Tweetspeak Poetry

  • Home
  • FREE prompts
  • Earth Song
  • Every Day Poems—Subscribe! ✨
  • Teaching Tools
  • Books, Etc.
  • Patron Love

The Joy of Poetry: Will You Be Our Poetry Buddy?

By Will Willingham 27 Comments

The Joy of Poetry Be Our Poetry Buddy white flowers
This month, we’ve been reading Megan Willome’s The Joy of Poetry: How to Keep, Save and Make Your Life With Poems together as a community. Throughout our time, you’ve been sharing your own stories as Megan’s story and poems encouraged you to reach into them. You’ve written poems in your notebooks (and the comment box), you’ve started to keep a poetry journal, and some of you have even found a Poetry Buddy to share poems with.

We’ve decided we want to extend the joy of The Joy of Poetry Book Club comment box a little bit longer, and we’re inviting YOU to be our Poetry Buddy. Each Wednesday for the next three weeks, we’ll feature a recent selection from Every Day Poems and share around it together. This week, let’s look at a poem by Anna Akhmatova we featured a few weeks ago:

Departure

Although this land is not my own,
I will remember its inland sea
and the waters that are so cold
the sand as white
as old bones, the pine trees
strangely red where the sun comes down.

I cannot say if it is our love,
or the day, that is ending.

— Anna Akhmatova, from The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova

Now, flip to the end of The Joy of Poetry and read through Megan’s tips for How to Journal About a Poem. Here are the first three of her suggestions for those who don’t have the book handy (but do be sure to read the rest—they’re really terrific ideas):

How to Journal About a Poem (excerpt)

  1. Read the poem silently. Then, read it aloud. Maybe write it out.
  2. Now, for the journaling part. What did you think? Was there a phrase you liked? An image that captured your imagination? An amusing rhyme? An unexpected turn?
  3. Don’t worry about what the poem means—no one knows what it means, often not even the poet, so don’t worry about getting it right or wrong. Do you find meaning in the poem? Fabulous! Write it down.

And then? Well, then meet us in the comment box. Be our Poetry Buddy and share your thoughts and ask questions about Akhmatova’s “Departure.”

Check out our book club discussion of The Joy of Poetry

Photo by Paul Hudson,  Creative Commons license via Flickr. Post by LW Lindquist.

___________________

The Joy of Poetry

Megan Willome’s The Joy of Poetry—part memoir, part poetry reflections, part anthology—takes readers on a journey to discovering poetry’s purpose, which is, delightfully, nothing. “Why poetry?” Willome asks. “You might as well ask, why chocolate?” Poetry reflects nothing more and nothing less than the pure joy of living, loving, and being, in all of its confusion and wonder. Willome’s book will gently guide you to read, write, and be a little more human through language’s mystery and joy.

—Tania Runyan, author of How to Read a Poem: Based on the Billy Collins Poem “Introduction to Poetry”

BUY THE JOY OF POETRY NOW

  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Will Willingham
Will Willingham
Director of Many Things; Senior Editor, Designer and Illustrator at Tweetspeak Poetry
I used to be a claims adjuster, helping people and insurance companies make sense of loss. Now, I train other folks with ladders and tape measures to go and do likewise. Sometimes, when I’m not scaling small buildings or crunching numbers with my bare hands, I read Keats upside down. My first novel is Adjustments.
Will Willingham
Latest posts by Will Willingham (see all)
  • Earth Song Poem Featured on The Slowdown!—Birds in Home Depot - February 7, 2023
  • The Rapping in the Attic—Happy Holidays Fun Video! - December 21, 2022
  • Video: Earth Song: A Nature Poems Experience—Enchanting! - December 6, 2022

Filed Under: book club, Every Day Poems, poem a day, Poems, poetry

Try Every Day Poems...

About Will Willingham

I used to be a claims adjuster, helping people and insurance companies make sense of loss. Now, I train other folks with ladders and tape measures to go and do likewise. Sometimes, when I’m not scaling small buildings or crunching numbers with my bare hands, I read Keats upside down. My first novel is Adjustments.

Comments

  1. Laura (L.L.) Barkat says

    May 25, 2016 at 9:08 am

    I wish I could read this in the original language, for the true sounds of the poem. I suspect it might have a certain sense to it that is otherwise lost. Also, I’m not sure if the translator preserved the visual sense of the poem or not, but I like this one in that it feels like a wave that then recedes (the larger first stanza followed by the quiet retreat of the last two lines).

    And isn’t that how love (and its loss) is. The wave of love, the vacuum of loss.

    Suddenly, too, I feel like the land that “is not my own” might not just be land, but the landscape of a person with whom love had grown cold and washed out to bone white. The strange red feels like that dissonant sense we have when something that is gone is still brilliantly, hauntingly with us.

