What Sparks Poetry is a serialized feature that explores experiences and ideas that spark the writing of new poems. In The Poems of Others, invited poets pay homage to the poems that led them to write. Each Monday's delivery brings you the poem and an excerpt from the essay.
My father, in heaven, is reading out loud
to himself Psalms or news. Now he ponders what
he's read. No. He is listening for the sound
of children in the yard. Was that laughing
or crying? So much depends upon the
answer, for either he will go on reading,
or he'll run to save a child's day from grief.
As it is in heaven, so it was on earth.

Because my father walked the earth with a grave,
determined rhythm, my shoulders ached
from his gaze. Because my father's shoulders
ached from the pulling of oars, my life now moves
with a powerful back-and-forth rhythm:
nostalgia, speculation. Because he
made me recite a book a month, I forget
everything as soon as I read it. And knowledge
never comes but while I'm mid-stride a flight
of stairs, or lost a moment on some avenue.

A remarkable disappointment to him,
I am like anyone who arrives late
in the millennium and is unable
to stay to the end of days. The world's
beginnings are obscure to me, its outcomes
inaccessible. I don't understand
the source of starlight, or starlight's destinations.
And already another year slides out
of balance. But I don’t disparage scholars;
my father was one and I loved him,
who packed his books once, and all of our belongings,
then sat down to await instruction
from his god, yes, but also from a radio.
At the doorway, I watched, and I suddenly
knew he was one like me, who got my learning
under a lintel; he was one of the powerless,
to whom knowledge came while he sat among
suitcases, boxes, old newspapers, string.

He did not decide peace or war, home or exile,
escape by land or escape by sea.
He waited merely, as always someone
waits, far, near, here, hereafter, to find out:
is it praise or lament hidden in the next moment?
from the book THE CITY IN WHICH I LOVE YOU / BOA Editions LLC
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Cover of Li-Young Lee's book, The City in Which I Love You
"The more I studied 'My Father, in Heaven...,' the more I appreciated the stanzas’ complexity, pattern-making, and interiority, and how the poem reflected the lyric’s capacity as a communal art. I knew this is what I wanted. Whether I could write anything of dimension was uncertain. But in Lee’s work I discovered textures of energy, music, and intimacy I hoped to emulate—even if I couldn’t predict my effort’s outcome."
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Color headshot of Luke Kennard
"Luke Kennard Wins Forward Poetry Prize"

"Kennard’s Notes on the Sonnets, published by small press Penned in the Margins, took the prestigious £10,000 award in London on Sunday evening, beating shortlisted poets including Kayo Chingonyi and Tishani Doshi. Notes on the Sonnets is a collection of prose poems responding to Shakespeare’s, set at an awkward house party, with a line from a sonnet introducing each poem." 

via THE GUARDIAN
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Join Mason Creative Writing students, faculty, and administrators for an online open house and discover one of the country's more distinctive MFA programs. With opportunities through our brand-new Center for Literary Engagement and Publishing Practice, an MFA from Mason can make all the difference to your artistic and professional life.

Register here or call 703-993-1185.
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