Winter Is Poem-ing!

Full disclosure: The only thing I actually want to do once the cold weather strikes is hibernate. Preferably with a good poem to ponder by lamplight (as the sun sets way too early for my liking) and a cup of hot chocolate with all the marshmallows. As for those of you who actually want to get out into the winter weather, I have it on good authority that poetry is also a great way to defrost after iceskating, snowshoeing, or whatever it is you chionophiles get up to out there in the snow. Here are a few wintering poems to get you started; we hope you'll share some of your favorites with us on Twitter (@NEAarts) or on the Arts Endowment Facebook page. One last thing before I return to my WFH cave, you can click on the poem's title to read it in full. 

“…the snow/ has forgotten/ how to stop/ it falls/ stuttering.” — from "Blizzard" by Linda Pastan

"...and the noise of her boots upon the snow is the weight of a night bird bending the meteor-blue branch fruiting white flames of cotton." — from "Ink-Light" by Natalie Diaz (Mojave)

"Sundays too my father got up early/ and put his clothes on in the blueback cold,.." — from "Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden

"my feet were/ two fish made/ of wool,/ two long sharks/ sea-blue, shot/ through/ by one golden thread..." — from "Ode to My Socks" by Pablo Neruda, translated by Robert Bly

"Like Coyote, like Rabbit, we could not contain our terror and clowned our way through a season of false midnights." — from "Grace" by Joy Harjo (Muscogee)

"When I say, Snow, what will become of this world?/ it says, I was not taught future tense." — from "After Reading Kobayashi Issa’s The Spring of My Life on My 49th Birthday" by Dobby Gibson