Rob Schlegel
In tonight's movie
a boat swerves against bullets.
He sings the movie's theme. I kill you,
you kill me. Plot against all
that is good.
from the journal
Poetry
What Sparks Poetry is a serialized feature in which we invite poets to explore experiences and ideas that spark new poems.
In the series The Poems of Others, we’ve invited poets to pay homage to the poems that led them to write.
Each essay is accompanied by a writing prompt based on an observation about the poem.
- October 27, 2021
Rita Dove
Impossible to keep a landscape in your head.
Try it: All you'll get is pieces—the sun
emerging from behind the mountain ridge,
smoke coming off the ice on a thawing lake.
- October 26, 2021
Catherine Pond
You like sex with other women
because it makes you feel safe,
she says. Nothing makes me
feel safe, I explain.
- October 25, 2021
Li-Young Lee
Because my father walked the earth with a grave,
determined rhythm, my shoulders ached
from his gaze. Because my father's shoulders
ached from the pulling of oars, my life now moves
with a powerful back-and-forth rhythm . . .
- October 24, 2021
Ahlam Bsharat (translated from the Arabic by Fady Joudah)
We had a cow, Obeidah the cow.
She had big wide eyes
but the whole herd had big wide eyes.
She was dappled
but the rest of them were dappled.
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