Poems that evoke anxiety tap into deep-rooted fears and uncertainties. The language is often unsettling and fraught with tension, filled with apprehensive anticipation.
The poet carefully crafts an atmosphere of unease, capturing the tightening grip of worry, the restlessness of dread. Such poetry can be hauntingly beautiful, inviting readers into an empathetic exploration of the restless, often tumultuous landscapes of anxiety.
Edna St. Vincent Millay’s ‘Renascence’ is a moving poem. The poet explores themes of suffering, time, rebirth, and spirituality.
All I could see from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood;
I turned and looked another way,
And saw three islands in a bay.
William Butler Yeats’s ‘The Second Coming’ delves into the hopeless atmosphere of post-World War I Europe through apocalyptic imagery.
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
‘Long, too long America’ is a poem written by the great American poet Walt Whitman. It is one of the early Civil War poems written by Whitman.
Long, too long America,
Traveling roads all even and peaceful you learn'd from joys and prosperity only,
‘A Prayer’ by James Joyce is a bemoaning poem that agonizes over love’s overwhelming capacity to instill both great passion and dreadful misery upon those afflicted with it.
Again!
Come, give, yield all your strength to me!
From far a low word breathes on the breaking brain
Its cruel calm, submission's misery,
Coleridge’s ‘Christabel’ is an uncompleted long narrative that tells the story of Christabel and Geraldine, featuring supernatural elements.
'Tis the middle of night by the castle clock,
And the owls have awakened the crowing cock;
Tu—whit! Tu—whoo!
And hark, again! the crowing cock,
‘Good Bones’ by Smith portrays the world’s duality, balancing the harsh truth with hope for its potential beauty.
Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
‘There’s a certain Slant of light’ by Emily Dickinson is a thoughtful poem. It depicts a metaphorical slant of light and how it influences the speaker.
There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons –
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes –
‘Rubble’ by Jackie Kay is a dramatic monologue that was included in her collection, Darling: New & Selected Poems. It conveys an individual’s cluttered and chaotic mind.
What was the thought that I just had in my head?
‘Why did you come’ by Hilda Doolittle is about love, self-criticism, aging, and the human inability to control judgments and desires.
Why did you come
to trouble my decline?
I am old (I was old till you came);
the reddest rose unfolds,
Auden’s ‘Consider This and in Our Time’ captures a society poised on the brink, blending serene imagery with ominous undertones of political upheaval.
As the hawk sees it or the helmeted airman:
The clouds rift suddenly - look there
At cigarette-end smouldering on a border
At the first garden party of the year.
‘The Colonel’ by Carolyn Forché reveals the horror of El Salvador’s civil war through a chilling dinner with a violent colonel.
WHAT YOU HAVE HEARD is true. I was in his house. His wife carried a tray of coffee and sugar.
‘Lines Written Near San Francisco’ is a poem about the poet’s realization about the city of San Francisco. This poem reveals the themes of loss of innocence and simplicity.
I wake and feel the city trembling. Yes, there is something unsettled in the air And the earth is uncertain.
‘Anorexic’ by Eavan Boland presents a woman determined to destroy her physical body through starvation while alluding to the original sin.
Flesh is heretic.
My body is a witch.
I am burning it.
‘Boots’ by Rudyard Kipling is a memorable poem. In it, Kipling uses repetition to emphasize the struggle of soldiers on a forced march.
We're foot—slog—slog—slog—sloggin’ over Africa!
Foot—foot—foot—foot—sloggin’ over Africa—
(Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin’ up and down again!)
There’s no discharge in the war!
‘In this short life that only lasts an hour’ by Emily Dickinson is a thoughtful, short poem. It is about how little we can control in our everyday lives.
In this short Life that only lasts an hour
How much - how little - is within our power
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