What is being described in today’s poem is more of a personal than cultural ritual, but Naomi Shihab Nye speaks with such power and authority that she makes of it her own credible myth.

I love the poem’s vivid insistence that these gestures can fill a real room with heat and light, and can, if only for a moment, banish the kind of despair that makes a solitude of the human heart.

Today’s poem was written in the time of MAD (mutually assured destruction) détente, but it has obvious relevance to the situation we find ourselves in today.

I looked hard to find a poem for Thanksgiving that could honor a long-cherished American tradition without glossing over the darker elements of the colonial relationship between our pilgrim ancestors and Native Americans. This poem, opening with a shared meal around a kitchen table, and written by a member of the Creek Nation strikes a good balance.

Today’s poem is a way of acknowledging the great and terrible storms that have wreaked havoc on and off our southern coast in the past few months and globally over the last few years.

Sometimes, all a poem does or aspires to do is capture a moment. The moment can be large or small, one of emotion, inspiration, revelation, or just any ordinary experience that means something to the poet. In “Recuerdo,” it is a night of pleasure and (I assume) passion between two young lovers.

Like an adolescent who demands to be seen and heard. This poem is meant to disturb, and it does—spectacularly.