POETRY SAYS IT BETTER

Words to live by.

Addressing readers who don’t love poetry, award-winning actress Burstyn shares her personal anthology of poems that have uplifted and comforted her throughout her life. Beginning with “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley, which made her feel empowered when she read it as a lonely teenager, Burstyn creates a moving memoir and candid self-portrait through her reflections on beloved poems. Although her selections include some well-known poets—Wordsworth, Yeats, Shelley, Rilke—many may be fresh discoveries for readers: Marnie Andrews, Fleur Adcock, Karen Holden, Burstyn’s good friend Rayne O’Brian, among others. When Burstyn left an unhappy home at 18, she found solace in Thomas Merton’s “I Have No Idea Where I Am Going,” one of many poems that offered hope when she felt lost. Edna St. Vincent Millay, a favorite, imparted sage insights about love, pain, and spiritual transformation. Burstyn’s first husband, who wrote some poetry himself, introduced her to Baudelaire and Poe, but the marriage ended because he resented her working and earning more than he did. She found a wry and helpful perspective in May Sarton’s “New Year Poem,” which celebrates the demise of patriarchy: “Aggression, violence, machismo/ Are fading from us/ Like old photographs/ Faintly ridiculous.” Tony Hoagland’s “Disappointment” and Rumi’s “Guest House” grounded her when things didn’t go as she expected. “Poetry’s wisdom, through metaphor, rhythm, and rhyme, can permeate the reader’s core being,” Burstyn writes. A poem may convey “something you needed to hear, something that may guide you in some way, something that allows you to see life in a richer or possibly even a deeper way.” Burstyn’s tender, graceful selections serve as ample evidence that a poem may inspire “our day-to-day, moment-by-moment intention to be kind and to be conscious.”

A generous, heartfelt gift.