What Sparks Poetry is a serialized feature in which we invite poets to explore experiences and ideas that spark new poems. In Summer Reading, we asked our editorial board members to reflect on a book that has been particularly meaningful to them in the last year, with the intention of creating a list of book recommendations for our valued readers.
Listen. The rug is wet because I stood here. Because it started pouring. Because your door was open and I was under a tree. Because it was raining. Because the rain and tree both were in your backyard. Because so was I. Because you weren’t home. Because I knew you were bowling. Because I walk your road. Because your road goes by your house. Because I felt like a walk. Because it was going to rain. Because your door is never locked.
Editor’s Note Jill Osier suffered serious injuries as a pedestrian in a vehicle-pedestrian accident on June 19, 2021 in Fairbanks, Alaska. She is currently in the ICU at Providence Anchorage Medical Center. Please consider donating to the GoFundMe page set up to help support Jill and her family
"Osier is a poet I have never met and about whom I know very little, but her poems are mysterious, rich in their clarity, uncanniness, and clairvoyance. Her work feels at once familiar and strange, and that quality has haunted me."
In a series of creative riffs, Terrance Hayes reflects on why Yusef Komunyakaa remains one of our greatest living writers. "What does it mean to know in Everyday Mojo Songs Of Earth? It sounds less fixed than 'knowledge.' It’s the kind of 'knowing' that is glimpsed; it is insistent and fixed as a refrain."
Poetry Daily stands with the Black community. We oppose racism, oppression, and police brutality. We will continue to amplify diverse voices in the poetry world. Black Lives Matter.
