Wild Gratitude

An excerpt from the poem, Wild Gratitude: "Tonight when I knelt down next to our cat, Zooey, And put my fingers into her clean cat's mouth, And rubbed her swollen belly that will never know kittens, And watched her wriggle onto her side, pawing the air, And listened to her solemn little squeals of delight, I was thinking about the poet, Christopher Smart, Who wanted to kneel down and pray without ceasing In everyone of the splintered London streets, And was locked away in the madhouse at St. Luke's With his sad religious mania, and his wild gratitude, And his grave prayers for the other lunatics, And his great love for his speckled cat, Jeoffry. All day today—August 13, 1983—I remembered how Christopher Smart blessed this same day in August, 1759, For its calm bravery and ordinary good conscience."

Poems of Gratitude is a unique anthology of poetry from around the world and through the ages celebrating thanksgiving in its many secular and spiritual forms. For centuries, poets in all cultures have offered eloquent thanks and praise for the people and things of this world. The voices collected here range from Sappho, Horace, and Rumi to Shakespeare and Milton, from Wordsworth, Rilke, Yeats, Rossetti, and Dickinson to Czesław Miłosz, Langston Hughes, Yehuda Amichai, Anne Sexton, W. S. Merwin, Maya Angelou, and many more. Such beloved favorites as Gerard Manley Hopkins’s “Pied Beauty,” Robert Frost’s “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” Constantine Cavafy’s “Ithaka,” and Adam Zagajewski’s “Try to Praise the Mutilated World,” mingle with classics from China and Japan, and with traditional Navajo, Aztec, Inuit, and Iroquois poems. Devotional lyrics drawn from the major religious traditions of the world find a place here alongside poetic tributes to autumn and the harvest season that draw attention to nature’s bounty and poignant beauty as winter approaches. The result is a splendidly varied literary feast that honors and affirms the joy in our lives while acknowledging the sorrows and losses that give that joy its keenness.

This inspirational book created by renowned authors, should help the reader to recognize the importance of gratitude which will, in turn, help those who are less fortunate. All proceeds from the book go to "The Hay Foundation", a charity which helps to improve the quality of life for many people.

Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, Joan Z. Borysenko, Lee Carroll, Sri Daya Mata, Doreen Virtue, Bernie Siegel, M.D., Dan Millman, John Randolph Price, and others share their understanding of the practice of gratitude.

Many Americans are longing for alternative politics rooted in strong communities, recognition of limits, and respect for the natural world. These issues are not the possession of one political party. Rather, they refer to ideas rooted deeply in the best aspects of our common tradition, and they represent yearnings that many, regardless of political affiliation, share. This book articulates a cultural and political vision that leads one off the couch and into the garden, out of the shopping mall and into the farmersÆ market, and away from Washington in the direction of home. In this postpartisan call to action, political theorist Mark T. Mitchell develops the concept of the ôpolitics of gratitude,ö which revolves around four ideas: creatureliness, gratitude, human scale, and place, culminating in a distinctive, fruitful view of human nature and community at odds with the prevailing norms of individualism (and, not so paradoxically, statism), giantism, and hypermobility. Going beyond the liberal-conservative factionalism that has reduced our political and cultural discourse to clichTs and vitriol, he urges us to become responsible stewards of the earth who are committed to family and community and who abide in gratitude, taking nothing for granted. The result is a political and cultural vision that is at once local, limited, modest, republican, greenùand grateful.