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Solitude: Poems
A literary sanctuary for what Shakespeare called “sessions of sweet silent thought,” this exquisite gathering of poems speaks to the consolations of solitude. Here is Wordsworth wandering “lonely as a cloud”; Poe confiding “all I loved, I loved alone”; Yeats’s communion with “the deep heart’s core”; and Han Shan’s heart of a hermit, “clean as a white lotus.” From Sir Edward Dyer’s “My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is,” to the spiritual searching of the Transcendentalists, to the meditative verse of Jorie Graham, some of the most indelible poems from every time and culture have grown out of the aloneness inherent in the poet’s art. The poems collected here, whether reflecting on the soul or on nature, addressing an absent loved one, or honoring the self, form a book of respite and contemplation, and a beautiful tribute to the interior life.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2005
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467 people want to read
About the author
Carmela Ciuraru
13 books48 followersCarmela Ciuraru is the author of Nom de Plume: A (Secret) History of Pseudonyms, and her anthologies include First Loves: Poets Introduce the Essential Poems That Captivated and Inspired Them and Solitude Poems. She is a member of PEN American and the National Book Critics Circle, and she has been interviewed on The Today Show and by newspapers and radio stations internationally. She lives in New York City.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
February 4, 2023
I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.
...
In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my
own face in the glass,
I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every
one is sign'd by God's name,
And I leave them where they are, for I know that
whereso'er I go,
Others will punctually come for ever and ever.
...
Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove
already too late?
...
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.
***
And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.
...
If I should be where I no more can hear
Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams
Of past existence - wilt thou then forget
That on the banks of this delightful stream
We stood together...
***
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought,
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought...
...
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored, and sorrows end.
***
Whatever span the fates allow,
Ere I shall be as she is now,
Still in my bosom's inmost cell
Shall that deep-treasured memory dwell:
That, more than language can express,
Pure miracle of loveliness,
Whose voice so sweet, whose eyes so bright,
Were my soul's music, and its light,
In those blest days, when life was new,
And hope was false, but love was true.
***
my peace is there in the receding mist
when I may cease from treading these long shifting
thresholds
and live the space of a door
that opens and shuts
***
The shadow of a withered branch, like lean blue smoke,
Paints a stroke across the afternoon window.
In the cold the sunlight grows pale and slanted.
It is just like this.
I sip the tea quietly
As if wanting for a guest to speak.
***
The wind outside
Ushers in evening rain. Once more
Uncontradicting solitude
Supports me on its giant palm;
And like a sea-anemone
Or simple snail, there cautiously
Unfolds, emerges, what I am.
***
How the past loses power over the heart!
Liberation is at hand. I forgive everything.
I'm keeping track of a sunbeam running up and down
The first moist ivy of spring.
***
alone, I'm not alone:
a standoffishness and reasonableness
in things finds
me or I find that
in them: sand, fall,
furrow, bluff -
things one, speaking things
not words, would
have found to say
***
I lay in the grass
feeling the great distances open above me, and
wondered
what I would become - and where I would find
myself -
and though I barely existed, I felt for an instant
that the vast star-clustered sky was mine, and I heard
my name as if for the first time, heard it the way
one hears the wind or the rain, but faint and far off
as though it belonged not to me but to the silence
from which it had come and to which it would go.
***
Two seagulls play
About the church's lantern tower; below salt-marshes
stretch away
To where against the pebble beach the long sea flings
its line of spray
And you have come and you have come to stay.
The grey church quivers drowsily, shut in its hollow;
The marshes borrow
The burning heaven blue and turn it cool; the eye can
scarcely follow
The glint of sails out through the haze; I walk alone
but have no sorrow
Though you are gone for you return to-morrow.
***
Loneliness terrific beats on my heart,
Bending the bitter broken boughs of pain.
...
I hear my footsteps on the stairs of yesteryear,
Where are you? Oh, where are you?
Once so dear.
***
l(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
iness
***
The low voices rise and fall
as they divide up
heaven, shadows, grains of sand.
I have to be by myself
ten minutes every morning,
ten minutes every night,
- and nothing to be done!
We all line up to ask each other for help.
Millions.
One.
***
"Love should be put into action!"
screamed the old hermit.
Across the pond an echo
tried and tried to confirm it.
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.
...
In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my
own face in the glass,
I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every
one is sign'd by God's name,
And I leave them where they are, for I know that
whereso'er I go,
Others will punctually come for ever and ever.
...
Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove
already too late?
...
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.
***
And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.
...
If I should be where I no more can hear
Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams
Of past existence - wilt thou then forget
That on the banks of this delightful stream
We stood together...
