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sMAYA ANGELOU: ‘Phenomenal Woman’ and ‘Still I Rise’ from And Still I Rise (Virago Press, 1978), reprinted in the UK by permission of the Little, Brown Group and in Europe by permission of Random House LLC (© Maya Angelou, 1978). WENDELL BERRY: ‘The Peace of Wild Things’ from New Collected Poems (Counterpoint, 2012), reprinted by permission of the publisher. JOHN BURNSIDE: ‘Of gravity and light’ (‘enlightenment’) from The Light Trap (Jonathan Cape, 2002), reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Ltd. BILLY COLLINS: ‘The Present’ from The Rain in Portugal (Picador, 2016), reprinted by permission of Pan Macmillan via PLSclear. WENDY COPE: ‘Defining the Problem’ and ‘Two Cures for Love’ from Two Cures for Love: Selected Poems 1979–2006 (Faber & Faber, 2008), and ‘My Funeral’ from Family Values (Faber & Faber, 2011), reprinted by permission of the publisher (© Wendy Cope). JULIA DARLING: ‘Chemotherapy’ from Sudden Collapses in Public Places (Arc Publications, 2003), reprinted by permission of the publisher. IMTIAZ DHARKER: ‘Front Door’ from I Speak for the Devil (Bloodaxe, 2001), reprinted by permission of the publisher. MARK DOTY: ‘Golden Retrievals’ from Sweet Machine (Jonathan Cape, 1998), reprinted by permission of the Random House Group Ltd. U. A. FANTHORPE: ‘Atlas’ from New and Collected Poems (Enitharmon Press, 2010), reprinted by kind permission of Dr. R. V. Bailey. HELEN FARISH: ‘Look at These’ from Intimates (Jonathan Cape, 2005), reprinted by permission of the Random House Group Ltd. VICKI FEAVER: ‘Ironing’ from The Handless Maiden (Jonathan Cape, 2009), reprinted by permission of the Random House Group Ltd. JAMES FENTON: ‘The Ideal’ and ‘The Mistake’ from Yellow Tulips: Poems 1968–2011 (Faber & Faber, 2012), reprinted by permission of the publisher (© James Fenton). DUNCAN FORBES: ‘Recension Day’ from Taking Liberties (Enitharmon Press, 1993), reprinted by permission of the publisher. JACK GILBERT: ‘Failing and Flying’ from Collected Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, 2014), reprinted by permission of the publisher (© Jack Gilbert 2012). HAFEZ: ‘It Happens All the Time in Heaven’, trans. by Daniel Ladinsky, from The Subject Tonight is Love: 60 Wild and Sweet Poems of Hafiz (Penguin Compass, 2003), reprinted by permission of Penguin Random House LLC (© Daniel Ladinsky 1996); ‘My Brilliant Image’ and ‘I am in love with every church’ (from ‘Would You Think It Odd?’), trans. by Daniel Ladinsky, from I Heard God Laughing: Poems of Love and Joy: Renderings of Hafiz (Penguin, 2006), reprinted by permission of Penguin Random House LLC (© Daniel Ladinsky 1996). OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN II: ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ copyright © 1945 by Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein II. Copyright Renewed. International Copyright Secured. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission of Williamson Music, A Division of Rodgers & Hammerstein: An Imagem Company. SEAMUS HEANEY: ‘Follower’ from New Selected Poems 1966–1987 (Faber & Faber, 2012), reprinted by permission of the publisher (© The Estate of Seamus Heaney 2012). STUART HENSON: ‘The Price’ from Ember Music (Peterloo Poets, 1994), reprinted by permission of the author. JANE HIRSHFIELD: ‘Burlap Sack’ from After (Bloodaxe, 2006), reprinted by permission of the publisher. ELIZABETH JENNINGS: ‘Into the Hour’ and ‘Love is not all’ from Selected Poems, ed. by Colin Falek, ‘The Centenary Edition’ (Carcanet, 1992), reprinted by permission of the publisher. PHILIP LARKIN: ‘Best Society’ and ‘The Trees’ from The Complete Poems, ed. by Archie Burnett (Faber & Faber, 2012), reprinted by permission of the publisher (© The Estate of Philip Larkin 2012). MICHAEL LASKEY: ‘Nobody’ from The Man Alone: New & Selected Poems (Smith/Doorstop Books, 2008), reprinted by permission of the publisher. CHRISTOPHER LOGUE: ‘Come to the Edge’ from Selected Poems (Faber & Faber, 1996), reprinted by permission of the publisher (© The Estate of Christopher Logue). DEREK MAHON: ‘Everything is Going to be All Right’ from New Collected Poems (Gallery Books, 2011), reprinted by permission of The Gallery Press (www.gallerypress.com). EDNA ST VINCENT MILLAY: ‘Love is not all’ from Selected Poems, ed. by Colin Falek, ‘The Centenary Edition, (Carcanet, 1992), reprinted by permission of the publisher. ADRIAN MITCHELL: ‘Celia Celia’ from Come on Everybody: Poems 1953–2008 (Bloodaxe, 2012), reprinted by permission of the publisher. MARY OLIVER: ‘Wild Geese’ from Dream Work (The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1986), reprinted by permission of Grove/Atlantic, Inc. (© Mary Oliver 1986.) P. K. PAGE: ‘Cross’ from The Hidden Room: Collected Poems, Vol. 2 (The Porcupine’s Quill, 1997), reprinted by permission of the publisher (© The Estate of P. K. Page). SHEENAGH PUGH: ‘Sometimes’ from Beware Falling Tortoises (Poetry Wales Press, 1987) and ‘What If This Road’ from Later Selected Poems (Seren Books, 2009), reprinted by permission of Poetry Wales Press Ltd. RUMI: ‘The Guest House’, trans. by Coleman Barks, from The Essential Rumi (Penguin, 1999), reprinted by permission of the publisher. ANN SANSOM: ‘Voice’ from Romance (Bloodaxe, 1994), reprinted by permission of the publisher. SIEGFRIED SASSOON: ‘Everyone Sang’ from Collected Poems (Faber & Faber, 2002), reprinted by permission of the Barbara Levy Literary Agency. VERNON SCANNELL: ‘Nettles’ from New & Collected Poems 1950–1980 (Robson Books, 1980), reprinted by permission of Mr Martin Reed. IZUMI SHIKIBU: ‘Although the Wind’, trans. by Jane Hirshfield with Mariko Aratani, from The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Ono no Komachi and Izumi Shikibu, Women of the Ancient Court of Japan (Vintage Classics, 1990), reproduced by permission of the publisher (© Jane Hirshfield 1990). WILLIAM STAFFORD: ‘The Way It Is’ from The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems (Graywolf Press, 1998), reprinted by permission of the publisher. J. R. R. TOLKIEN: ‘All That Is Gold Does Not Glitter’ (© The Tolkien Estate Limited 1954, 1955, 1966) from The Fellowship of the Ring (HarperCollins Publishers, 2005), reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. DEREK WALCOTT: ‘The Fist’ from Collected Poems: 1948–1984 (Faber & Faber, 1992), reprinted by permission of the publisher (© Derek Walcott 1986); ‘Love after Love’ from The Poetry of Derek Walcott 1948–2013 (Faber & Faber, 2014), reprinted by permission of the publisher.
