As a literature student, I believe that poetry impacts not just boring in-class conversations, but everyday life. Books are incredible, but a good poem can be a savior. They’re often short and easy-to-read format makes them easy and comfortable to fall back on. Because of this, and to celebrate Women’s History Month, I’ve decided to list some of my many favorite women-written contemporary poems.
“Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver
OK, I know I’m starting off with a popular poem, but “Wild Geese” is beloved for a reason. The poem has beautiful imagery that anyone can easily understand; hand this poem to your grandmother, your old coach, or even your little brother, and they’ll be able to cling onto a different line.
For me, the beautiful rhythm of the line “Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine” stands out, echoing throughout my head. Before Oliver’s passing in 2019, we were lucky enough to be gifted her reading of the poem, with her beautiful voice echoing the cadence of nature through the screen. Every time I hear “Wild Geese,” I feel a little closer to nature.
“The circle game” BY Margaret Atwood
In this bleak poem, Atwood (known most famously for The Handmaid’s Tale) creates a pattern of unhappiness and a lack of fulfillment. She moves from childhood to relationships to adulthood using metaphors of games and the brokenness of society and people. Her word choice is fantastic; she uses sharp cutting phrases like “going round and round,” and “I watch you / watching my face / indifferently” to represent being trapped in the “circle game.” She calls out the horrific nature of war, saying “The children like the block / of grey stone that was once a fort / but now is a museum” and “While they explode / the cannons / (they aren’t our children).”
Atwood builds up an uncomfortable seven-part poem only to end with the lines “I want the circle / broken.” Her speaker so strongly verbalizes their lack of fulfillment, and the ending gives hope to an otherwise somber poem.
“Kept” by Natalie Scenters-Zapico
Keeping with the theme of sad but realistic poems, “Kept” uses beautiful imagery to convey extremely difficult topics. Scenters-Zapico begins the poem by painting images of poverty, describing someone cracking an egg into the speaker’s mouth to quench their thirst and tacking tarps over their heads.
My favorite lines come from a metaphor she uses, where she says “Your anger / was the gun you kept by the door, / my fear, the knife I used to chop / onions. Her stark imagery invites the reader to feel the speaker’s anger, to smell and feel the sharpness of the onions, along with their fear. “Kept” is a short poem that requests a re-read of its beautiful language.
“HousekeepinG” by Natasha Trethewey
A quiet poem, “Housekeeping” uses artistic language and shape to create a comfortable space within its lines. Trethewey describes the perfect spring cleaning day, away from the world, where dust is “lit like stars”, and “We work the magic of glue” on broken objects, which gets across the theme of poverty. Despite this, the poem isn’t sad, it’s comfortable, with the ending line “All day we watch / for the mail, some news from a distant place.” Tretheway creates a space of safety in her words, one where the speaker and their mother are sheltered from the world while they clean.
“Postcolonial Love Poem” by Natalie Diaz
“Postcolonial Love Poem” is a poem of anger. Its lyrics speak for people who have been colonized, and now suffer in the state of post-colonization. Like Atwood’s, Diaz’s poem is almost circular: “I was built by wage. So I wage love and worse…” Colonization forces people to suffer the wages of war, and Diaz spins this in her language; instead, she will wage love.
The poem ends with Diaz describing the repetitive nature of war, the hope of “rain” eventually coming, though “the war never ended and somehow begins again.” During a celebration of the 50th anniversary of Stonewall, Diaz read “Postcolonial Love Poem” aloud, carrying her words with a wonderful cadence.
Ultimately, these are just five picks out of a deep and wide variety of poems written by women. For Women’s History Month, take some time to seek out a few poems, stories, and art made by women, and celebrate the voices that continue to shape our world.