***
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought,
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought...
...
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored, and sorrows end.
***
Whatever span the fates allow,
Ere I shall be as she is now,
Still in my bosom's inmost cell
Shall that deep-treasured memory dwell:
That, more than language can express,
Pure miracle of loveliness,
Whose voice so sweet, whose eyes so bright,
Were my soul's music, and its light,
In those blest days, when life was new,
And hope was false, but love was true.
***
my peace is there in the receding mist
when I may cease from treading these long shifting
thresholds
and live the space of a door
that opens and shuts
***
The shadow of a withered branch, like lean blue smoke,
Paints a stroke across the afternoon window.
In the cold the sunlight grows pale and slanted.
It is just like this.
I sip the tea quietly
As if wanting for a guest to speak.
***
The wind outside
Ushers in evening rain. Once more
Uncontradicting solitude
Supports me on its giant palm;
And like a sea-anemone
Or simple snail, there cautiously
Unfolds, emerges, what I am.
***
How the past loses power over the heart!
Liberation is at hand. I forgive everything.
I'm keeping track of a sunbeam running up and down
The first moist ivy of spring.
***
alone, I'm not alone:
a standoffishness and reasonableness
in things finds
me or I find that
in them: sand, fall,
furrow, bluff -
things one, speaking things
not words, would
have found to say
***
I lay in the grass
feeling the great distances open above me, and
wondered
what I would become - and where I would find
myself -
and though I barely existed, I felt for an instant
that the vast star-clustered sky was mine, and I heard
my name as if for the first time, heard it the way
one hears the wind or the rain, but faint and far off
as though it belonged not to me but to the silence
from which it had come and to which it would go.
***
Two seagulls play
About the church's lantern tower; below salt-marshes
stretch away
To where against the pebble beach the long sea flings
its line of spray
And you have come and you have come to stay.
The grey church quivers drowsily, shut in its hollow;
The marshes borrow
The burning heaven blue and turn it cool; the eye can
scarcely follow
The glint of sails out through the haze; I walk alone
but have no sorrow
Though you are gone for you return to-morrow.
***
Loneliness terrific beats on my heart,
Bending the bitter broken boughs of pain.
...
I hear my footsteps on the stairs of yesteryear,
Where are you? Oh, where are you?
Once so dear.
***
l(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
iness
***
The low voices rise and fall
as they divide up
heaven, shadows, grains of sand.
I have to be by myself
ten minutes every morning,
ten minutes every night,
- and nothing to be done!
We all line up to ask each other for help.
Millions.
One.
***
"Love should be put into action!"
screamed the old hermit.
Across the pond an echo
tried and tried to confirm it.
June 1, 2023
SOLITUDE is a nice anthology of poems about loneliness and despair, the virtues of solitude, absence, isolation and musings about the mind and the soul. From Sappho and Callimachus to contemporary poets, you will find a good variety. These Everyman's editions rarely disappoint.
February 3, 2019
A number of good poems here, and one of the few ‘Everyman’s Pocket Poetry’ that has a genuine mix of gender, nationality and translated works. The title, I felt, was a little misleading - many of these poems are more about loneliness than solitude, which are very different things.
April 13, 2024
My favorite:
I gaze on myself in the stream's emerald flow
or sit on a boulder by cliff.
My mind, a lonely cloud, leans on nothing,
needs nothing from the world and its endless events.
---- Han Shan
I gaze on myself in the stream's emerald flow
or sit on a boulder by cliff.
My mind, a lonely cloud, leans on nothing,
needs nothing from the world and its endless events.
---- Han Shan
November 3, 2021
Excellently curated as ever, and full of great names - Whitman, Dickinson,Shakespeare,Langston Hughes,Mary Oliver, Pablo Neruda, AE Housman.,,
February 28, 2022
Esa sensación reconfortante de cuando has leído un libro en el momento indicado
November 27, 2021
A beautifully balanced and surprisingly versatile anthology.
April 7, 2014
An excellent collection, grouped into sections ('On the virtues of solitude', 'On absence and longing', 'On loneliness and despair', 'On mind and soul', 'Alone among others', 'In the stillness of night') which supports reading for specific purposes. This book can be read with intent either to support healthy solitude, or to encourage putting aside/getting over loneliness--there is no judgment inherent in the selections or their categorization. There is a good mix of classic and newer poetry, though it definitely skews older. Highly recommended for any fan of poetry, particularly those who appreciate or contemplate their inner life.