    Reply
  2. Maureen says

    May 25, 2016 at 12:07 pm

    There’s ambiguity in this poem, and I like it as it’s applied to love – of another person, as a parent, of a country.

    The title: someone is leaving, going somewhere; something is ending.

    “… the pine trees / strangely red where the sun comes down”: I “see” this simultaneously as fire (perhaps a too-hot love that burns out or maybe is mostly one-sided) and loss (also supported by “sand as white / as old bones”).

    The final couplet seems to contain a hint of doubt.

    ———————–
    Akhmatova had a terrifically difficult life, marked by great loss, from the Russian Revolution on (her partner from whom she was divorced was executed; their son imprisoned for many years). It was not a Russia she could call “my own”. She married a second and then third time (her third husband exiled to Siberia); her work was banned. But she never went into or tried to go into exile. Imagine how interior a life she had to lead.

    Iris Dement, btw, set some of her work to music (‘The Trackless Woods’). There’s a video at irisdement.com

    Reply
    • Laura (L.L.) Barkat says

      May 25, 2016 at 1:32 pm

      Thanks for the tip, Maureen. I’ll go in search.

      I just learned recently that during the time her work was banned, all her friends committed poems to mind. Four decades later, they put the work that was kept in their minds into print. Imagine one’s friends doing such work… memorizing one’s words for when the silence could finally be broken. I was so touched I wrote a poem about it. (click the image again if you don’t see the whole thing down to where my name is, because Twitter is cutting it off 🙂 )

      https://twitter.com/tspoetry/status/731509314368704512

      I like what you say about it speaking perhaps also as person to country or parent to child. In her case, I could certainly see it as person to country.

      Reply
      • Laura (L.L.) Barkat says

        May 25, 2016 at 1:43 pm

        Oh, or I guess I could try pasting it here, though it might not retain the format 🙂

        Genre of Silence

              Lydia Chukovskaya…committed
              more of Akhmatova to memory
              than anyone else.
                              —Jaya Savige

        I commit
        your words before the burn.
        Your seas, your mists, your secrets
        safe with me.

        Let four decades pass
        and the listeners who would hurt you
        die of their own disintegrations.

        Through my silent pen
        ever-patient, ever-rehearsing, you
        will someday speak again.
        When the white star flower blooms
        its recommencing.

        Reply
        • Megan Willome says

          May 25, 2016 at 2:47 pm

          What a gift. Thank you.

          Reply
        • Laura says

          May 25, 2016 at 5:05 pm

          Love this.

          Reply
        • Maureen says

          May 25, 2016 at 5:24 pm

          Beautiful poem.

          Did you know she was 6 feet tall? She must have had such a commanding presence.

          I’ve been reading a bit about her style. She did use rhyme and, apparently, a lot of alliteration. Plus a “falling off” in intonation at the end of her poems.

          Reply
  3. Bethany Rohde says

    May 25, 2016 at 1:12 pm

    Laura, love what you point out about the structure of the poem here: “…it feels like a wave that then recedes…” and how that connects with “The wave of love, the vacuum of loss.”

    Maureen, thank you for that bit of background on the writer, and for such a great point about the ambiguity in the ending couplet. I see that.

    I am struck by the promising starts with unexpected endings. They make me uneasy – just right for expressing the turmoil of losing something/someone you’re fond of. How she remembers the water – for being cold. Remembers the sand for its similarity with not only death, but something from another age perhaps (since they are not just bones, but “old bones”).

    And then there’s the red evergreens.

    Reply
  4. Megan Willome says

    May 25, 2016 at 2:58 pm

    I remember when this poem ran. I remember being surprised by the ending, thinking that sometimes in a moment like that you don’t know if a love is actually ending or if it just feels like it is–if it is just the day. You may not know till morning or maybe not for even longer.

    Then that drove me back to the beginning of the poem. I thought about me sitting in that space the poet describes, even though I can’t quite picture it (it’s the sand that’s throwing me). I’ve seen “pine trees / strangely red where the sun comes down” in Colorado, especially when there’s a drought. Which sent me down a whole Colorado/family vacation memories tangent.

    Reply
    • Laura (L.L.) Barkat says

      May 25, 2016 at 3:27 pm

      Recently, maybe when I was doing a Flickr search to accompany this very poem, I saw many pictures of white sand. Pure white. Beautiful like I’ve never seen it. (The Northeast is pretty much brown sand, although I once saw a beach on Long Island that was all palm-sized white round, round smooth stones and another one where the sand was eclipsed by mounds of pearly yellow and pearly peach fragile, almost translucent shells. But? After seeing all those white sand pictures, how I wished to see a whole beach of white sand. One with a happy sunrise or sunset and silence except for the sound of the wind and the waves 🙂 )

      Reply
  5. Laura Brown says

    May 25, 2016 at 4:36 pm

    I read this when it was the Every Day Poems poem of the day a couple of weeks ago. Reading it today, after cleaning out my desk in preparation for departing the place where I’ve worked for 20 years and the state where I’ve lived for 25 years, makes it a completely different poem. Especially those first two lines.

