Poetic Philosophy has for a long time now helping people find their voice regarding the philosophy of life. The combination of philosophical thoughts and poetry is an ideal means for exploring the deepest secrets of existence. Sometimes we can only express things we know without words – just with poems that speak those unspoken words we constantly feel.
We are delighted to share a major milestone for our literary journey: we are preparing the publication of a commemorative book anthology collecting poems recited across all Poetic Philosophy gatherings of 2026 (from our very first sessions earlier this year through December)!
Poems to be published
Any poems submitted already in the Poetic Philosophy events are eligible.
Send us your poems for the new events for October (currently in progress), November and December events to be considered.
Or if you wish, send us completely new poems to include in the anthology, even if you do not want them included in any online collection or even if you are not participating in any of the online poetry recital events.
In any case, you are in full control on what is to be published. Explicit consent will be required for the specific poems to be included. Refer to the next section below for details.
Details regarding the publication
Please read below the details for the publication.
Free of Charge: Participation and inclusion in the book are completely free.
Non-Commercial & Community Reinvestment: There are no individual royalties or author earnings. Any net proceeds generated from book sales will be dedicated entirely to funding future poetry contests, community awards, and literary initiatives for Poetic Philosophy.
IMPORTANT NOTE – Explicit Consent Required: We deeply respect your rights to your work. No poem will be included without your explicit written approval. Inclusion in the anthology does not restrict your rights in any way – you are free to share your poems elsewhere or publish again on your own.
To give your consent: Simply send us a message before 31st December 2026 stating: “I consent to having my poem [Insert Poem Title(s)] included in the 2026 Poetic Philosophy Anthology under the terms outlined by Poetic Philosophy.“
Other submission guidelines
Word/line count limit: Up to 50 lines.
Submission limit: Up to 3 poems per author.
Accepted languages: English only.
Bio/name guidelines: Pen names are allowed. Please state explicitly the name under which you want the poem to be published.
For any questions on the submission process, feel free to contact us via a comment here or engage through our Facebook Community.
Thank you for being part of this philosophical and poetic tapestry.
Past Online Collections & Poetic Events
For reference and to get an idea of the poems already submitted, one can refer to the existing online collections at the Poetry Collections & Events page.
Best regards, Spyridon Kakos Poetic Philosophy Editor
Submit your poems with DM, comment here, or via the Poetic Philosophy Contact Us page!
Submitted Poems
If my mind could speak
How pleasant would it be if my mind could speak.
A world of creative thought’s unfold.
The glorious moments of life revived in a second untold.
Caution you might say but how much we play at time’s when the world stood still?
Our minds are a cast in itself grounded in a woven web of time. Can we be brave enough to play the league of trying?
Or are we just thinking of our minds dying?
Think straight and easy but prepare your thoughts for some stressful moments uneasy.
The mind is a wonderful chess don’t let it rest too long before you regress.
If my mind could only speak.
I’d reap that game of success.
Never mind defeat or regress.
~ Eulalee Boddington
Churchyard
There’s a ramekin glass dish on the bench in the churchyard
pink blossom from the tree above scattered around it like confetti.
It catches the light, casts a shadow across the bench and it is full of cigarette butts.
A small devotion to tidiness as the petals fall.
The pink blossom drifts to the edges of the stone path.
The daffodils are fading now, their heads bowed to their imaginary reflection
And the bench early morning is usually taken by a solitary man with a can of beer and a careful thirst.
He lifts the can like a quiet hymn
The blossom falls. The light moves on. The bowl fills slowly
No sermon, no hand on the shoulder just the day beginning again for the solitary man.
~ Tim Boardman
The Sound Of Silence
Sometimes the silence speaks louder than the words, louder than the music as loud as the sounds inside my head. Sometimes the silence shouts and I turn on the radio and open the window and block up my ears to shut it out. Once it was a welcome guest entering as others left. Once it was a time of peace, a quiet time alone, a rare time alone. Now it’s all there is,
that deafening silence.
