From mass shootings and record-breaking natural disasters to divisive politics and social media burnout, persisting in the day-to-day routine can feel like a walk through the end times. But, as Sherman Alexie wrote, “these dark times feel like those dark times.” While that may seem like a hopeless sentiment, it is at least a unifying one. While you may feel like the particular troubles of the modern world are unique to you and the time you’re in, take solace knowing that poets from every time period have lamented the state of the world just as you do. Here are 10 poems to carry with you as you move through the turbulence of this new year.
1. Sherman Alexie, “Valediction”
I know, I know, I know, I know, I knowThat I could not have convinced you of this.But these dark times are just like those dark times.Yes, my sad acquaintance, each dark time isIndistinguishable from the other dark times.Yesterday is as relentless as tomorrow.There is no relief to be found in this,But, please, “Yours is not the worst of sorrows.”Chekhov wrote that. He meant it as comfortAnd I mean it as comfort, too, but whyShould you believe us? You didn’t believe us.You killed yourself because your last dark timeWas the worst, I guess, of many dark times.None of my verse could have saved your life.You were a stranger. You were dark and brief.And I am humbled by the size of your grief.
2. Robert Hass, “Dancing”
The radio clicks on—it’s poor swollen America,Up already and busy selling the exhausting obligationOf happiness while intermittently debating whether or notA man who kills fifty people in five minutesWith an automatic weapon he has bought for the purposeIs mentally ill. Or a terrorist. Or if terroristsAre mentally ill. Because if killing large numbers of peopleWith sophisticated weapons is a sign of sickness—You might want to begin with fire, our early ancestorsDrawn to the warmth of it—from lightning,Must have been, the great booming flashes of itFrom the sky, the tree shriveled and sizzling,Must have been, an awful power, the odorOf ozone a god’s breath; or grass fires,The wind whipping them, the animals stampeding,Furious, driving hard on their haunches from the terrorOf it, so that to fashion some campfire of burning wood,Old logs, must have felt like feeding on the crumbsOf the god’s power and they would tell the storyOf Prometheus the thief, and the eagle that feastedOn his liver, told it around a campfire, must have been,And then—centuries, millennia—some tribeOf meticulous gatherers, some medicine woman,Or craftsman of metal discovered some sands that,Tossed into the fire, burned blue or flared green,So simple the children could do it, must have been,Or some soft stone rubbed to a powder that tossedInto the fire gave off a white phosphorescent glow.The word for chemistry from a Greek—some say Arabic—Stem associated with metal work. But it was in ChinaTwo thousand years ago that fireworks were invented—Fire and mineral in a confined space to produce power—They knew already about the power of fire and waterAnd the power of steam: 100 BC, Julius Caesar’s day.In Alexandria, a Greek mathematician producedA steam-powered turbine engine. Contain, explode.”The earliest depiction of a gunpowder weaponIs the illustration of a fire-lance on a mid-12th-centurySilk banner from Dunhuang.” Silk and the silk road.First Arab guns in the early fourteenth century. The EnglishUsed cannons and a siege gun at Calais in 1346.Cerigna, 1503: the first battle won by the power of riflesWhen Spanish “arquebusiers” cut down Swiss pikemenAnd French cavalry in a battle in southern Italy.(Explosions of blood and smoke, lead balls tearing openThe flesh of horses and young men, peasants mostly,Farm boys recruited to the armies of their feudal overlords.)How did guns come to North America? 2014,A headline: DIVERS DISCOVER THE SANTA MARIAOne of the ship’s Lombard cannons may have been stolenBy salvage pirates off the Haitian reef where it had sunk.And Cortes took Mexico with 600 men, 17 horses, 12 cannons.And LaSalle, 1679, constructed a seven-cannon barque,Le Griffon, and fired his cannons upon first entering the continent’sInterior. The sky darkened by the terror of the birds.In the dream time, they are still rising, swarming,Darkening the sky, the chorus of their cries sharpeningAs the echo of that first astounding explosion shimmersOn the waters, the crew blinking at the wind of their wings.Springfield Arsenal, 1777. Rock Island Arsenal, 1862.The original Henry rifle: a sixteen shot .44 caliber rimfireLever-action, breech-loading rifle patented—it was an ageOf tinkerers—by one Benjamin Tyler Henry in 1860,Just in time for the Civil War. Confederate casualtiesIn battle: about 95,000. Union casualties in battle:About 110,000. Contain, explode. They were throwingSand into the fire, a blue flare, an incandescent green.The Maxim machine gun, 1914, 400-600 small caliber roundsPer minute. The deaths in combat, all sides, 1914-1918Was 8,042,189. Someone was counting. Must have been.They could send things whistling into the air by boiling water.The children around the fire must have shrieked with delight1920: Iraq, the peoples of that place were “restive,”Under British rule and the young Winston ChurchillInvented the new policy of “aerial policing,” which amounted,Sources say, to bombing civilians and then pacifying themWith ground troops. Which led to the tactic of terrorizing civilianPopulations in World War II. Total casualties in that war,Worldwide: soldiers, 21 million; civilians, 27 million.They were throwing sand into the fire. The ancestor who stoleLightning from the sky had his guts eaten by an eagle.Spread-eagled on a rock, the great bird feasting.They are wondering if he is a terrorist or mentally ill.London, Dresden. Berlin. Hiroshima, Nagasaki.The casualties difficult to estimate. Hiroshima:66,000 dead, 70,000 injured. In a minute. Nagasaki:39,000 dead, 25,000 injured. There were more people killed,100,000, in more terrifying fashion in the firebombingOf Tokyo. Two arms races after the ashes settled.The other industrial countries couldn’t get thereFast enough. Contain, burn. One scramble wasFor the rocket that delivers the explosion that burns humansBy the tens of thousands and poisons the earth in the process.They were wondering if the terrorist was crazy. If