What Sparks Poetry is a serialized feature that explores experiences and ideas that spark the writing of new poems. In the newest series, Life in Public, we ask our editors to examine how poetry speaks to different aspects of public experience. Each Monday's delivery brings you the poem and an excerpt from the essay.   
1

They take them out in the morning
to the stone courtyard
and put them against the wall

five men
two of them very young
the others middle-aged

nothing more
can be said about them

2

when the platoon
level their guns
everything suddenly appears
in the garish light
of obviousness

the yellow wall
the cold blue
the black wire on the wall
instead of a horizon

that is the moment
when the five senses rebel
they would gladly escape
like rats from a sinking ship

before the bullet reaches its destination
the eye will perceive the flight of the projectile
the ear record a steely rustle
the nostrils will be filled with biting smoke
a petal of blood will brush the palate
the touch will shrink and then slacken

now they lie on the ground
covered up to their eyes with shadow
the platoon walks away
their buttons straps
and steel helmets
are more alive
than those lying beside the wall

3

I did not learn this today
I knew it before yesterday

so why have I been writing
unimportant poems on flowers

what did the five talk of
the night before the execution

of prophetic dreams
of an escapade in a brothel
of automobile parts
of a sea voyage
of how when he had spades
he ought not to have opened
of how vodka is best
after wine you get a headache
of girls
of fruit
of life

thus one can use in poetry
names of Greek shepherds
one can attempt to catch the color of morning sky
write of love
and also
once again
in dead earnest
offer to the betrayed world
a rose
from the book THE COLLECTED POEMS  1956-1998 / Ecco Press
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"In a 1987 interview that appeared in the Partisan Review, the Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert said, 'It is vanity to think that one can influence the course of history by writing poetry. It is not the barometer that changes the weather.' With that metaphor, we are asked to see poetry as a gauge, a measure, a tool, a way of understanding the nature of phenomenon.”
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"I would like to see a culture in which people encounter the work of Natalie Eilbert, or Terrance Hayes, or James K. Baxter, or Emily Dickinson, or Langston Hughes, or Geoffrey Chaucer in the way that we encounter the latest Halsey single. Or maybe the way that we encounter—oh, what’s a really good television show?—Dead to Me."  

via LOS ANGELES REVIEW OF BOOKS
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Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest (17th Year)

Sponsored by Winning Writers and co-sponsored by Duotrope. $5,000 in cash prizes, including $2,000 for a poem in any style and $2,000 for a poem that rhymes or has a traditional style. Both published and unpublished work accepted. Submit by September 30. See guidelines, past winners, and enter online via Submittable at winningwriters.com/tompoetry
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