Poems for changing times: 30 poems for Shared Reading
So far, 2020 has been a year that none of us could have imagined or knew what would have been in store. What we do know is that literature, and in particular poetry, can help us deal with difficult situations, be they personal to ourselves or felt on a wider scale, providing comfort, reassurance, solace, a chance to reflect, laugh, cry and share in the spectrum of human emotion.
As summer days begin to shorten and we take the first steps into September, it feels like we’re on the cusp of more change to come – be that going back to work or seeing children off to school again, widening our comfort zone a little further or making other changes after what have been a turbulent few months for us all.
With this in mind, we’ve put together a bank of 30 poems which reflect the changing times we find ourselves in. The poems have been chosen to reflect three overarching themes that feel particularly pertinent in highlighting our collective experience of the year so far, while also looking ahead with hope and optimism.
All of the poems here can be found in The Reader Library, if you're a Reader Leader click on the volunteers area in the top right to log into the Online Community Hub and download these poems.
It’s been tough recently…
Composed During a Storm by William Wordsworth
Later Life (Sonnet 17) by Christina Rossetti
Hope is the Thing with Feathers by Emily Dickinson
My Own Heart by Gerard Manley Hopkins
The Rain Was Ending and Light by Laurence Binyon
Affliction (extract) by Sir John Davies (this is also available in Bread and Roses: Part Two)
A Thing of Beauty by John Keats
Say Not The Struggle Naught Availeth by Arthur Hugh Clough
Lost Time by Rabindranath Tagore (this is also available in Bread and Roses: Part Four)
You Cannot Be Serious – in a year of crisis, it can be hard to find laughter
The Best Thing in the World by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The Storm by Katherine Mansfield
Wild Nights by Emily Dickinson (this is also available in Bread and Roses: Part Four)
The Echoing Green by William Blake
The Village Schoolmaster by Oliver Goldsmith
When I Heard The Learned Astronomer by Walt Whitman
Repeat that, repeat by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Take Me Places – escaping to a faraway place might not feel possible right now, but these poems can take you across the borders of your imagination
The Lake Isle of Innisfree by W.B. Yeats
Lines Upon Tintern Abbey by William Wordsworth
The Lofty Sky by Edward Thomas (this is also available in Bread and Roses: Part One)
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth
Escape at Bedtime by Robert Louis Stevenson
Careless Rambles by John Clare
Beauty by Edward Thomas (this is also available in Bread and Roses: Part Three)
Often Rebuked (Stanzas) by Emily Bronte
Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
