Summer 2012… Yes, that sounds perfect. I would be nine years old. Ten years old. Eleven years old. Nothing mattered then, nothing at all. I never considered myself nostalgic until I moved two thousand miles from home for college. Dear reader, if you are looking for a moment of the past, allow me to share eight stunningly heartfelt poems that will remind you of everything you love about your childhood.
- “The Years” by Alex Dimitrov
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“You could / tell from their eyes they were / in some other place. 1999 / or 2008 or last June.”
It’s about a party; it’s about the past. I have never felt more seen by a poem. Amid our classes, our jobs and our gatherings, there is this hazy memory. Sometimes, the mist clears, and the party continues. And sometimes, we text our mothers and fall asleep awake, memorizing the past.
Charlotte Reader / Her Campus - “Prayer for the Newly Damned” by Ocean Vuong
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“what becomes of the boy / no longer a boy?”
You can’t go wrong with an Ocean Vuong poem, especially one that so gorgeously speaks to faith, fathers and the human body. The twenty-fifth piece in Night Sky with Exit Wounds, Prayer for the Newly Damned is dark and melancholic, but a stunning depiction of growth and trauma.
- “Morning in a Burned House” by Margaret Atwood
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“including the body I had then, / including the body I have now”
Family, a childhood kitchen, ruin… Atwood’s poetry, like Vuong’s, paints a complicated picture of adolescence. We miss it. We hate ourselves for missing it. Both feelings are valid. Atwood’s stanzas dance between resentful and wistful and remind us it’s okay to mourn the past.
- “Volunteer” by Tony Hoagland
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“it means replacing / what is right in front of you / with what is right in front of you”
A good friend of mine posted about this poem at precisely the right time. I was feeling bogged down and homesick, February sorts of feelings, and Hoagland was the perfect reminder to indulge in the world’s joys. Life is full of strange delights, and we ought to enjoy them in the now.
- “To a Daughter Leaving Home” by Linda Pastan
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“pumping, pumping / for your life, screaming / with laughter”
Short, sweet, and utterly heart-wrenching. The last few lines of this poem are a gut punch. I find it compelling to read this poem twice: first from the mother’s perspective and second from the daughter’s perspective. Oh, man. I think I will call my mom after finishing this article. I think I will send her this poem, too.
- “Sonnet 15: When I consider everything that grows” by William Shakespeare
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“I engraft you new.”
Sorry reader, I had to slip some Shakespeare in here. Although his first seventeen sonnets mainly focus on procreation (okay, slay?) Sonnet 15 is more subtle. Shakespeare’s brilliant discussion of growth and decay is worth mentioning in this article. Embrace your inner bard and give him a read!
- “Wind-Related Ripple in the Wheatfield” by Mikko Harvey
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“I was lingering inside the perspective / of a spider I noticed crawling / along the baseboard.”
Another friend of mine shared this poem with me, and while I think it’s more about love than adolescence, it speaks to that ache of yearning for old times, times gone. Harvey is right: we don’t get to be human beings for very long. The best we can do is nurture the time we have.
- “i hope death…” by @petfurniture
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“i hope you can hear the laughter from the next room.”
Alright, alright. I know this is a tweet and not exactly a poem, but I implore all of you to read it! A bit dark, perhaps more about the end than the beginning, but a magical (misty-eyed) read nonetheless. I believe @petfurniture nn Twitter is its original author.
In the comfort of my childhood bedroom, whose sheets are a second skin, I am something else. I’m back, I whisper. I’m back for a holiday, I’m back for a season, I’m back and for a little while, I am not so lonely.