Room Service

                                                                            Another night had slipped through that seine and swum on
Ted Kooser
from the book Raft / Copper Canyon Press

What Sparks Poetry is a serialized feature in which we invite poets to explore experiences and ideas that spark new poems. 

In our current series, Object Lessons, we’re thinking about the relationship between the experienced and imagined world. We have asked our editors and invited poets to present one of their own poems in combination with the object that inspired it, and to meditate on the magical journey from object to poem. 
 
Each essay is accompanied by a writing prompt which we hope you will find useful in your own writing practice or in the classroom.
Mary-Alice Daniel on "One Hell"
Photo: Mary-Alice Daniel
Anthony Vahni Capildeo
Did I dance with you on the blue carpet? Was your ship called the Providence? The Invitation? Was your ship called Guerilla Diplomacy?
Liz Countryman
How tiny I wanted us to be on our journey which was a centimeter of atlas.
Fernando Trujillo
was it loss you felt? Does a body crossing mark across the body?
Gwen Sayers
When you polish his knuckles, forget your bruises. They're safe in the chest with dead ends, nightmares and shadows he fought.
Mary-Alice Daniel
One-bedroom disaster mansion One black hole & bad experiment One romantic Wow! after another One forest becomes abundantly fell

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Each member of our diverse board selects poems for our daily poem feature and works with us to identify new outstanding, interesting publications for our thousands of daily readers.