    Reply
    • Bethany R. says

      May 25, 2016 at 6:09 pm

      I’m glad you shared this, Laura. How fitting that your transition casts this piece in a different light. The speaker seems to be seeing or remembering this place differently than s/he once did as well. A landscape, a lover, a community, or a poem do look a bit different as the sun sets.

      Reply
    • Laura (L.L.) Barkat says

      May 27, 2016 at 2:07 pm

      I would love to see you make a small collection of the poems that are meaning something at this time (and for the next few months, as you settle in your new place). A poetry snapshot, as it were, of this transition and its gifts and leavings-off.

      I imagine that, in any leaving, there are the old bones and those inland seas. But the inland seas, as you suggest elsewhere in the comment box, might be something we also cultivate in ourselves, and so are places not just to remember fondly but to bring along and find afresh. The inland sea makes a nice image to keep thinking on, perhaps. (This is one thing I love about poetry—how it sometimes gives me an image that I keep mulling, keep turning to, keep living as a source of hope or wonder.)

      Reply
  6. Maureen says

    May 25, 2016 at 5:50 pm

    Another thing about Akhmatova’s poetry:

    Akhmatova was part of a movement known as Acmeism, co-founded by her first husband; in contrast to Symbolists, practitioners of Acmeism used precise and concrete imagery. References to nature serve Akhmatova well as an Acmeist.

    Reply
    • Laura (L.L.) Barkat says

      May 25, 2016 at 6:09 pm

      Sort of like Russian haiku? 🙂 (Without the imposed line number.)

      Reply
      • Maureen says

        May 25, 2016 at 7:46 pm

        I haven’t seen it described that way but I rather like the connotation.

        The idea was to draw from the physical and natural to create “down to earth” and “lived” poems rather than romanticized poems, the kind of poems that don’t truck with visions and mysteries and high-falutin language. Contrast Akhmatova’s poems about love with a Verlaine or Rimbaud, and the differences are readily apparent.

        What I especially like about Akhmatova’s poetry is a sense of intimacy she creates as she serves as witness (as in her Requiem collection).

        I’ve become very interested in translation, though I know nothing about Russian. A friend of mine sent me a link to a Q&A about literary translation by Piotr Gwiazada, who translates from Polish:
        http://authors-translators.blogspot.it/2016/04/piotr-gwiazda-and-his-authors.html
        See the main page; there are interesting posts there from translators of a number of languages.

        Reply
  7. Will Willingham says

    May 25, 2016 at 5:11 pm

    Sorry for my late arrival to this lovely conversation; I was out of pocket most of the day.

    I find something hangs with me about the inland sea. It’s nothing I can put my finger on, but it is my favorite image of the poem and I find myself remembering it as well.

    Reply
    • Laura Brown says

      May 25, 2016 at 5:32 pm

      She lived much of her life in St. Petersburg, which I think is on the Baltic Sea. I wonder whether there was a geographic inland sea she was writing about here, and whether she’s leaving or someone else is. Or it’s all made up.

      I think when we love big water (or maybe more specifically coastlines along water without end), and live far from any such coast, we somehow have to find both the local whispers of sea and the inland sea within ourselves.

      Reply
      • Will Willingham says

        May 25, 2016 at 8:16 pm

        That’s the thing: “or it’s all made up.” Sometimes I read a poem and think that it is based on some real event, and I wonder about the people and the details. And then I realize it is just as likely not based on anything real at all. And I like it just as well for that scenario.

        Reply
  8. Matthew says

    May 27, 2016 at 12:14 am

    Everything about this post makes me happy. And I loved reading through this conversation. Megan’s book has been a real gift to a lot of people. I’m so thankful she wrote it.

    Reply
    • Megan Willome says

      May 27, 2016 at 12:12 pm

      Aw, you’re very welcome.

      Reply
  9. Elizabeth says

    May 28, 2016 at 10:45 am

    Enjoyed the repeated sounds in this poem, the sounds in own, cold, old, down. The sounds. The repeated sounds in land, sand, inland,
    These sounds and others slowed the rhythm of the poem to mimic the water in the sea and the passage of day.
    Lovely images and movements in this poem. The leaving and departure is felt. though the construction of the poem.

