Pause for Poetry: The Wild Verses

‘The Wild Verses’ is a lovely collection of verse, offering comfort and calm as it explores a whole range of emotions and feelings. Each verse is accompanied by Sarah Maycock’s stunning illustrations of animals and birds, making the book a visual treat as well.

The poems are grouped into sections- Joy, Hard Times, Family, Strength and Love- enabling the reader to choose verse to match their mood or to browse and select at random. The title page of each section offers a quote from a famous writer- John Keats, Emily Dickinson, Louise May Alcott- whose wise words set the tone for the poems which follow. In her introduction, Helen Mort explains that the reader will find ‘a different mind-landscape for every mood’ in this collection with art and language combining as an ‘invitation to stand back for a moment’. There are so many poems to enjoy, to reflect upon and to linger over here, offering those ‘still moments’ which we all deserve.

It is always a challenge to select a few favourites to comment on from a collection! Different poems appeal at different times and to different moods, but one of my best loved has to be ‘Duo’ with its gorgeous illustration of a bear and a giraffe. Another is ‘The Painter’ which I think would be brilliant to use as a model with children for creating their own versions as well as for the beauty of the thought it captures!

Subtitled ‘Nature poems on love, hope and healing’, ‘The Wild Verses’ is a collection to savour, to meditate with, to muse on. The book concludes with tips on how to be more mindful which many readers may find useful and seek to incorporate these wonderful words and pictures into their well-being moments.

The Wild Verses Helen Mort, illustrated by Sarah Maycock

Big Picture Press ISBN: 978-1800784765

You can read my review of ‘Love is…’ and ‘Sometimes I Feel…’ both by Sarah Maycock here.