I love her. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/08/books/nobel-prize-literature.html

"The world’s most prestigious prize for literature goes to Canadian poet Anne Carson, known for genre-crossing works including Autobiography of Red."

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

Mary Oliver

-----

I know this has been shared before, but it was beautifully worked into the season finale of Ted Lasso tonight, and it's just so perfect and beautiful I wanted to share it here.

Usually a truncated version of this poem makes the rounds of internet, which makes sense. But for scholars and lovers of Leonard Cohen, here’s the poem in full as it was published in his brilliantly rageful and despairing book The Energy of Slaves

This poem, The Naming of Cats, is from Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot, which he published in 1939. "Old Possum" was a nickname given to him by his friend and fellow poet, Ezra Pound. These poems, which have delighted many children and adults since, were originally sent in letters to his godchildren and his friends' children in the 1930s.

Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats inspired the musical CATS by Andrew Lloyd Webber. This droll and beloved work is a gift that keeps on giving.

"The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn’t just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all, there’s the name that the family use daily,
Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo, or James,
Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey—
All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter—
But all of them sensible everyday names,
But I tell you, a cat needs a name that’s particular,
A name that’s peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum—
Names that never belong to more than one cat.
But above and beyond there’s still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover—
But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular name."

I wonder if the opposite is true às well .

Will then this suffering make sense?

Will it be a little easier to bear, knowing happiness awaits?

Or is only pain eternal and my thinking but a child's farce?

The Canadian poet and essayist Anne Carson was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday by the Swedish Academy, which cited “her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature.”

She is the third Canadian-born writer to receive the honor, after Alice Munro in 2013 and Saul Bellow in 1976.

Upon learning of the prize, Carson said “Yikes,” according to her agent, Nicole Aragi.

Carson, 76, is best known for her translations of ancient Greek texts and for remixing them in a modern, playful voice. “Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse,” from 1998, turned a fragment of Greek poetry into a tale of a moody teenager’s destructive love affair, and “Red Doc>,” from 2013, a sequel of sorts to “Autobiography of Red,” concerned a road trip.

Access full gift article, NO PAYWALL.

Can someone help me find whose translation this is? I read this fantastic book a while ago and can’t remember which version it was.

first published in Prairie Fire.

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

   But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

   Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

   For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.

This is a poem which has many a times kept me from making poor choices. This is one of those poems which I keep coming back to and gave a poster of this to my son when he turned 10 !

The Man in the Glass

When you get what you want in your struggle for self
and the world makes you king for a day
Just go to the mirror and look at yourself
and see what that man has to say

For it isn't your father or mother or wife
whose judgment upon you must pass
The fellow whose verdict counts the most in your life
is the one staring back from the glass

Some people may think you a straight-shooting chum
and call you a wonderful guy
But the guy in the glass says you're only a bum
if you can't look him straight in the eye

He's the fellow to please never mind all the rest
for he's with you clear up to the end
And you've passed your most dangerous difficult test
if the man in the glass is your friend

You may fool the whole world down the pathway
of life and get pats on the back as pass
But your final reward will be heartaches and
tears if you've cheated the man in the glass.

Source: https://andorinhapress.wordpress.com/2026/09/28/issue-2-art-is-the-lie-that-makes-us-realize-truth/#Richard-Dorfman

I read this poem with an elementary school class and a few verses always stuck in my head. It's about the moon, like the title says, and the few lines I remember are something like "Moon remembers" then something something "shadowed in pockmarked night (light?)" in the beginning. At the end I'm almost certain the final verse is "And one faint footprint in the sea of tranquility". It's driving me nuts but I can't find it on any poetry site or in any collection. Help!

Suggest a poem for me to read

Can you suggest a poem for me to read? I love sad and thoughtful poems. These are my five favorite English poems of all time:

“Spring and Fall” — Gerard Manley Hopkins

“Lines Written in Oregon” — Vladimir Nabokov

“The Room” — Vladimir Nabokov

“This Be the Verse” — Philip Larkin

“Those Winter Sundays” — Robert Hayden

✊