And so we have arrived again to the longest night. This is the time of year I begin to turn to poetry. There’s something about the darkness that draws me in, and poetry is, if nothing else, an inward medium. Winter is also when I am most likely to listen to jazz, and I suppose that’s the same impulse. The two seem somehow related.
The other day I listened to an episode of the “Poetry for All” podcast. I discovered that podcast sometime in the last year or two and always enjoy it, though I have listened only sporadically. It is presented by two hosts, a woman and a man, both English professors, who bring a lot of energy, enthusiasm, and insight that bring the poetry they talk about alive. In September they presented Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29, with which I was wholly unfamiliar. That episode got me hooked.
This week they presented “Winter Solstice” by a contemporary poet I had not heard of, Alex Dimitrov. I should have heard of him, as he has had poems published in The New Yorker and I am a longtime subscriber. Anyway, the episode was entertaining, and the poem is dark but beautiful. And, perhaps like some of you, I crave an occasional beam of beauty to pierce these dark, dark nights.
Somehow the poem strikes me as an urban, blank verse descendant of Robert Frost’s more traditionally crafted “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” one of my all-time favorites. The comparison is natural, as Frost’s poem takes place on “the darkest evening of the year,” and both are bleak and somewhat wistful. And like Frost’s poem, Dimitrov’s features repetition in the last two lines, perhaps a conscious tribute.
I don’t think I can reprint “Winter Solstice,” but I can give you a link to the podcast, where it is read once, discussed, and read again. The episode is not long, and really is worth listening to. You can find the episode here. And, for good measure, here is Frost’s familiar poem.
As we all experience these long, dark nights, and look ahead to the distant equinox, I wish us light to find our way. It will get better, and yet there is much to savor even now.