~ Lynn White
Untitled
Voice: You throw the arrow of peace Shade: You settle the limits of force Capacity: You put order to the sound.. Your feelings explore the universe. Your mind grows the petals on earth. And you become the wisdom in the variety of the words.
~ Athina Styliani Michou
Silence
Silence is not an empty space, But architecture carved from thought, A monument of all we feel, And all the truths we never taught.
It rings louder than a thousand cries A hum of truths too grand to speak, The quiet realm where answers rest For all the questions that we seek.
It carries whispers of the past, The echoes of a soul’s desire, A stillness burning in the dark With cold, invisible fire.
So listen close to what is still, Where unsaid promises belong For in the depths of total peace, The quietest heart sings the loudest song…
A timeless breath we leave behind, When words surrender to the mind…
~ Cecilia Cotovan
Untitled
Let me pull at the war-torn edges of our quarrelsome present to find an intact thread of who we are beneath the black ink sea of the church chronicles old laws and written history beneath the castles palaces and monuments of the kingdoms that have been constantly shifting changing their names and shapes beneath the burial mounds and the fragments of broken pottery in the silence of ancient forests and the wispers of the oldest words that we still speak our long forgotten past is patiently waiting for us
~ Vanda Martins
Untitled
The edges of the sky are turning red the sun behind the venerable oaks is rising – a crimson bloody sacrifice to ancient goods I find it frightening though somewhat mesmerizing I wonder how those pagan goods were fighting back and how the narrow path for Christ through swamps was long and tragic I think it lingers still this puzzling silva haired world that breathes days of yore and pure magic
~ Vanda Martins
Untitled
We are used to walking on eggshells and inquiring how to breath we inherited from our forbears acquiescence and martyr’s wreath on brutality’s fruitful soil grew servility’s bitter crop how exacting it is to milk out our slavishness drop by drop on the senseless though torturous fears we’ll perform exorcisory rite let the phantoms of dread disappear our souls let be light and bright
~ Vanda Martins
Untitled
You can not lose your soul try as hard as you might unseen surveyor scrolls your every deed and rite some people’s wider way or bluer deeper sky can lure you astray without a hue and cry are you a lazybones or restless army brat that distant cities roams continually but beyond remote Cape Wrath with waters pouder blue your real soul and path are coming back to you
~ Vanda Martins
Untitled
It was so real now it’s done and gone fragile and tender slipping through my fingers a subtle hint a secret overtone that inconspicuous in the air lingers It cannot be constrained or caught in nets it cannot be invoked into attendance you wait ashore and rainbow trouts of words will swim to you and form into a sentence
~ Vanda Martins
Untitled
You have to shout to show the world you’re still alive the likes of Tiger Pistol Shrimp are those who thrive in seven seas they are left right and center spread unlike the children often hardly seen but heard and so those tiny creatures fecund and diverse instruct me daily how to read my verse
~ Vanda Martins
Untitled
Calling out your name. Wind will whisper it around. Only you can hear it, calling out with the moon angles. Shout it loud again. Will you hear it out there on the other side of the moon?
~ Dessy Tsvetkova
Invitation
On a tender winter evening, amid the remnants of Roman civilization, the Leaning Tower of Pisa smiles beneath the weight of wonder, holding within its tilted silhouette one of the world’s strangest marvels. And I, lost in a quiet beer bar, gazing across the Bay of Pisa, search for the reflections of poets I have loved. I wonder— perhaps even now, my extraordinary poem of love is still being engraved in the ocean’s secret womb beneath the Bay of Pisa. A flock of skylarks arrives, carrying an invitation of love and harmony. Nightingales, welcoming me, scatter flowers along the path. And so, I must journey towards an ancient Protestant church. On that Friday evening, the bells begin to ring— a summons to prayer. One by one, they awaken from their graves. The prayer begins. Yet, deep within my heart, the sacred melody of Pashupatinath’s evening aarti continues to echo. And the tender voices rising from the Rigmo Monastery send a shiver through my soul, awakening within me the ancient fragrance of Hindu spirituality. Now I stand between those two graves, while they embrace one another, turn by turn. Our eyes have grown moist; our hearts have dissolved. Together, we have broken down the walls of language and geography. And answering their invitation, many miles away, beside the ancient pyramids and the Aurelian Walls of Rome, in the courtyard of an old church, I stand without fear among my beloved friends. P. B. Shelley, these days, writes his poems upon water; John Keats hums his songs of love upon the wandering wind. Hearing of the grandeur of Everest and Lumbini, they smile in quiet wonder. With the Leaning Tower of Pisa standing witness, we have made a solemn vow: to transform this age into an age of love and harmony, and to write upon the pages of time a new history of universal brotherhood.
