Tweetspeak Poetry

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

“The Heart’s Necessities”: A Death, a Song, a Poem, and a Book

By Glynn Young 3 Comments

A songwriter and musician is having trouble with the lyrics for a song she’s trying to write for a friend, who recently died from breast cancer. From her bookshelf, she pulls a volume of poetry given to her by her father as a gift. She hadn’t previously looked at it. She begins to read, and the song lyrics begin to unfold before her eyes.

The result is a song called “Tillery,” recorded by Becca Stevens and using the words from a poem entitled “Winter” by poet Jane Tyson Clement (1917-2000). Here is the poem, written in the mid-1950s:

Winter

The dark emerging trees
from the new-winter wood
are lovelier than leaves,
as cold is also good.

The heart’s necessities
include the interlude
of frost-constricted peace
on which the sun can brood.

The strong and caustic air
that strikes us to the bone
blows till we see again
the weathered shape of home.

No season of the soul
strips clear the face of God
save cold and frozen wind
upon the frozen sod.

Stevens read the poem and began reading all of Clement’s poetry. With the permission of the poet’s publisher, she would eventually use words from five poems in her song lyrics. And Stevens recorded “Tillery” for her friend who died from cancer, using the words from “Winter.”

Clement’s story, her poetry, and Stevens’ experience come together in The Heart’s Necessities: Life in Poetry. It’s more than a beautiful book, although it is that. It’s a beautiful book that’s beautiful in spirit, an appreciation and a tribute to an exceptionally fine poet.

Jane Tyson Clement

Clement was born in North Carolina but grew up in New York City and attended Horace Mann School. Her father worked at Columbia University. She won the poetry award at Horace Mann and studied literature and poetry at Smith College. She became interested in the Quakers and got involved in the peace movement. She became a teacher, married fellow pacifist Robert Clement, and eventually joined the Bruderhof religious community. She wrote poetry throughout her life, publishing The Sparrow and Other Stories with Poems, The Secret Flower: and other stories, and No One Can Stem the Tide: Selected Poems 1931-1991.

Becca Stevens

Stevens is a composer, educator, and leader of the Becca Stevens Band. She has worked with notable composers and musicians like David Crosby and is a member of Crosby’s Lighthouse Band. Her music is rooted in several traditions — jazz, Irish/Appalachian folk, indie pop, West African music —  and poetry. She lives in Brooklyn.

The Heart’s Necessities combines biography, poetry, commentary by Stevens, and photographs. Each of the Clement poems included is a small, beautiful gem; she uses nature metaphors so simply and so adroitly that you find yourself almost stunned into silence. You can also see the appeal and inspiration these poems possess for composers.

I’m not sure whether I would call this a book. A better description might be “a profoundly moving experience.”

Related:

The Poetry of Farming: “Water at the Roots” by Philip Britts

Photo by Mario, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Glynn Young.

Browse more book reviews

__________________________

How to Read a Poem by Tania Runyan How to Read a Poem uses images like the mouse, the hive, the switch (from the Billy Collins poem)—to guide readers into new ways of understanding poems. Anthology included.

“I require all our incoming poetry students—in the MFA I direct—to buy and read this book.”

—Jeanetta Calhoun Mish

Buy How to Read a Poem Now!

  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Glynn Young
Glynn Young
Editor and Twitter-Party-Cool-Poem-Weaver at Tweetspeak Poetry
Glynn Young lives in St. Louis where he retired as the team leader for Online Strategy & Communications for a Fortune 500 company. Glynn writes poetry, short stories and fiction, and he loves to bike. He is the author of the Civil War romance Brookhaven, as well as Poetry at Work and the Dancing Priest Series. Find Glynn at Faith, Fiction, Friends.
Glynn Young
Latest posts by Glynn Young (see all)
  • A History of Children’s Stories: “The Haunted Wood” by Sam Leith - May 20, 2025
  • World War II Had Its Poets, Too - May 15, 2025
  • Czeslaw Milosz, 1946-1953: “Poet in the New World” - May 13, 2025

Filed Under: article, book reviews, Books, Music, Poems, poetry, Poets

Try Every Day Poems...

Comments

  1. Maureen says

    August 20, 2019 at 12:06 pm

    I like what Stevens did with the poem. I find the words much more meaningful.

    Reply
  2. Dave Malone says

    August 21, 2019 at 12:21 pm

    Great post, Glynn. I didn’t know this poet. Loved the poem. Enjoyed the song/video, too.
    This page has “February Thaw.”https://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/environment/winter-poems

    Reply
  3. Sandra Heska King says

    August 24, 2019 at 11:17 am

    Oooohhh… I’m going to be taking home more books than I came with.

    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