A collection of poems by Alfred Lord Tennyson, Helen Hunt Jackson, and Naomi Shihab Nye, on bidding goodbye to the old year, and welcoming the New Year.
From the earliest moments of human history, we’ve been aware of the changing of the seasons – of light and warmth giving way to dark and cold. We’ve also been aware of the concept of aging – growing old with the passage of time. And so, once humanity began to parcel those time periods up into days, weeks, months, years, the concept of “The New Year”, became a cornerstone of culture and identity.
It’s no surprise that this subject is beloved of the world’s poets. There are plenty of excellent New Year poems, and it’s likely you already know quite a few of them – Robert Burns’ classic Auld Lang Syne from 1788, for example.
Today, though, I want to introduce three of my own favorites. Maybe they’ll already be familiar to you, or perhaps you’ll find something new amid my picks.
Burning the Old Year by Naomi Shihab Nye
Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,
And absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.
I begin again with the smallest numbers.
Across four short stanzas, Naomi Shihab Nye encapsulates the anxiety and mournfulness of the New Year. The deeds left on done, and the words left unsaid. All of these small failings are tacked to the Old Year and become part of it.
A narrator destroys this Old Year, and destroys these failings along with it. And in doing so, they bring a semblance of hope and optimism. A New Year, and a new canvas upon which to paint.
Naomi Shihab Nye was born in 1952 in St. Louis, Missouri. She’s an American of the post-war baby boom age. But she’s also a Palestinian – the nationality of her father – and studied at high school in Ramallah.
She has published numerous poetry collections over her long and illustrious career, her work exploring the depth and complexity of Arab-American identity. But it’s Burning the Old Year that resonates most strongly during this season, as we turn away from what is lost, and look towards what is yet to be gained.
New Year’s Morning by Helen Hunt Jackson
The Old Year’s heart was full of greed;
With selfishness it longed and ached,
And cried: “I have not half I need.
My thirst is bitter and unslaked.
But to the New Year’s generous hand
All gifts in plenty shall return;
True love it shall understand;
By all my failures it shall learn.
Helen Hunt Jackson is one of the most prolific American poets of the 19th Century. With New Year’s Morning she casts a joyful but still unflinching light on one of the most important days of the year – a day when all is new, and all promises are as yet unbroken.
Helen was born Helen Fiske in Massachusetts in 1830, going on to marry twice and become known by both married names. Over a life marked by tragedy – her first husband and a number of her children pre-deceased her – Helen was able to produce a vast number of poems, prose works, and also non-fiction books.
It is the non-fiction book A Century of Dishonor, which is perhaps her best known work. The book charts the struggles of Native American peoples against the expanding and oppressive United States, and forms part of Hunt Jackson’s long term campaign of activism for Native American rights.
In Memoriam, (Ring out, wild bells) by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
In Memoriam, published in 1850 is a largely somber work written as an elegy to Tennyson’s friend and fellow poet Arthur Henry Hallam. In Ring out, Wild Bells, however, Tennyson is in a more joyous mood, as he heralds the New Year’s approach.
The ringing of the bells was a custom in English churches during the New Year period. Bells would be muffled to sound a knell for the year that was departing and then would be allowed to ring out wild and free for the New Year. It is this latter, unencumbered ringing that Tennyson is invoking in this poem.
A Long-standing Poetic Tradition
There were hundreds of poems I could have chosen for this list. This is such a rich seam of poetic subject matter, after all. In the end, I opted to narrow it down to just three, giving me the chance the explore the meaning and significance of each of these great works.
Hopefully, you have the chance to enjoy your favorite poetry over the festive period and can welcome in a New Year in a reflective but optimistic mood. It’s time to say goodbye to 2024 forever and look forward to the possibility that 2025 will bring.
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Migz
John Burns
John has been writing ever since he was small, and is delighted to be able to make his living as a writer now he’s not quite so small. Literature has always been a big part of John’s life, and he loves sharing this passion with readers from all over the world.
