A Chicken Soup for the Soul

I figured I’d do something different for today’s essay.

I love poetry. I always find a kind of therapeutic value to it, whether reading it or writing one, it feels like a warm bowl of chicken soup for the soul. This time, I want this space to breathe with fewer of my words and more of someone else’s. I want this also to empower you. I want to make it as if you’re hearing your own voice in the lines, not mine.

There can be that intimidation with poetry that many seem to look at it as something too complex and rather intellectual. But good poems need not to be elaborate, nor contain fireworks and bubbles, or need to rhyme to make it edible—it only needs to go the heart. But all the same, it can be quite daunting for most, but you might want to try it in small doses. If you’re just starting out learning, then perhaps learn something that doesn’t take a lot of concentration. And I think I just have the right prescriptions for you.

The beauty of a poetry is that it can be short. It can take only a second and still land with the same impact, if not more. Let’s begin with this poem. I’ve chosen it because it’s very short and you can learn it easily. It’s called “Two Cures for Love” by Wendy Cope:

1. Don’t see him. Don’t phone or write a letter.
2. The easy way: get to know him better.
Two Cures for Love, Wendy Cope
From Serious Concerns, 1992

Wasn’t that nice? Such an antidote. Here’s another one:

When I am sad and weary,
When I think all hope has gone,
When I walk along High Holborn
I think of you with nothing on.
Celia, Celia, Adrian Mitchell
From Heart on the Left: Poems 1933-1984, 1997

This is Adrian Mitchell’s most famous love poem written for his second wife, actress Celia Hewitt. And he did well to say l love you this way!

I can’t quite remember the very first poem I ever learned, so I thought I’d share one that I love instead. What I like about it is that it’s sweet, charming, and wonderfully grounding. There’s also a lovely reading of it by one of my favorite actors, Helena Bonham Carter, which I would warmly recommend reading it alongside her. Here’s a link to the recording.

I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk down
a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.

And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.

We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.

We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say,
“Here, have my seat,” “Go ahead—you first,” “I like your hat.”
Small Kindnesses, Danusha Laméris
From Bonfire Opera, 2020

If you’ve noticed, poetry just puts a sort of order in the mind. There’s something to it like calming the brain, like Mozart does it with his music. It calms the mind particularly, the violence. As you read, the strong, sane voice of the poem is often enough to silence the destructive, obsessive voices in your head.

It’s between the sound and saying it. You have to say it out loud for it have full benefit. So, whether it’s in your bed, in your car, or in front of your bathroom mirror, I hope you have a safe space to say it out loud. Try it this time with this one:

STRANGER! if you, passing, meet me, and desire to speak to me,
why should you not speak to me?
And why should I not speak to you?
To You, Walt Whitman
From “Inscriptions” from Leaves of Grass, 1891

For many readers, the expectation to “understand” poetry gets in the way of having the chance to enjoy it. But it in truth, poetry doesn’t demand comprehension on the first read. I love how Sir William Sieghart suggests we “Read a poem like a prayer. Don’t read it like fiction or journalism. And read it five nights running, you’ll get something completely different from it every time.” In other words, it’s the repetition that brings the clarity. Read it in different moods, play with its different energies, go outside the box. And along its cadence, its lyricism, and musicality, you’ll see that it will always unlayer itself and offer something new that will enrich your understanding even more. Now, take a moment. Try it with this one:

Folks, I’m telling you,
birthing is hard
and dying is mean—
so get yourself
a little loving
in between.
Advice, Langston Hughes
From Selected Poems of Langston Hughes, 1959

In retrospect, the world can take so much from us. But a poem, once it gets inside of you, it belongs to you completely. If I were to define poetry, I’d say it is a selfless act of a poet carving out a piece of their soul onto a page, leaving it there to live forever. That’s why a poem written 700 years ago can still reach to us and unravel our souls. So, here’s an assignment for you: learn at least one poetry by heart, so it can visit you anytime you need it. And again, it’s totally okay if you don’t get it right away! Art is art. There’s no right or wrong way to experience it.

Do you have a favorite poetry you'd like to share? I’d love to hear about it. Send it my way through email, and it just might find a home in the next blog! Here are other poems that I picked up along the way. I hope these inspire you to read more poetry and nourish you inside like a bowl of hot chicken soup.

I know a place where the sun is like gold,
And the cherry blooms burst with snow,
And down underneath is the loveliest nook,
Where the four-leaf clovers grow.

One leaf is for hope, and one is for faith,
And one is for love, you know,
And God put another in for luck—
If you search, you will find where they grow.

But you must have hope, and you must have faith,
You must love and be strong—and so—
If you work, if you wait, you will find the place
Where the four-leaf clovers grow.
Four-Leaf Clover, Ella Higginson
From When the Birds Go North Again, 1898

Come to the edge.
We might fall.
Come to the edge.
It’s too high!
COME TO THE EDGE!
And they came,
And he pushed,
And they flew.
Come to the Edge, Christopher Logue

Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it.
Your Task, attributed to Rumi
Translator unkown

It is madness
says reason
It is what it is
says love

It is unhappiness
says calculation
It is nothing but pain
says fear
It has no future
says insight
It is what it is
says love

It is ridiculous
says pride
It is foolish
says caution
It is impossible
says experience
It is what it is
says love
What It Is, Erich Fried
translated from the German ‘Was es ist’

“Tayo na?”
“Sige.”
At ang “sige”
ay biglang naging
buong mundo
na puwedeng mali,
puwedeng tama,
pero hawak natin.
Isang Simula, Edgar Calabia Samar

And there was something about you that now I can’t remember
It’s the same damn thing that made my heart surrender
And I’ll miss you on a train, I’ll miss you in the mornin’
I never know what to think about
I think about you (Don’t let go)
About you (Don’t let go)
An excerpt from About You, Matty Healy
From Being Funny in a Foreign Language, 2020

There is a kind of love called maintenance,
Which stores the WD40 and knows when to use it;

Which checks the insurance, and doesn’t forget
The milkman; which remembers to plant bulbs;

Which answers letters; which knows the way
The money goes, which deals with dentists

And Road Fund Tax and meeting trains,
And postcards to the lonely; which upholds

The permanently rickety elaborate
Structures of living; which is Atlas.

And maintenance is the sensible side of love,
Which knows what time and weather are doing
To my brickwork; insulates my faulty wiring;
Laughs at my dryrotten jokes; remembers
My need for gloss and grouting; which keeps
My suspect edifice upright in the air,
As Atlas did the sky.
Atlas, U.A. Fanthorpe
From Me to You: Love Poems, 2007

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
All That Is Gold Does Not Glitter, J.R.R. Tolkien
From The Fellowship of the Ring, 1954

You are enough.
Your existence is enough.
This is enough. Enough to turn my world or
Tear it asunder in the most beautiful way.
How Much Yearning, R.R.H. Regalado

(Nabua, 02/2026)