I have become very interested in the idea of Hygge, the Danish term for cosiness, intimacy and taking pleasure from simple things. It’s about candlelight and cosy throws, knitting, sharing comfort food with good friends, reading, country walks,and enjoying everything in the present moment. It’s a hug for the soul. With all that happened in 2016 on the world stage, and the consequences we might face in 2017, we need this concept just to keep going through the drear months. The poems don’t have to be all sweetness and light. I am interested in the darkness and how poetry can shine a light in dark corners.
So I have decided to do a blog feature of hygge poems and am seeking contributions. You can email them to me on anji.topping@gmail.com. I can’t pay you anything but my blog does have a good following. I am looking for poems in any style, that speak to me about hygge, and the things it represents. If you have a photograph that you own copyright for and would let me use, do send those as well. Credit will be given for any images I use. Please include your name at the bottom of your individual poems, as that really helps.
I will reply to everyone who submits, and I aim to start posting poems very soon. I don’t mind poems which have been previously published, but please include a credit to the first publisher. If the poem is in a collection, include the publisher’s details – they will appreciate that.
Here is one of my poems from The Five Petals of Elderflower, first published on InterlitQ, which expresses the concept of hygge (though I had never heard of it when I wrote the poem). The collection of the same name was published by Red Squirrel Press in September 2016.
The Glass Swan
January midnight, a numbness of winter,
not for the first time, I am last awake.
The house is silent except for the hum
of the coal fire, the blue song of the fridge.
All the winters I have been alive, the weather
has been teaching its hard lessons:
those who lived so intensely are gone.
I shall not see them again, though I speak with them
in all the aching chambers of the mind.
Ice has hold of the earth, as those things
which are true but unwelcome, grip memory.
Look at this fire in the hearth, feel it.
Bank it up against the night. It is all we have, these
corporeal things: these candlesticks, this glass swan.
Angela Topping
Photo credit: artwork by Maria Walker
Submissions for this feature are now closed.
Angela Topping 
lovely idea – do they need to be unpublished?Or can they be already published elsewhere?
thanks, I just thought to add the answer to that. No, it’s fine if they have been published already. I updated the post.
Just include the necessary credit and it should be a year after the first publication, to be fair to magazine editors. No problem if it was in a collection as it’s good publicity for the book.
Is there a deadline? If it’s February 2nd or later, then I can add this to Comps and Calls.
That would be kind of you. I will keep on going until the end of February, as long as I am getting poems which suit the project.
Excellent! Thank you!
Sending you one
lovely poem 🙂
Thank you, Fiona, that’s kind x
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