August 29, 2023
This selection of over one hundred poems carefully chosen by Carmela Ciuraru mines the theme of solitude in a variety of formats, including sonnets, odes and musings. She has included a wide range of authors from Shakespeare, Coleridge, Yeats and Poe, to Whitman, Wolf and ee cummings. I am familiar with most of them and was interested to find some poems I knew well.
In her introduction, Ciuraru notes how the idea of solitude is a quaint notion in our present time when connectivity is so much a part of our lives. Although we are always surrounded by people and activity, many feel alienated and lonely. At the same time, those who seek quiet find it harder to find time and space to be alone with their thoughts, to think about the world and their place in it. That kind of quiet contemplation is an activity more practiced in the past than it is today.
These poems capture the experience of solitude from different places, at different times of the year and in different cultures. It describes a variety of scenes and experiences, from a daytime viewing of a girl working in a field to the nighttime observation of faraway stars; from a view by a lake to those from a mountaintop. Some express happiness and a sense of precious calm, while others express anguish, despair and pain.
Ciuraru organizes the collection in six sections. The first, “On The Virtue of Solitude”, include poems many will recognize. The theme is easy to appreciate and includes the largest number of poems. They refer to our ability to see, hear and feel things that calm us, free our minds from worry and quiet our spirit. They speak to the joy of wandering but not feeling lost; the calmness that comes with being carefree; the sense of ease when unburdened by the need to talk with visitors or family; to listen to the pleasure of an empty mind or do ordinary things. They extol the beauty of careless content, unburdened by the fuss and fret of world affairs and describe how solitude is more sought as we age, but more difficult to attain. They are also the poems most readers will find easy to relate to, that happy carefree feeling of being alone, doing what you want, when you want.
The next section, “On Absence and Longing” has a darker tone. In this group of poems solitude is more connected with loneliness and is not sought but simply arrives. It may bring with it an inability to sleep or the sadness that comes from being in a beautiful place but without the one you care about. There is a poem about the desolation of a home once filled with people and activity which is now empty after everyone has moved on, and one on the long wait for a visitor who never arrives.
The third section “On Loneliness and Despair” honors similar themes of sadness but with bleaker themes.
The final section, “On Mind and Soul” was a section which I found more difficult to connect the subject of the poems Ciuraru chose, with the category she placed them in. They speak to feeling alone, even when surrounded by others, about feeling uncomfortable and out of step. These poems explore feelings of estrangement, of being misunderstood, unable to fit in and even humiliated. It is not solitude that is comforting, it is a state in which being alone is distressing and painful. It is not just among others that this iteration of solitude presents itself. It may rear its head at night as one seeks sleep, when one’s mind cannot find quiet but takes its own journey contemplating life and death, worries about money or work to be done.
The collection reminds readers of the many meanings of solitude: how it can persist when others are present; how it can be, but not always is, a choice or how one can enjoy one’s own company and be at peace, or feel alone, isolated and lonely.
The collection, nicely packaged in a small volume, is easy to pick up and put down, although it requires attention and concentration. It proved an interesting read.
In her introduction, Ciuraru notes how the idea of solitude is a quaint notion in our present time when connectivity is so much a part of our lives. Although we are always surrounded by people and activity, many feel alienated and lonely. At the same time, those who seek quiet find it harder to find time and space to be alone with their thoughts, to think about the world and their place in it. That kind of quiet contemplation is an activity more practiced in the past than it is today.
These poems capture the experience of solitude from different places, at different times of the year and in different cultures. It describes a variety of scenes and experiences, from a daytime viewing of a girl working in a field to the nighttime observation of faraway stars; from a view by a lake to those from a mountaintop. Some express happiness and a sense of precious calm, while others express anguish, despair and pain.
Ciuraru organizes the collection in six sections. The first, “On The Virtue of Solitude”, include poems many will recognize. The theme is easy to appreciate and includes the largest number of poems. They refer to our ability to see, hear and feel things that calm us, free our minds from worry and quiet our spirit. They speak to the joy of wandering but not feeling lost; the calmness that comes with being carefree; the sense of ease when unburdened by the need to talk with visitors or family; to listen to the pleasure of an empty mind or do ordinary things. They extol the beauty of careless content, unburdened by the fuss and fret of world affairs and describe how solitude is more sought as we age, but more difficult to attain. They are also the poems most readers will find easy to relate to, that happy carefree feeling of being alone, doing what you want, when you want.
The next section, “On Absence and Longing” has a darker tone. In this group of poems solitude is more connected with loneliness and is not sought but simply arrives. It may bring with it an inability to sleep or the sadness that comes from being in a beautiful place but without the one you care about. There is a poem about the desolation of a home once filled with people and activity which is now empty after everyone has moved on, and one on the long wait for a visitor who never arrives.