~ Himodh Pahadi
Meaning
What does meaning mean?
Besides the things I feel?
~ Spyridon Kakos
Environment Is You
I walk along the beach, Shingle, rocks and surges, The tide of time With my life gently merges.
The wind scours As old friends pass away, The loneliness of family lost In rocks, pebble-smooth display.
Now alone upon the sand, Grit through the hourglass falls, All is crushed’ Salt, love, stone and all.
Resilience is needed For this fight We all face high tides, The bleakness of the night.
The beach is formed Through cleansing and renewal, Inner change’harsh truths’ Our eternal dual.
This space made fresh, Framed in nature’s glory, The wild world resumes Its ancient story.
Walk on this creation, Each step its essence restores, Shaped by reflection’ Sand, waves and shore.
~ Peter Hanlon
IN ITS OWN PIT
I had turned the wrong way at the end of that sentence. My mind’ like a tortoise I used to think when I was young that everything would be fine: marching bands, medicines, rabbits. in its own pit’ Years have passed and now I say: for anything to happen at all is enough for now.
~ Gozde Alcekic
shopping list
I. whatever kind of waiting this is you must have bought library chairs to sit and dream of her a bamboo book holder (it will hold the book, for your feelings we can give no guarantee) each sitting postpones time by a day octavio paz’s cyclical time offers us no opening your eyes on the phone i will call you again when i return’ that phone will never ring in any session
II. does time pass as the door revolves newlyweds, parents, the elderly wear kappa because their wives make them (fluorescent orange is our preference) the writing desks at the entrance reflect counterfeit souls nonexistent summer lights fill the room from somewhere a servant will appear to add tonic to the yuzu espresso marshall berman said that memory is about embracing the ghosts soulless writing desks never came onto his agenda
III. marshall berman in ikea trying to melt all that is solid counterfeit boulevards open up before him cardboard people cross paths there and i watch him he knows you, he must know you he will tell me he will tell me of your silence he will make sense of it let us run and flee this cardboard realm your testimony is not cardboard nor is mine let berman come too let him theorize our companionship
IV. you made a film that’s what they said i heard your voice i did not see you: action!’ cut!’ between these two commands i lose your voice a loud silence arrives at the film’s most exciting moment an octopus perched on a deck chair sending lanterns into the sky somewhere you are smiling but you have no face
~ Burak Erkut
There is a room
you don’t remember opening. And yet, you enter it every time you say you are moving on.
It is not childish. It is not adult. It is transitional ‘ like an airport corridor where you never took off.
Inside are things you didn’t throw away because you didn’t know how to name them: a notebook with a beginning but no second page, a photograph you didn’t take but that shows you, a sentence that stopped at the verb.
On the wall, a clock. It has no hands. Only scratches. Each scratch is a moment when you understood ‘ and did nothing. Not out of fear. Out of precision. You knew what it would cost if you moved forward.
At some point, a person sits across from you. He doesn’t enter. He was already there.
I didn’t come to judge you, he says. I came to keep time.
You recognize him not by his face, but by his posture: leaning slightly forward, as if about to say something you never said.
If you had done things differently, would I be you? you ask.
He smiles.
No. If you had done things differently, there would be no need for me to exist.