he wasA terrorist, maybe he was just unhappy. The otherChallenge afterwards was how to construct machine gunsA man or a boy could carry: lightweight, compact, easy to assemble.First a Russian sergeant, a Kalashnikov, clever with gunsBuilt one on a German model. Now the heavy machine gun.The weapon of European imperialism through whichA few men trained in gunnery could slaughter native armiesIn Africa and India and the mountains of Afghanistan,Became “a portable weapon a child can operate.”The equalizer. So the undergunned Vietnamese insurgentsFought off the greatest army in the world. So the AfghansFought off the Soviet army using Kalashnikovs the CIAProvided to them. They were throwing powders in the fireAnd dancing. Children’s armies in Africa toting AK-47sThat fire thirty rounds a minute. A round is a bullet.An estimated 500 million firearms on the earth.100 million of them are Kalashnikov-style semi-automatics.They were dancing in Orlando, in a club. Spring night.Gay Pride. The relation of the total casualties to the historyOf the weapon that sent exploded metal into their bodies—30 rounds a minute, or 40, is a beautifully made instrument,And in America you can buy it anywhere—and into the historyOf the shaming culture that produced the idea of Gay Pride—They were mostly young men, they were dancing in a club,A spring night. The radio clicks on. Green fire. Blue fire.The immense flocks of terrified birds still risingIn wave after wave above the waters in the dream time.Crying out sharply. As the French ship breasted the vast interiorOf the new land. America. A radio clicks on. The Arabs,A commentator is saying, require a heavy hand. Dancing.
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3. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “To the Indifferent Women“
You who are happy in a thousand homes,
Or overworked therein, to a dumb peace;Whose souls are wholly centered in the lifeOf that small group you personally love–Who told you that you need not know or careAbout the sin and sorrow of the world?
Do you believe the sorrow of the worldDoes not concern you in your little homes?That you are licensed to avoid the careAnd toil for human progress, human peace,And the enlargement of our power of loveUntil it covers every field of life?
The one first duty of all human lifeIs to promote the progress of the worldIn righteousness, in wisdom, truth and love;And you ignore it, hidden in your homes,Content to keep them in uncertain peace,Content to leave all else without your care.
Yet you are mothers! And a mother’s careIs the first step towards friendly human life.Life where all nations in untroubled peaceUnite to raise the standard of the worldAnd make the happiness we seek in homesSpread everywhere in strong and fruitful love.
You are content to keep that mighty loveIn its first steps forever; the crude careOf animals for mate and young and homes,Instead of poring it abroad in life,Its mighty current feeding all the worldTill every human child shall grow in peace.
You cannot keep your small domestic peace,Your little pool of undeveloped love,While the neglected, starved, unmothered worldStruggles and fights for lack of mother’s care,And its tempestuous, bitter, broken lifeBeats in upon you in your selfish homes.
We all may have our homes in joy and peaceWhen woman’s life, in its rich power of loveIs joined with man’s to care for all the world!
4.Warsan Shire, “Home”
no one leaves home unlesshome is the mouth of a sharkyou only run for the borderwhen you see the whole city running as wellyour neighbors running faster than youbreath bloody in their throatsthe boy you went to school withwho kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factoryis holding a gun bigger than his bodyyou only leave homewhen home won’t let you stay.no one leaves home unless home chases youfire under feethot blood in your bellyit’s not something you ever thought of doinguntil the blade burnt threats intoyour neckand even then you carried the anthem underyour breathonly tearing up your passport in an airport toiletssobbing as each mouthful of papermade it clear that you wouldn’t be going back.you have to understand,that no one puts their children in a boatunless the water is safer than the landno one burns their palmsunder trainsbeneath carriagesno one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truckfeeding on newspaper unless the miles travelledmeans something more than journey.no one crawls under fencesno one wants to be beatenpitiedno one chooses refugee campsor strip searches where yourbody is left achingor prison,because prison is saferthan a city of fireand one prison guardin the nightis better than a truckloadof men who look like your fatherno one could take itno one could stomach itno one skin would be tough enoughthego home blacksrefugeesdirty immigrantsasylum seekerssucking our country dryniggers with their hands outthey smell strangesavagemessed up their country and now they wantto mess ours uphow do the wordsthe dirty looksroll off your backsmaybe because the blow is softerthan a limb torn offor the words are more tenderthan fourteen men betweenyour legsor the insults are easierto swallowthan rubblethan bonethan your child bodyin pieces.i want to go home,but home is the mouth of a sharkhome is the barrel of the gunand no one would leave homeunless home chased you to the shoreunless home told youto quicken your legsleave your clothes behindcrawl through the desertwade through the oceansdrownsavebe hungerbegforget prideyour survival is more importantno one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your earsaying-leave,run away from me nowi dont know what i’ve becomebut i know that anywhereis safer than here
5. Kevin Young, “Hive”
6. Maya Angelou, “Still I Rise”
You may write me down in historyWith your bitter, twisted lies,You may trod me in the very dirtBut still, like dust, I’ll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?Why are you beset with gloom?’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wellsPumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,With the certainty of tides,Just like hopes springing high,Still I’ll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?Bowed head and lowered eyes?Shoulders falling down like teardrops,Weakened by my soulful cries?
