If you’re looking for a poetry Instagram account that is splendid and beautiful and healing, @wilderpoetry is that space.
Most of Wilder Poetry’s snippets concern healing, sleep, light, dark, and nature. It’s whimsical, yes, but it’s also pointed, with a clear message: life may be difficult, and the heart might hurt, but there is always a light to be found.
The images Wilder Poetry plays with — crystals, candles, trees — and the gentle color palette, comprised mostly of grays and creams and icy hues, add to the reader’s experience, creating a soft, cozy space for the delicate works. When poetry has so much to do with vulnerability, healing and nature, that’s the sort of space you feel comfortable in.
Wilder Poetry also published a book, Nocturnal, which includes poems set to black-and-white photographs. The book’s four sections include “Dusk,” “Northern Lights,” “Howl,” “Lucid Dreams.”
As Wilder Poetry says, “Nocturnal is a collection of words and imagery inspired by darkened skies and sleepless nights. it is a journey of healing and self-discovery whether love stays or leaves. it is dreaming with your eyes wide open while the rest of the world is hiding.”
The work dreams up the feverish stillness of those strange hours between day and night, that hazy wonderland of sleepiness, and the feelings that arise when you’re left alon with your thoughts. We’ve all been up far too late, sleepless when the whole world is quiet.
That’s the way the book feels — like you’re peeking into someone tip-toeing into the living room to light a candle and wait for the insomnia to pass.
One of the main themes of Wilder Poetry’s work is self-love, and love in general. While many other poets are concerned about not being loved, or not feeling enough, this account is a balm, a salve to the pains of the everyday.
The works serve as a reminder to breathe, to take a step back, and to reconnect with silence. It seems, in these poems, there is a message in silence — and that message is love.