Jeffrey Yang
I performed the sacred rite
as it had been handed down through me
my feet blackened with earth
and in her cognizance she clarified
the poison surging within me
from the book
Hey, Marfa /
Graywolf Press
What Sparks Poetry is a new, serialized feature in which we invite poets to explore experiences and ideas that spark new poems. In the first series, The Poems of Others, our editors pay homage to the poems that led them to write.
- June 18, 2019
Brendan Constantine
From you. Right now,
you're giving me ideas.
One of them is worth millions.
Another is a small harp
playing in your coat.
- June 17, 2019
W.S. Merwin
I remember that I am falling
That I am the reason
And that my words are the garment of what I shall never be
Like the tucked sleeve of a one-armed boy
- June 16, 2019
Lee Ann Roripaugh
the hunger of trying to hold back
the hunger a little bit longer
the hunger of restraint and pullback
- June 15, 2019
Henk Rossouw
I was the sea-foam kid bruises on my face
with a school tie copied from the British
and knotted like a garrote.
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