The third section “On Loneliness and Despair” honors similar themes of sadness but with bleaker themes.
The final section, “On Mind and Soul” was a section which I found more difficult to connect the subject of the poems Ciuraru chose, with the category she placed them in. They speak to feeling alone, even when surrounded by others, about feeling uncomfortable and out of step. These poems explore feelings of estrangement, of being misunderstood, unable to fit in and even humiliated. It is not solitude that is comforting, it is a state in which being alone is distressing and painful. It is not just among others that this iteration of solitude presents itself. It may rear its head at night as one seeks sleep, when one’s mind cannot find quiet but takes its own journey contemplating life and death, worries about money or work to be done.
The collection reminds readers of the many meanings of solitude: how it can persist when others are present; how it can be, but not always is, a choice or how one can enjoy one’s own company and be at peace, or feel alone, isolated and lonely.
The collection, nicely packaged in a small volume, is easy to pick up and put down, although it requires attention and concentration. It proved an interesting read.
January 16, 2022
I enjoy reading these thematically arranged pocket poetry volumes. This volume on Solitude had several poems by some of my favorite poets, and as always many previously unknown to me.
A few lines from a favorite …
The music in my heart I bore
Long after it was heard no more.
— William Wordsworth
I think great poetry not only has the power to move us deeply but to give voice to our feelings in ways we may simply be unable to do ourselves.
This volume finds the included poets thinking deeply about themes within solitude, like pondering its virtues, considering the absence of loved ones, the despair of true loneliness, and the thoughts that come to all of us when we are alone and consider our lives in the utter stillness of a dark endless night.
Reading a little poetry everyday, no matter the theme makes my life better, and the variety of themes you can find in these Everyman Library volumes makes them a really accessible way to expand your exposure to not only the language of poetry, but really great thinkers and feelers.
A few lines from a favorite …
The music in my heart I bore
Long after it was heard no more.
— William Wordsworth
I think great poetry not only has the power to move us deeply but to give voice to our feelings in ways we may simply be unable to do ourselves.
This volume finds the included poets thinking deeply about themes within solitude, like pondering its virtues, considering the absence of loved ones, the despair of true loneliness, and the thoughts that come to all of us when we are alone and consider our lives in the utter stillness of a dark endless night.
Reading a little poetry everyday, no matter the theme makes my life better, and the variety of themes you can find in these Everyman Library volumes makes them a really accessible way to expand your exposure to not only the language of poetry, but really great thinkers and feelers.
December 24, 2021
"It might be lonelier
Without the Loneliness—
I'm so accustomed to my Fate—
Perhaps the Other—Peace—
Would interrupt the Dark—
And crowd the little Room—
Too scant—by Cubits—to contain
The Sacrament—of Him—
I am not used to Hope—
It might intrude upon—
Its sweet parade—blaspheme the place—
Ordained to Suffering—
It might be easier
To fail—with Land in Sight—
Than gain—My Blue Peninsula—
To perish—of Delight—"
Emily Dickinson
***
Esta será uma review com perguntas e sem respostas — e as perguntas, essas, são perguntas às quais só eu poderei, um dia, responder. Dirigia-me para este livro como se buscasse algo (o quê?) e criei uma expectativa (qual?) excessivamente pesada e exigente para um humilde livro; não entendo o que procurava, nem as forças que me orientavam nessa busca, mas sinto que estive longe de o alcançar com esta leitura.
Without the Loneliness—
I'm so accustomed to my Fate—
Perhaps the Other—Peace—
Would interrupt the Dark—
And crowd the little Room—
Too scant—by Cubits—to contain
The Sacrament—of Him—
I am not used to Hope—
It might intrude upon—
Its sweet parade—blaspheme the place—
Ordained to Suffering—
It might be easier
To fail—with Land in Sight—
Than gain—My Blue Peninsula—
To perish—of Delight—"
Emily Dickinson
***
Esta será uma review com perguntas e sem respostas — e as perguntas, essas, são perguntas às quais só eu poderei, um dia, responder. Dirigia-me para este livro como se buscasse algo (o quê?) e criei uma expectativa (qual?) excessivamente pesada e exigente para um humilde livro; não entendo o que procurava, nem as forças que me orientavam nessa busca, mas sinto que estive longe de o alcançar com esta leitura.
