Are midterms leaving you in a slump you can’t seem to get out of? Have exams and papers left you feeling more like an academic victim than a weapon? Fear not, for these poems are sure to pick you up! Enjoy a collection of poems we have dubbed ‘hope-core’ to bring you out of the trenches!
Wild Geese – Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
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.
Les Etiquettes Jaunes – Frank O’hara
I picked up a leaf
today from the sidewalk.
This seems childish.
Leaf! You are so big!
How can you change your
color, then just fall!
As if there were no
such thing as integrity!
You are too relaxed
to answer me. I am too
frightened to insist.
Leaf! don’t be neurotic
like the small chameleon.
First Dog in Space – Brennig Davies
They say that, from space,
the Earth looks like a
small, blue ball, but how
did it look to you, Laika?
From that shuttle like a balloon
whose string they let go, and which
they never trained for recall?
They say that you were a stray
who never fought with other dogs,
and that the clever people called you pet names
through the wires of your shrinking cages,
and that, before you died, overheating
in that heavy, weightless cold, one of them
took you home, and you played with his kids.
They say that, from space,
the Earth looks like a
small, blue ball. I’ll throw it
for you, Laika, if you’ll chase it,
dart through the stratosphere
like a comet, undeserving
if its fate.
The Orange – Wendy Cope
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.
Two-Headed Calf by Laura Gilpin
Tomorrow when the farm boys find this
freak of nature, they will wrap his body
in newspaper and carry him to the museum.
But tonight he is alive and in the north
field with his mother. It is a perfect
summer evening: the moon rising over
the orchard, the wind in the grass. And
as he stares into the sky, there are
twice as many stars as usual.
The Quiet World – Jeffrey McDaniel
In an effort to get people to look
into each other’s eyes more,
and also to appease the mutes,
the government has decided
to allot each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.
When the phone rings, I put it to my ear
without saying hello. In the restaurant
I point at chicken noodle soup.
I am adjusting well to the new way.
Late at night, I call my long distance lover,
proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.
When she doesn’t respond,
I know she’s used up all her words,
so I slowly whisper I love you
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.