[…]

Fady Joudah
All disasters are natural including this one because humans are natural.
from the book [...] / Milkweed Editions

What Sparks Poetry is a serialized feature that explores experiences and ideas that spark the writing of new poems.

In Ecopoetry Now, invited poets engage in an ecopoetic conversation across borders. In poems and poetics statements, their work describes important local differences, including bioregion and language, as well as a shared concern for the Earth. We hope to highlight poetry’s integral role in creating and sustaining a broadly ecological imagination that is most alive when biologically, culturally, and linguistically diverse.

Jared Stanley on "So Tough"
Photo: Jared Stanley
Besmilr Brigham
the peace of a field making grain wind in a high tree where leaves are; birds flying in from rain their low wings drooping with moisture
Mónica Gomery
And you ask again for a day of celestial advances. You ask to be witnessed, wearing your mother's old shoes. Wearing the sky's yellow blue bruise.
Shane McCrae
What object could I,     if I stood before     Them, any ancestor,     what object could I gesture to, to    start to learn the language
Jared Stanley
a baseless waft, a mountain of sand; your restless shape cupped by all the places a grain finds to rest
Peter Cook and Kenny Lerner (translated from the American Sign Language by John Lee Clark)
Need, frantic need, eagle-​taloned need is a pumping drill. The oil sloshes to the brim. The lid slams and it’s a tanker spewing smoke.

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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.