October 3, 2024
It’s been a while since I’ve read a collection of classic poetry and this dive back in did not disappoint. I try to explore a variety of book types and genres throughout the year to keep my mind from getting in a rut. I personally chose to read this all in one go, but something I love about poetry is the accessible option to sit it down at any time and pick up back up whenever you feel like it. You won’t have to fear remembering a storyline or characters. You can just enjoy what you’re reading in the moment.
May 14, 2020
Eh. I feel like the title is misleading, Poems on Solitude? More like poems on nature. My takeaway from this book is that I'll never read another poem by Walt Whitman (man writes about trees for 30 pages) he's not that great. Emily Dickinson is SO emo like girl stop throwing yourself a pity-party. Some poems were good though, like Shakespeare's sonnets and Danse Russe by William Carlos Williams. That's about it. The rest was trash or mediocre at best. Sue me.
March 13, 2022
Such a great anthology - took my time with this one. A lot of beautiful poems in here, my favorite subsection was the theme "Alone among others". The top three poems for me were...
Newark Abbey - By Thomas Love Peacock
My Philosophy of Life - By John Ashbery
There Pass the Careless People - By A. E. Housman
Would recommend this. There's more in the Everyman's pocket poets library that I will explore.
Newark Abbey - By Thomas Love Peacock
My Philosophy of Life - By John Ashbery
There Pass the Careless People - By A. E. Housman
Would recommend this. There's more in the Everyman's pocket poets library that I will explore.
February 26, 2024
this is a good mix - whitman, wordsworth, shakespeare, dickinson, oliver, langston hughes, russian poets, chinese poets, old, contemporary. there are sections on happy solitude, missing someone, loneliness, long dark nights of the soul...quite a few poets and poems I've never encountered before, as well as familiar ones. it seems like quite a valuable volume to have on hand, for when you're alone or feeling lonely.
March 5, 2024
Throughout the whole collection 20 poems resonated with me, which feels like a pretty low margin. I often felt as though the collection was unfocused, and over-stretched the interpretation of "Solitude." Many poems left me confused about what exactly in them related to solitude at all. Were it not for the standout 20 that we're so powerful, I would have given this collection 2 stars.
January 18, 2021
The majority of these poems felt more like meditations on nature than on loneliness or solitude. I bought the book hoping for it to give me some insight into the ability to remain alone and be happy, when in the end this appeared to be pretty misguided
July 28, 2023
This was a nice collection. I marked 17 poems as "special". There were quite a few that focused on solitude as loneliness whereas I preferred the poems portraying solitude as voluntary seclusion which is not necessarily discontent.
January 28, 2019
A few greats, but many otherwise
July 29, 2019
A bunch of these poems were great, while others weren’t that good.
November 10, 2019
I really enjoyed this collection!
July 3, 2020
This was a lovely collection of poems. The more modern ones appealed to me more.
February 26, 2022
Enjoyable collection of poetry; well balanced with poems from older poets to recent poems with men, women, East, West and in translation all represented. Edited by Carmela Ciuraru.
April 9, 2015
I like these Knopf Everyman's Library Pocket Poets books. Each volume encompasses a topic rather than a poet. So you experience a broad array of poems from all of literature. This volume includes works by Shakespeare and before as well as poems by living poets such as Louise Gluck and Mark Strand. And as you might expect with such a collection, you will find poems you like and poems you don't like. For instance, I really liked "Hour" by Mark Strand, "A Clear Midnight" by Whitman, Dyer's "My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is," and Yeats' "The Lake Isle of Innisfree." On the flip side, Gerard Manley Hopkins' "To seem the stranger lies my lot," John Berryman's "He had followers but they could not find him," and George Meredith's "Meditation Under Stars" I thought were all stinkers. There have been other volumes in this series that I like more. As you might imagine, poems about solitude can be despairing and lonely. So you're not going to get a lot of laughs with this book. But some poems are profound and moving. This is good collection of poems on an interesting subject. Recommended.
February 12, 2022
4.9
I loved almost every poem in this book, and it's a terrific mix of old and new. I docked one part of a point because I think that the categorization of types of solitude doesn't really make sense. A lot of the poems fit in more than one category, and I often asked myself some poem wasn't in another section. It didn't really impact my enjoyment or the fact that I really recommend this book, but I do sort of think it could have done without the sub-categories.
I loved almost every poem in this book, and it's a terrific mix of old and new. I docked one part of a point because I think that the categorization of types of solitude doesn't really make sense. A lot of the poems fit in more than one category, and I often asked myself some poem wasn't in another section. It didn't really impact my enjoyment or the fact that I really recommend this book, but I do sort of think it could have done without the sub-categories.
April 14, 2016
I needed this before I even knew that it existed. There is so much beauty in solitude.
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews