Winter has arrived in the northern hemisphere. Although we
haven’t had much snow yet this winter, I know it is coming. South Bend,
Indiana, where we lived for seven years, has already had more than nine inches.
I’m happy to be west of Lake Michigan now!
Snow has been the subject of poetry for many years. Here are
some sample snow poems that are old enough to be in the public domain:
Snowflakes
Out of the bosom of the Air.
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent and soft and slow
Descends the snow.
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent and soft and slow
Descends the snow.
Even as our cloudy fancies take
Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance confession,
The troubled sky reveals
The grief it feels
Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance confession,
The troubled sky reveals
The grief it feels
This is the poem of the air,
Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
Now whispered and revealed
To wood and field.
Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
Now whispered and revealed
To wood and field.
~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
311
It sifts from Leaden Sieves —
It powders all the Wood.
It fills with Alabaster Wool
The Wrinkles of the Road —
It makes an Even Face
Of Mountain, and of Plain —
Unbroken Forehead from the East
Unto the East again —
It reaches to the Fence —
It wraps it Rail by Rail
Till it is lost in Fleeces —
It deals Celestial Vail
To Stump, and Stack — and Stem —
A Summer’s empty Room —
Acres of Joints, where Harvests were,
Recordless, but for them —
It Ruffles Wrists of Posts
As Ankles of a Queen —
Then stills its Artisans — like Ghosts —
Denying they have been —
~ Emily Dickinson
Here is a snow poem I wrote a few years ago.
Sculpting
in Snow
This is
what
we’ve
been waiting for
all
winter -
six
inches
of good
packing snow,
cold
and moist
in our
gloves,
our
ball growing
larger
and larger
to
serve as base
for a
sparkling sculpture.
We
might construct
a dog
on its haunches
begging
for food,
a
penguin with a fish
in its
mouth,
or
Lincoln in a tall hat.
Or maybe
you and
me
in
buttoned coats
holding
hands.
~ Wilda
Morris
First published in Christian Science Monitor, February 2, 2005.
Toward the end of this post you will find a list of other
snow poems. Some are haiku; some are rather long. Some are poems about snow, but in others snow is primarily
the setting. Animals (such as Jane Hirshfields’s badger) do things in or under
the snow; Edna St. Vincent Millay’s buck has something done to it. Someone may be
out in the snow (“stopping by the woods” with Robert Frost), looking out the
window or, like Marjorie Saiser’s aunts, entertaining themselves inside on a
snowy evening. Some are poems of memory or nostalgia. Others are more
hard-edged. The snowfall, snowflakes or snow storm are sometimes literal,
sometimes metaphoric, and sometimes both.
The December
Challenge: a Snow Poem
Write a poem of any length from three to 20 lines. The poem may
be about snow, or it may be a poem about something else, so long as snow appears
in a significant role in the poem.
Submit only one poem.
Your poem can be free or formal verse. If you submit a form poem, please
specify the form. The deadline is December
15. Poems submitted after the December 15 deadline will not be considered. There
is no charge to enter, so there are no monetary rewards, but winners are
published on this blog.
Copyright on each
poem is retained by the poet.
Poems published in
books or on the Internet (including Facebook and other on-line social networks)
are not eligible. If you poem has been published in a periodical, you may
submit it if you retain copyright, but please include publication data.
How to
Submit Your Poem:
Send your poem to wildamorris[at]ameritech[dot]net (substitute the @ sign for “at” and a . for “dot”. Be sure to provide your e-mail address. Include a brief bio which can be printed with your poem, if you are a winner this month.
Send your poem to wildamorris[at]ameritech[dot]net (substitute the @ sign for “at” and a . for “dot”. Be sure to provide your e-mail address. Include a brief bio which can be printed with your poem, if you are a winner this month.
Submission
of a poem gives permission for the poem to be posted on the blog if it is a
winner, so be sure that you put your name, exactly as you would like it to
appear if you do win, at the end of the poem. Poems may be pasted into an email
or sent as an attachment. Please do not indent the poem or center it on the
page. It helps if you submit the poem in the format used on the blog (Title and
poem left-justified; title in bold, and not all in capital letters; your name
at the bottom of the poem). Also, please do not use spaces instead of commas in
the middle of lines. I have no problem with poets using those techniques; I
sometimes use them myself. However I have difficulty getting the blog to accept
and maintain those features. Please include a short bio with your submission.
I look
forward to reading your poem!
More Snow Poems:
More Snow Poems:
*Robert Frost, “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening,” The Poetry of Robert Frost: The Complete
Poems, Complete and Unabridged (Henry Holt, 1968). Online at http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171621.
*Robert Frost, “Dust of Snow,” The Poetry of Robert Frost: The Complete Poems, Complete and
Unabridged (Henry Holt, 1968). Online at http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173526.
*Robert Frost, “A Patch of Old Snow,” The Poetry of Robert Frost: The Complete Poems, Complete and Unabridged
(Henry Holt, 1968). Online at http://allpoetry.com/poem/8469227-A-Patch-Of-Old-Snow-by-Robert_Frost.
*Edna St. Vincent Millay, “The Buck in the Snow,” Collected
Poems (Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2011). Online at http://poem-of-the-week.blogspot.com/2009_01_01_archive.html.
*Richard Wilbur, "Boy at the Window" from Collected Poems (Harcourt, 2004). Online
at http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2013/03/06.
*Jane Hirshfield, “Beneath the Snow, the Badger’s Steady
Breathing,” After (HarperCollins,
2006), p. 11.
*Mary Oliver, “White-Eyes,” Poetry (2002). Online at http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/30876.
*Robert Bridges, “London Snow,” Online at http://poetry.about.com/od/poemsbytitlel/l/blbridgeslondonsnow.htm.
*Kenneth Patchen, “The Snow is Deep on the Ground,” Selected
Poems (New Directions
Publishing Corporation, 1957), http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/175610.
*Farouk Masud, “Snow,” Online at http://illinoispoets.org/poems1211.htm#Snow.
*Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Lines: The cold earth slept below,” http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174396.
*Robert Hill Whiteman, “Horses in the Snow,” Star
Quilt (Holy Cow! Press, 1984), http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178386.
*Wallace Stevens, “The Snow Man,” Online at http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15745.
* Marjorie Saiser, “My Old Aunts Play Canasta in a Snowstorm,”
Lost in Seward County (The Backwater
Press, 2001). Online at http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2013/03/12.
*James L. Corcoran, “Snowflakes,” Online at http://illinoispoets.org/poems1207.htm#Snowflakes.
*Margaret Atwood, “Shapechangers in Winter,” Morning
in the Burned House: New Poems
(Houghton Mifflin, 1995), p. 120. Online at http://bittergrace.wordpress.com/2007/08/04/70-favorite-poems-4-shapechangers-in-winter-by-margaret-atwood/.
*Alan Harris, “Listening to Christmas,” Online at http://illinoispoets.org/poems1207.htm#ListeningtoChristmas.
*Kajiwara Hashin, haiku. Online at http://neverendingstoryhaikutanka.blogspot.com/2013/10/butterfly-dream-falling-snow-haiku-by.html.
*Kajiwara Hashin, another haiku. Online at http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/2229840-japanese-haiku.
*Collection of snow haiku at http://www.haikusociety.com/tags/Snow.
© 2013 Wilda Morris