5 Poems for the New Year

Of the many things poetry is good for, marking occasions is one of them. Lauren F. Winner calls it “decorating a life-cycle event,” noting how people whose “last encounter with a poem was tenth-grade British Lit, grasp for a poem when their child marries, or dies.” Jim Morrison—The Doors late frontman, and poet—wrote “If my poetry aims to achieve anything, it’s to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel.”

He’s right about that. Poetry provides access to emotions we can...