UUABQ Poetry Service: When You Need a Poem

 7/12/2025

Part 1: Be Where You Are

Once poetry has entered your soul, it will always have a place there. Poetry didn’t find a way into my heart in college, though I was a writing and literature major. It was here, right here, as a worship leader in this church, giving voice to beautiful readings handed to me, that poetry started to make its mark. 

There’s nothing like the right poem in the right moment. Today we’d like to share some poems that are friends to us, that call us back to ourselves, or into community, or give us strength to act. 

We’ll start with a few poems that remind us to pay attention, not to the cacophony of the outside world with its politics and emails and endless smartphone distractions, but to what is right in front of you. Or even more intimately, what lives inside of you: That “still, small voice” that can be so hard to hear.

Our first poem may be my very favorite of all time, since Angela chose it for our first Blue December service: Visitation, by Mark Doty.

• Visitation by Mark Doty
• Choice by Lynn Ungar
• The Sound of Me by Kristin Satterlee

Part II: It's All Connected

Poets speak truth to power in hard times. Poets are often trusted voices in the revolution. The political poets that speak to me are those who remind us to keep current events in perspective, not to minimize them, but to remember humility as we decide on how to respond to atrocities. 

The next poems explore this response to unimaginable horror, starting with our place in the grand scheme of things -- our connection to the universe, our moment in time, and our place in the community of ourselves. 

• The Answer by Robinson Jeffers
• Singularity by Marie Howe
• In Any Event by Dorianne Laux

Part III: This Is Hard; You Can Do Hard Things

Suffering comes to each of us: There is no avoiding pain and anxiety, and grief is the price of love. 

So how do we walk through what seems unbearable? No one has the key to that, a one-size-fits all answer. But poetry can remind us that we are not alone; that we can find our way back to life, back to love, back to wholeness.

• The Thing Is by Ellen Bass
• What I Can Do by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Part IV: Building Community

Poets are organizers. They remind us of the collective power of community, of attention, of voice. When I am overwhelmed by all that is wrong, my favorite poets remind me of what’s important to do, step by step, how to reach out to others, how and why we link arms, how to carve out a new future with our love and the power of our laser vision.

• The Space Inside by Mikaela Renz-Whitmore
• Red Brocade by Naomi Shahib Nye
• The Way It Is by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
• Sorrow Is Not My Name by Ross Gay