As you might have heard, this past Monday was World Poetry Day! Here at Options Solutions, we hold great respect for the writers and poets of our society. Poetry can be used as a vessel to share beautiful ideas, express emotions, and release your inner artistry. Poetry can vary greatly from writer to writer, and from nation to nation. In honour of world poetry day, we’ve gathered some of our favorite poems from across the globe down below.
The Three Oddest Words
By Polish poet, Wisława Szymborska (translated by S. Baranczak & C. Cavanagh)
When I pronounce the word Future,
the first syllable already belongs to the past.
When I pronounce the word Silence,
I destroy it.
When I pronounce the word Nothing,
I make something no non-being can hold.
The Moment
By Canadian poet, Margaret Atwood
The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,
is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can’t breathe.
No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.
What the Stars Say
By South African poet, Antjie Krog (translated by Richard Jürgens)
The stars take your heart
because the stars aren’t the least bit hungry for you!
the stars exchange your heart for the heart of a star
the stars take your heart and feed you the heart of a star
then you’ll never be hungry again
because the stars say: ‘Tsau! Tsau!’
and the bushmen say the stars curse the springbok’s eyes
the stars say: ‘Tsau!’ they say: ‘Tsau! Tsau!’
they curse the springbok’s eyes
I grew up listening to the stars
the stars say: ‘Tsau! Tsau!’
it’s always summer when you hear the stars saying Tsau
A Magic Moment I Remember
By Russian poet Alexander Pushkin
A magic moment I remember:
I raised my eyes and you were there,
A fleeting vision, the quintessence
Of all that’s beautiful and rare
I pray to mute despair and anguish,
To vain the pursuits world esteems,
Long did I hear your soothing accents,
Long did your features haunt my dreams.
Time passed. A rebel storm-blast scattered
The reveries that once were mine
And I forgot your soothing accents,
Your features gracefully divine.
In dark days of enforced retirement
I gazed upon grey skies above
With no ideals to inspire me
No one to cry for, live for, love.
Then came a moment of reinessance,
I looked up – you again are there
A fleeting vision, the quintessence
Of all that’s beautiful and rare
When The Anguish
By the Italian poet, Alda Merini (translated by Susan Stewart)
When the anguish spreads its color
inside the dark soul
like revenge’s brushstroke,
I feel the budding shoot of an ancient hunger
becoming shy and gray
and the light of tomorrow dying.
And, up against me, the inanimate things
that I created earlier
come to die again within the breast
of my intelligence
eager for my shelter and my fruits,
begging again for riches from a beggar.
Loving You
By Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet (translated by R. Blasing and M. Konuk)
Loving you is like eating bread dipped in salt,
like waking feverish at night
and putting my mouth to the water faucet,
like opening a heavy unlabeled parcel
eagerly, happily, cautiously.
Loving you is like flying over the sea
for the first time, like feeling dusk settle
softly over Istanbul.
Loving you is like saying “I’m alive.”
