve gotten water back into the birdbath and the birds have been coming for drinks. A hummingbird has found the purple salvia. The voices of grief in a new place—a greener, flowering place—with a hummingbird. There’s a poem by Lisel Mueller that speaks to this contrast—the contrast of grief and summer. It begins this way: When I am asked how I began writing poems, I talk about the indifference of nature. It was soon after my mother died, a brilliant June day, everything blooming. I sat on a gray stone bench in a lovingly planted garden, but the day lilies were as deaf as the ears of drunken sleepers and the roses curved inward. Nothing was black or broken and not a leaf fell and the sun blared endless commercials for summer holidays. I can see this—I can see how summer could seem indifferent to difficult feelings and difficult experiences. In her case this itself becomes a catalyst for writing. The poem continues: I sat on a gray stone bench ringed with the ingenue faces of pink and white impatiens and placed my grief in the mouth of language, the only thing that would grieve with me. Placing grief in the mouth of language. This seems important—and wonderful. I can also see how these kind of days—these cool, fresh mornings—could have the potential to offer a kind of balm for grief—as if one were allowing the voice of grief to emerge for a time in a new location—a kind of healing place. With the possibility of finding language there too—in the cool, wet green of summer mornings. ___________________________________ Photo from my patio...

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