Ladan Osman
My mother walked Liido Beach every morning when pregnant.
I know the mineral scent of saltwater wherever I am.
If the sun bakes the metal of earth, if my own damp scalp sweats,
if I hold my hennaed palms to my face.
from the book
Exiles of Eden /
Coffee House Press
What Sparks Poetry is a serialized feature in which we invite poets to explore experiences and ideas that spark new poems. In the newest series, The Poems of Others II, twenty-four poets pay homage to the poems that led them to write.
- November 19, 2019
Susan Laughter Meyers
What falls from the sky is not always rain
or any kind of weather. Call it precipitous.
I'm fooling myself, of course. Wearing sorrow
is nothing like skin shedding water.
It's more like the weight of a cloak of crows.
- November 18, 2019
Aracelis Girmay
But to be perfectly clear,
my enemies are not hungry.
They are not standing in lines
for food, or stretching rations,
or waiting at the airports
to claim the pieces
of the bodies of their dead.
My enemies ride jets to parties.
- November 17, 2019
Chad Abushanab
There are things you can't learn over the phone,
like how each day your mother's losing weight.
Her hug has turned to a burlap sack of bones.
You imagine it sharp and cold. Her heart beats
jaggedly. There's dark beneath her eyes.
- November 16, 2019
Martha Silano
when pigeon guillemots gulp
Doritos bags, there's no room
in a gut for a mollusk, a morsel
of crab. Punches holes
in their organs. Strips parts. Scraps
scripts. When birds chew Blowpop
wrappers, guzzle Glad bags,
courtship desists.
Poetry Daily Depends on You
With your support, we make reading the best contemporary poetry a treasured daily experience. Consider a contribution today.
We are thrilled to introduce our new editorial board, whose range of individual experience and expertise will bring new poems and publishers to our thousands of readers.