He stands. He opens a drawer you hadn’t seen. Inside: small versions of yourself. Not ages ‘ choices. The one who stayed. The one who spoke. The one who left without explanation. The one who stayed too long.
They are not ghosts, he says. They are unfinished matters with a pulse.
He picks one. He gives it to you. It is not the best one. It is the most unfulfilled.
This one concerns you directly, he says. Because it still lives in the same minute as you.
Then you understand. The crack is not the past. Nor the future. It is the fact that you never fully left any version of yourself.
The man heads for the door.
What if I close the room? you ask.
He stops.
Then you will stop writing like this. And you will start living more quietly. But more shallowly.
The door stays half-open.
When you are left alone, you look at the clock. A new scratch has appeared. It is not old. It is now.
And for the first time you don’t wonder what will happen if you dare. You wonder how much longer the room can hold you without demanding that you become one.
~ Thanasis Panou
The vineyard’s chant
From hilly expanses, Daughters of a millenary land In perpetual quest For harmony between The trees’ breath and human breezes, A sudden rustle echoes, hissing whistles, Where proud and noble rows are tuned By the wind of the mountains To a vibrant tinkling pizzicato, As a rough harp’s soft chords Making the vineyard sing.
This place’s sacredness Envelops timelessly, Baroque temple Adorned with golden rows In a shimmering of autumn Where everything moves, all stays, In an ethereal chamber Of living colonnades With purplish capitals Making men venerate, along the vineyard, An altar under the celestial vault.
~ Niccol’ Giusti
Gravity
It seemed to me that I was getting smaller, smaller. And I stretched, I stretched
I would look up and never stop My eyes would be red and hurt and itch My tendons would ache My neck would strain to break, to break And I kept extenting my arms
I was getting smaller and smaller but I kept going I still couldn’t reach my unreachable as if it were running behind the stars as if it were running through the universe as if it were getting away from me It was getting away from me and no matter how much I shouted, it never heard me as I was so puny
And I never thought Instead of stretching, to bend down To see up close everything I was looking for and everything I was I didn’t think to look at my feet To pick them up and see that I was stepping on what I thought was meaningless.
Abstract: Why would anyone need to hire a poet today? In a world where we always seek meaning and purpose, where usefulness of everything is measured by the results they bring, a poem could be literally the last thing one could need. Yet, a poem has the power to bring a different perspective, to connect us with the depths of our soul that are now unseen. Verse has the power to break the glass through which we see the world, to show us an irrational path that may help us understand the lack of logic in the life that we live. In a utilitarian world, the most useless thing is the thing we need. We need poets. But more importantly, we fear them and those things they can say in verse…
Are poets needed today? A simplistic question that begs for an answer. And the only way to give that answer is to explore human psyche and its needs more deeply.
Today’s utilitarian world is governed by forces that bow to result and what is to be won.
We strive to have things done. We seek more and more.
And that is why today’s world needs the useless more than ever before!
Poems can be emotional.
Poems can be irrational.
Poems can be raw.
Poems can be gentle.
Poems can be meaningless.
Our world is void of emotions. We have learnt to constantly communicate with each other, to express ourselves, to live our life to the fullest, only to trick us into a state that we feel nothing at all in the end. We swim on a surface full of likes and fake perfection, while the depths of our soul crave for affection. A poem can help us trigger things we have forgotten are even there…
Our world is full of logic. We analyze everything to their very end. We need data and detect patterns; we extract rules and laws and then try to formulate theories to explain what is going on. But logic is based on axioms that are unproven – even the most obvious ones. Poetry can help us be irrational again. And see the world with fresh air!
Our world is polished and full of correctness. We never speak out what we feel or what we believe, out of fear of being rude or out of fear for what others think. We never even speak openly to ourselves, out of fear that we might be hurt. Poetry can be raw and just show what is there. With words that can have a real impact, just by conveying the message without anyone to interfere.
Our world is harsh and full of pain. People suffer often in vain. Poems can offer consolation to hurting souls by giving beauty where there is only pain.
