At our last open mic, Katie read this selection of five poems on hope. Her curation has stayed with me over these weeks, a soothing balm when the world might feel especially harsh. I messaged her on Instagram to request if she’d share the poems and a reflection with you all here. I’m really glad she said yes. — KS
I will not be the last person to write about hope, not even in the moment I type these words. But isn't that also hopeful, that close-held yearning that your words might bring something unique to the table? So here I am.
I love Kelsey and Ryan's Read the Room reading series - it's such a wonderful peek into what my friends and acquaintances find inspiring in the written world. For October's reading, at first I had a difficult time choosing my piece and realized I needed some hope. Hope is a discipline, after all, and I had been having trouble keeping it. I've had an exceptionally rough past two years of my life. There have been the dark times, but there is also the singing about the dark times, is there not? And there it is - hope gets us to raise our voices. And what do I turn to, time and time again? Poetry. I clearly do not have the economy of language myself to be a poet, but they are magnificent creatures and I'm so thankful for them.
I chose five poems to read that each touched on despair or darkness but ended with a reminder of what we should strive for, that hopeful moment, that turn where we say, okay, what's next? How do we integrate hope into our daily lives? We need to acknowledge the despair, the heartbroken nature of our world. But also, we have, have, have to hope. We have to hope that what's coming next will be better than what we just left behind.
(I also want to acknowledge hope, in the way I'm talking about it, as a privilege. I sit in one of the cushiest countries in the world as I write this, as others face occupation and genocide. And they have hope, still, certainly, and more urgently their hopes need to be fulfilled.)
—Katie Oldaker
“To the Young Who Want to Die” by Gwendolyn Brooks
Sit down. Inhale. Exhale.
The gun will wait. The lake will wait.
The tall gall in the small seductive vial
will wait will wait:
will wait a week: will wait through April.
You do not have to die this certain day.
Death will abide, will pamper your postponement.
I assure you death will wait. Death has
a lot of time. Death can
attend to you tomorrow. Or next week. Death is
just down the street; is most obliging neighbor;
can meet you any moment.
You need not die today.
Stay here--through pout or pain or peskyness.
Stay here. See what the news is going to be tomorrow.
Graves grow no green that you can use.
Remember, green's your color. You are Spring.
“Sorrow is Not My Name” by Ross Gay
—after Gwendolyn Brooks
No matter the pull toward brink. No
matter the florid, deep sleep awaits.
There is a time for everything. Look,
just this morning a vulture
nodded his red, grizzled head at me,
and I looked at him, admiring
the sickle of his beak.
Then the wind kicked up, and,
after arranging that good suit of feathers
he up and took off.
Just like that. And to boot,
there are, on this planet alone, something like two
million naturally occurring sweet things,
some with names so generous as to kick
the steel from my knees: agave, persimmon,
stick ball, the purple okra I bought for two bucks
at the market. Think of that. The long night,
the skeleton in the mirror, the man behind me
on the bus taking notes, yeah, yeah.
But look; my niece is running through a field
calling my name. My neighbor sings like an angel
and at the end of my block is a basketball court.
I remember. My color's green. I'm spring.
—for Walter Aikens
“The Thing Is” by Ellen Bass
to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you down like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.
“Good Bones” by Maggie Smith
Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.
“IN 150 CHARACTERS OR LESS” by Nikita Gill
Everything is on fire,
but everyone I love is doing beautiful things
and trying to make life worth living,
and I know I don’t have to believe in everything,
but I believe in that.
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