Setting Boundaries: 4 Poetry Collections to Help You Strengthen Your Self-Connection
One common New Year’s resolution is to read more books and often another is to set stronger boundaries. At Read Poetry, we’re all about pairing these two resolutions together to remind us how poetry can strengthen our connection to ourselves. These poetry collections, equal parts soothing and strong-willed, will encourage you to speak more gently with yourself—and to find your voice with others. Dive into these thought-provoking reads with your journal by your side.
1. Self Love Poetry: For Thinkers and Feelers by Melody Godfred
Melody Godfred’s Self Love Poetry: For Thinkers and Feelers is a deep dive into how cultivating true self-love often means breaking out of harmful patterns and instead opting for new, affirming rituals. The unique style of this book pairs “thinking” poems with “feeling” poems, exploring both how the emotional and the mental complement each other and sometimes feel confusingly mismatched. Do you know intellectually that you need to set boundaries, but struggle to actually make that shift IRL? Self Love Poetry makes these often abstract concepts tangible and super actionable, with verse that feels like it’s coming from an empathetic but always honest friend.
2. Sorry I Haven’t Texted You Back by Alicia Cook
Sometimes, there’s a lot going on in our lives—and in our brains. Alicia Cook’s Sorry I Haven’t Texted You Back, written after a viral Instagram poem of the same name, gives voice to these often relentless emotions under the surface. While Sorry I Haven’t Texted You Back will give you self-compassion for the many things on your plate, it will also give you the empathy to know that everyone else’s lives are just as nuanced and ever-evolving. With Cook’s frank and vulnerable voice as your guide, you can have more real conversations and connections with those in your life.
3. Please Love Me At My Worst by Michaela Angemeer
Struggling to set boundaries is a near-universal problem that can arise for specific, deeply personal reasons. In viral TikTok creator Michaela Angemeer’s case, she found she wasn’t setting boundaries so that she could continue relationships with people who were emotionally unavailable. Please Love Me At My Worst, her debut collection, might just help you discover the reasons behind your own issues with boundaries, and lead you on a compassionate journey toward setting them.
4. the mermaid’s voice returns in this one by Amanda Lovelace
Amanda Lovelace’s best-selling the mermaid’s voice returns in this one is all about women finding their voice in a world that’s tried repeatedly to silence them. Let its lush seaside imagery and feminist subversion of popular fairytale mythology help you rewrite your own old stories and find your voice, too.
Feeling inspired to add these collections about boundaries, self-respect, and self-love to your reading list? Take an extra step by not only reading about boundaries but writing about boundaries, too. As a prompt, write about one of the most pivotal boundaries you’ve set and how it transformed your life. How did setting a boundary feel in your body? What brought up the need to do so?