We want to believe that our world is meaningless. We strive everyday down a path that we do not understand. We do not know why we live or what death is. We have stopped wondering about existence and being, we have alienated ourselves from philosophy and the miracle of living. Poetry can ignite the spark again in our souls, to bring us in touch with what we knew but now is gone.
The poet will not provide answers. He or she will just illuminate the lost souls. And the poem will serve as a beacon that shows all possible paths – ahead and backwards – leaving to us the decision on where to go. The verse will serve as a hammer that shatters the glass through which we view not only the cosmos but also our internal world.
In that sense, poetry can be therapeutic. Catharsis can be attained when we access our emotions not via a filter but by simply speaking them. And the same applies to all our fears related to existence and death; things that constantly trouble us, but we tend to hide them under a fake cloak of knowledge even though we know nothing besides the things that we feel.
A verse can be just what you need to see clearly in a world obscured by so much light that at the end you see nothing besides a blur. Sometimes we need shadows to decipher forms. Sometimes it is darkness that reveals our inner worlds. Poems could offer that view and make us cry, in a world where we tend to glorify smiles.
I have intentionally left out scientific evidence on the benefits of art.
Art can be therapeutic. That is well established in literature and there are numerous scientific research papers explaining how and why that happens. Art therapy can effectively reduce symptoms of mental disorders like depression or anxiety (Hu et al., 2021). Such therapy has proven to be effective across multiple age groups and settings (Slayton et al., 2010) and, in summary, it can not only improve your mental health but it can also support you in having a better quality of life in general (Shukla et al., 2022).
Since poetry is a form of art, it can surely help in that sense.
But the point of this paper is not to pinpoint the obvious, but to explain something beyond that. Poetry can help in many other ways via altering the philosophical viewpoint we take on this cruel world. Besides just being a form of expression that alleviates anxiety and helps the person’s psyche, poetry – as mentioned above – offers a way to walk down paths we once trod but are now too afraid to even talk of. It is the darkness or irrationality, the terror of non-understanding, the raw emotions that poetry brings to the surface that we need to face a world that is not conveniently logical or understood or friendly, as we hoped it would.
That is why poets are needed!
In today’s world where we seek useful things.
The most useless ones are the ones we need!
(That is why poets are feared by most!)
Speaking in verses, one can express all those things that cannot be expressed or explained. Paradoxically enough, these are the things that we better understand, because they resonate with the weird world in which we stand.
Remember, in the beginning there was the Word.
But before that everything was covered in silence.
And it is this primordial power that drives the cosmos.
Poetry gives a gateway to this force.
Speaking in silence.
Touching the world in which we were born…
Touching something we did not know was still there.
Expressing what we try so hard to avoid…
Destroying the useless need of knowing or understanding.
Reminding us that the cosmos is within us.
Making no sense.
Pain. Happiness. Confusion. Expressed in verse!
References
Hu, J., Zhang, J., Hu, L., Yu, H., & Xu, J. (2021). Art Therapy: A Complementary Treatment for Mental Disorders. Frontiers in Psychology, 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.686005
Shukla, A., Choudhari, S. G., Gaidhane, A. M., & Quazi Syed, Z. (2022). Role of Art Therapy in the Promotion of Mental Health: A Critical Review. Cureus. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.28026
Slayton, S. C., D’Archer, J., & Kaplan, F. (2010). Outcome Studies on the Efficacy of Art Therapy: A Review of Findings. Art Therapy, 27, 108-118. https://doi.org/10.1080/07421656.2010.10129660
Few words about the author
Spyridon I. Kakos is a researcher and writer based in Athens, Greece. He initially studied as a chemical engineer and conducted doctoral research for multi-layered printed circuit boards. He has also completed studies in business administration, law and psychology. He has been working as a senior advisor in the IT consulting sector for decades, while at the same time writing actively in the areas of philosophy and poetry. He is the Editor in Chief of Harmonia Philosophica since its inception and manages the Poetic Philosophy brand along with its related poetic ecosystem.
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