There are times when we may not feel OK. It’s okay if you’re not feeling 100 percent today. What is not OK? It’s continuing with the feel of not OK. You have to get back up. You have to try( You can read inspiring poems). People depend on you, whether they’re your kids, your team members or your old neighbour who always needs help carrying her groceries. (You depend on you, too, by the way.)

       So how can you get your mojo back and stand face into the wind? Maybe you don’t have time to read all those great inspirational books everybody keeps recommending to you. But you have five minutes to read a inspiring poem.

     As we move forward as a culture, it’s easy to leave behind the relics of the past. However, there are certain things that stand the test of time, and preserve culture as they educate and entertain.  These inspirational poems about life are among them.

One of these art forms, which is given a relatively small amount of attention in modern society, is poetry.

    The Team Inspiring Life provides you with the five most known inspiring poems that can keep you inspiring for ever.

                 5 inspiring poems to get inspired.

1. If by Rudyard Kipling.

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;   
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools ……….

This inspiring poem was written by Victorian-era poet Rudyard Kipling as a tribute to the British politician Leander Starr Jameson, as Kipling was reportedly inspired by his military actions. The poem is written in the form of paternal advice. The lines reflect a stoic philosophy which sees the mind as something to be used to our advantage, and not something to be lost in, particularly in the heat of battle, whether that be with ourselves or someone else.

2. Invictus by William Earnest Henley.

Out of the night that covers me,
   Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be,
    For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance,
    I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
    My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
    Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
    Finds and shall find me unafraid. ………………..

Clint Eastwood’s 2009 film about the 1995 Rugby World Cup in South Africa is named Invictus after this poem, and for good reason: Nelson Mandela recited this inspiring poem to his fellow prisoners while he was incarcerated on Robben Island. ‘Invictus’ was partly inspired by Henley’s (pictured right) own struggles as an invalid (he lost a leg when young) and his determination to remain ‘bloody but unbowed’.

The poem introduced a couple of famous phrases into the language: ‘bloody, but unbowed’, and the final two lines: ‘I am the master of my fate: / I am the captain of my soul.’

3. Dreams by Langston Hughes.

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

Langston Hughes was an American poet who became famous for his work during the Harlem Renaissance. He was the first African American to support himself as a writer. In this poem, Langston Hughes shares the importance of having dreams. Without dreams, our lives do not feel complete. We do not have anything to work toward, so holding onto the dreams strengthens and empowers us. In this short inspiring poem, he pulls the reader’s attention to this theme by using the repetition of the phrase, “Hold fast to dreams.” Dreams is written in Quatrains (4 line stanzas) and follows the ABCB rhyme scheme.

4. Phenomenal Women by Maya Angelou

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.

I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size

But when I start to tell them,

They think I’m telling lies.

I say,

It’s in the reach of my arms

The span of my hips,

The stride of my step,

The curl of my lips.

I’m a woman.

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That’s me.

Maya Angelou is one of the most influential women of our time. Her writing pulls on the hearts of many readers. In addition to her proliferous writing career, Maya Angelou has been a civil rights activist. This poem shows how even though someone is not beautiful on the outside compared to society’s standards, there is an inner beauty that makes a woman even more beautiful.

Being a ‘phenomenal woman’ is not about being a certain size, or a particular shape. It’s about how you carry yourself, and how you behave. As with several other classic Maya Angelou poems, ‘Phenomenal Woman’ is about being unbowed, about holding one’s head high and being proud of who one is.

5. It Couldn’t be done by Edgar Guest

Somebody said that it couldn’t be done,

But, he with a chuckle replied

That “maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one

Who wouldn’t say so till he had tried.

So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin

On his face. If he worried he hid it. 

He started to sing as he tackled the thing

That couldn’t be done, and he did it.

Edgar Albert Guest (1881-1959) published more than twenty volumes of poetry and over 11,000 poems. His first published poem and many more were published in the Detroit Free Press where he was a columnist. He later had both popular radio and television shows. Guest has been called “the poet of the people.” Of his poems he said, “I take simple everyday things that happen to me and I figure it happens to a lot of other people and I make simple rhymes out of them.”

He was known for his positive and inspiring poems. Writing in the early 20^th century, his work is often quoted as some of the earliest forms of modern self-help. It has been widely used in popular culture and its motivational tone can inspire success when we are facing tough challenges.