Does my haughtiness offend you?Don’t you take it awful hard’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold minesDiggin’ in my own backyard.
You may shoot me with your words,You may cut me with your eyes,You may kill me with your hatefulness,But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?Does it come as a surpriseThat I dance like I’ve got diamondsAt the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history’s shameI riseUp from a past that’s rooted in painI riseI’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fearI riseInto a daybreak that’s wondrously clearI riseBringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,I am the dream and the hope of the slave.I riseI riseI rise.
7. Jamaal May, “There Are Birds Here”
For Detroit
There are birds here,so many birds hereis what I was trying to saywhen they said those birds were metaphorsfor what is trappedbetween buildingsand buildings. No.The birds are hereto root around for breadthe girl’s hands tearand toss like confetti. No,I don’t mean the bread is torn like cotton,I said confetti, and nonot the confettia tank can make of a building.I mean the confettia boy can’t stop smiling aboutand no his smile isn’t muchlike a skeleton at all. And nohis neighborhood is not like a war zone.I am trying to sayhis neighborhoodis as tattered and featheredas anything else,as shadow pierced by sunand light partedby shadow-dance as anything else,but they won’t stop sayinghow lovely the ruins,how ruined the lovelychildren must be in that birdless city.
8. Denise Levertov, “Goodbye to Tolerance”
Genial poets, pink-faced earnest wits—you have given the world some choice morsels,gobbets of language presentedas one presents T-bone steakand Cherries Jubilee. Goodbye, goodbye, I don’t careif I never taste your fine food again, neutral fellows, seers of every side. Tolerance, what crimesare committed in your name.
And you, good women, bakers of nicest bread, blood donors. Your crumbschoke me, I would not wanta drop of your blood in me, it is pumped by weak hearts, perfect pulses that never falter: irresponsiveto nightmare reality.
It is my brothers, my sisters,whose blood spurts out and stopsforeverbecause you choose to believe it is not your business.
Goodbye, goodbye,your poemsshut their little mouths, your loaves grow moldy, a gulf has split the ground between us,and you won’t wave, you’re lookinganother way.We shan’t meet again—unless you leap it, leaving behind you the cherished worms of your dispassion, your pallid ironies,your jovial, murderous, wry-humored balanced judgment,leap over, un-balanced? … thenhow our fanatic tearswould flow and mingle for joy …
9. Audre Lorde, “A Litany For Survival”
For those of us who live at the shoreline
standing upon the constant edges of decisioncrucial and alonefor those of us who cannot indulgethe passing dreams of choicewho love in doorways coming and goingin the hours between dawnslooking inward and outwardat once before and afterseeking a now that can breedfutureslike bread in our children’s mouthsso their dreams will not reflectthe death of ours;For those of uswho were imprinted with fearlike a faint line in the center of our foreheadslearning to be afraid with our mother’s milkfor by this weaponthis illusion of some safety to be foundthe heavy-footed hoped to silence usFor all of usthis instant and this triumphWe were never meant to survive.And when the sun rises we are afraidit might not remainwhen the sun sets we are afraidit might not rise in the morningwhen our stomachs are full we are afraidof indigestionwhen our stomachs are empty we are afraidwe may never eat againwhen we are loved we are afraidlove will vanishwhen we are alone we are afraidlove will never returnand when we speak we are afraidour words will not be heardnor welcomedbut when we are silentwe are still afraidSo it is better to speakrememberingwe were never meant to survive.
10. William E. Stafford, “A Ritual to Read to Each Other”
If you don’t know the kind of person I am
and I don’t know the kind of person you area pattern that others made may prevail in the worldand following the wrong god home we may miss our star.
For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,a shrug that lets the fragile sequence breaksending with shouts the horrible errors of childhoodstorming out to play through the broken dike.
And as elephants parade holding each elephant’s tail,but if one wanders the circus won’t find the park,I call it cruel and maybe the root of all crueltyto know what occurs but not recognize the fact.
And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,a remote important region in all who talk:though we could fool each other, we should consider—lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.
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.
