Books
13 Poems To Read When You Wake Up Instead Of Immediately Getting On Social Media
Your morning routine can make an enormous impact on how you feel for the rest of the day. For me, one of the best thing's I've ever done for my morning is sign up for the Academy of American Poets's Poem-a-Day email. Now, every morning a poem lands in my inbox, so I can start my day with a little inspiration. I've found that reading a poem in the morning allows me to take a moment to center myself and helps me approach the day with a better attitude.
I used to start my morning off by reading the news, which can be super depressing and nerve-wracking. By starting off with poetry instead, I come into the morning feeling so much more refreshed and in-control. And as I move throughout my day, having a new poem to turn over in my mind has helped me get through even the most hectic mornings feeling more energized.
Plus, adding a poem into your morning routine is super easy. Even if you're super busy, it only takes a few seconds to read a poem, and it will make a huge difference.
Reading a poem in the morning feels like giving a gift to yourself. So here are 13 lovely poems to take in when you first wake up.
1"Virginia Street" by Jennifer Hayashida
"February on another coast is April here.
Astrology is months: you are February, or are you
June, and who is December? Who is books
read in spring, wingspan
between midnight and mourning."
2"Dear P. [If you are]" by Victoria Chang
"[...] it is
okay to watch the birds in the ficus tree clutter the
branches each season leave their waste and let
your hands be hands and the wings be wings."
3"The Perfect Poem" by Kaveh Akbar
"It is not a state of mind or a kind of doubt
or a good or bad habit or a flower of any
color. It will not be available to answer
questions. The perfect poem is light as dust
on a bat’s wing, lonely as a single flea."
4"Become a person" by Dorothea Lasky
"Let the water take you in
So your neck is just a stalk, the head
Let everything go away
You are a person
Be a person
Become a person again."
5"Theories of Time and Space" by Natasha Trethewey
"You can get there from here, though
there’s no going home.
Everywhere you go will be somewhere
you’ve never been."
6"July" by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz
"The figs we ate wrapped in bacon.
The gelato we consumed greedily:
coconut milk, clove, fresh pear.
How we’d dump hot espresso on it
just to watch it melt, licking our spoons
clean."
7"How to Triumph Like a Girl" by Ada Limón
"Don’t you want to believe it?
Don’t you want to lift my shirt and see
the huge beating genius machine
that thinks, no, it knows,
it’s going to come in first."
8"Imaginary Conversation" by Linda Pastan
"But why the last? I ask. Why not
live each day as if it were the first—
all raw astonishment, Eve rubbing
her eyes awake that first morning,the sun coming up
like an ingénue in the east?"
9"The Woman Who Turned Down a Date with a Cherry Farmer" by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
"Of course I regret it. I mean there I was under umbrellas of fruit
so red they had to be borne of Summer, and no other season.
Flip-flops and fishhooks. Ice cubes made of lemonade and sprigs
of mint to slip in blue glasses of tea. I was dusty, my ponytail
all askew and the tips of my fingers ran, of course, red"
10"More Than Enough" by Marge Piercy
"The first lily of June opens its red mouth.
All over the sand road where we walk
multiflora rose climbs trees cascading
white or pink blossoms, simple, intense
the scene drifting like colored mist."
11"Twang they. And I incline this ear to tin." by Fanny Howe
"If my fingers could twang
the guitar as before they
would not be what they are and
neither would I."
12"Barter" by Sara Teasdale
"Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children’s faces looking up
Holding wonder in a cup."
13"Balm and Lamentation" by Anne Waldman
"Schematic humans ... figures of them, & their helpers ...
pheromones rise
odd jagged breath lines, serpentine imagination,"