    Reply
    • Bethany says

      June 15, 2016 at 2:11 am

      Beautiful observation about the rhythm of the poem mimicking the sea, Elizabeth. Thanks for sharing here. 🙂

      Reply
  10. MaryJo says

    June 14, 2016 at 11:08 pm

    I just bought Megan’s book and have enjoyed reading your comments. I don’t remember how I came to this site, but it is filling my spirit. Thank you.

    Reply
    • Bethany says

      June 15, 2016 at 2:14 am

      So glad you found your way here, MaryJo, and that your spirit is being filled! Delightful to meet you. If you haven’t been already, the site has a welcome/announcement space called The Mischief Cafe. I’ll leave the link below, feel free to drop in any time. Cheers!

      https://www.tweetspeakpoetry.com/mischief-cafe/

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Be Our Poetry Buddy: Amy Lowell's "White Currants" - says:
    June 1, 2016 at 8:01 am

    […] conversation, so last week we started an additional three weeks of being one another’s Poetry Buddy, creating a space together in the comment box to talk about a particular […]

    Reply
  2. Be Our Poetry Buddy: "Moonrise" by D. H. Lawrence - says:
    June 8, 2016 at 8:01 am

    […] book club. We’ve continued the conversation with an invitation to be one another’s Poetry Buddy, creating a space together in the comment box to talk about a particular […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Take How to Read a Poem

Get the Introduction, the Billy Collins poem, and Chapter 1

get the sample now

Welcome to Tweetspeak

New to Tweetspeak Poetry? Start here, in The Mischief Café. You're a regular? Check out our May Menu

Patron Love

❤️

Welcome a little patron love, when you help keep the world poetic.

The Graphic Novel

"Stunning, heartbreaking, and relevant illustrations"

Callie Feyen, teacher

read a summary of The Yellow Wallpaper

meet The Yellow Wallpaper characters

How to Write Poetry

Your Comments

  • Glynn on World War II Had Its Poets, Too
  • Sandra Fox Murphy on World War II Had Its Poets, Too
  • Glynn on Poets and Poems: Kelly Belmonte and “The Mother of All Words”
  • Bethany R. on Poets and Poems: Kelly Belmonte and “The Mother of All Words”

Featured In

We're happy to have been featured in...

The Huffington Post

The Paris Review

The New York Observer

Tumblr Book News

Stay in Touch With Us

Categories

Learn to Write Form Poems

How to Write an Acrostic

How to Write a Ballad

How to Write a Catalog Poem

How to Write a Ghazal

How to Write a Haiku

How to Write an Ode

How to Write a Pantoum

How to Write a Rondeau

How to Write a Sestina

How to Write a Sonnet

How to Write a Villanelle

5 FREE POETRY PROMPTS

Get 5 FREE inbox poetry prompts from the popular book How to Write a Poem

Shakespeare Resources

Poetry Classroom: Sonnet 18

Common Core Picture Poems: Sonnet 73

Sonnet 104 Annotated

Sonnet 116 Annotated

Character Analysis: Romeo and Juliet

Character Analysis: Was Hamlet Sane or Insane?

Why Does Hamlet Wait to Kill the King?

10 Fun Shakespeare Resources

About Shakespeare: Poet and Playwright

Top 10 Shakespeare Sonnets

See all 154 Shakespeare sonnets in our Shakespeare Library!

Explore Work From Black Poets

About Us

  • • A Blessing for Writers
  • • Our Story
  • • Meet Our Team
  • • Literary Citizenship
  • • Poet Laura
  • • Poetry for Life: The 5 Vital Approaches
  • • T. S. Poetry Press – All Books
  • • Contact Us

Write With Us

  • • 5 FREE Poetry Prompts-Inbox Delivery
  • • 30 Days to Richer Writing Workshop
  • • Poetry Prompts
  • • Submissions
  • • The Write to Poetry

Read With Us

  • • All Our Books
  • • Book Club
  • • Every Day Poems—Subscribe! ✨
  • • Literacy Extras
  • • Poems to Listen By: Audio Series
  • • Poet-a-Day
  • • Poets and Poems
  • • 50 States Projects
  • • Charlotte Perkins Gilman Poems Library
  • • Edgar Allan Poe Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Blake Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Shakespeare Sonnet Library

Celebrate With Us

  • • Poem on Your Pillow Day
  • • Poetic Earth Month
  • • Poet in a Cupcake Day
  • • Poetry at Work Day
  • • Random Acts of Poetry Day
  • • Take Your Poet to School Week
  • • Take Your Poet to Work Day

Gift Ideas

  • • Every Day Poems
  • • Our Shop
  • • Everybody Loves a Book!

Connect

  • • Donate
  • • Blog Buttons
  • • By Heart
  • • Shop for Tweetspeak Fun Stuff

Copyright © 2025 Tweetspeak Poetry · FAQ, Disclosure & Privacy Policy