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First published 2017
Editorial material and selection copyright © William Sieghart, 2017
The Acknowledgements constitute an extension of this copyright page
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Cover design by Tom Etherington
ISBN: 978–1–846–14980–1
To Felicity Sieghart,
in her 90th year
To Evie Prichard, my helper in this project, who will one day have many books to her name and whose part in this book has been extraordinary.
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To Jenny Dyson, who created the Poetry Pharmacy in the first place.
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To Elizabeth Sheinkman, my agent, who conceived the book and made it happen.
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To my editor Donald Futers and to everyone at Penguin for their wonderful contribution.
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To Susannah Herbert, Jane Davies, Neil Astley, Jeanette Winterson and all the anthologists who helped me in my selection.
You don’t need to be a poet to find solace in poetry.
I was eight years old when I was first sent to boarding school, and I was desperately unhappy. At a time when friends were in short supply, I found that poetry became my friend. Reading it aloud was the only thing I was good at – I even won a prize or two doing it. That, I think, began my whole relationship with poetry.
Since then, these careful crystallizations of feeling, thought and experience have been a loyal and generous companion to me, even in the most difficult of times. Again and again, in my loneliest hours and in my most tumultuous, I have discovered the greatest solace in finding, reading and sometimes memorizing the perfect poem for the moment.
As a young adult, I was about to cross a road in London when the lights changed. A man standing next to me stepped out into the path of a car, and was immediately run down. The suddenness of it all was incredible: the next thing I knew, he was lying on the road unconscious. Somebody from the crowd was giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and had asked for my help pummelling the poor man’s heart back into life.
He was lucky. By some incredible fluke, an ambulance was there in a matter of minutes. The man’s heart started beating again, the police took my statement, and off he sped, leaving me stood uselessly on the same street corner with the traffic flowing by. Life went on as it had before. The only evidence of this extraordinary drama was my hands, still covered with blood.
As I slowly got my breath back, I remembered a poem I’d learned of Philip Larkin’s. It’s called ‘Ambulances’, and it’s about the drama and anguish we go through when situations like this arise; how seeing an ambulance brings the dread we feel about the future into greater focus, and ‘dulls to distance all we are’. Between those apt words and the strong drink I immediately sought out, I was helped to process what had been a bizarre, unexpected and very shaking two hours.
That particular poem didn’t make it into this book, in the end. But what it did for me in that moment points to something much more universal. Like that isolated eight-year-old, or that quaking young man, a great many of us turn to poetry in times of need. Above all, when we’re grieving, when we’re broken-hearted, and when we find ourselves struggling to understand the things we’re feeling, we long for the connection poetry can provide. To find the right poem at that crucial moment, one capable of expressing our situation with considerably more elegance than we can ourselves, is to discover a powerful sense of complicity, and that precious realization: I’m not the only one who feels like this.
In the words of Alan Bennett, ‘The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours.’
The problem is shared. More than that, very often, it is transformed: the poet has made what you’re going through seem more intriguing, more timeless, and more valid in some way, and that can be a great comfort. The distance afforded by seeing one’s own emotions formalized and made beautiful combines with the visceral connection one feels with this poet, this stranger, who understands, and what results is a sort of peace.
This idea, that there can be a therapeutic power to a poem, is at the heart of the Poetry Pharmacy. But that therapeutic power only exists if you can find the right poem for the right state of mind. This book aims to help by gathering poems which I know from experience will help people through most conceivable difficulties of day-to-day life: through the various faces and frustrations of love, grief, work and all the other concerns that dominate our thoughts.
There isn’t a singular poem for anything, just as there is no singular human response to an emotion. The first breath of love is very different from the last anguished cries of loss. Love has many moods and many stages, just as do regret, and life, and solitude. However momentary or enduring it might be, my hope is that you will find a poem within this book that fits your need.