Tony Hoagland
Because it is all right to be in a bad mood there,
slouching along through the underground garage...
from the book
Turn Up the Ocean: Poems /
Graywolf Press
What Sparks Poetry is a serialized feature in which we invite poets to explore experiences and ideas that spark new poems.
In Books We’ve Loved, we asked our editorial board members and select guest editors 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.
- June 24, 2022
Mosab Abu Toha
My father gave me a difficult name.
Inside it sit two letters that don’t exist in English.
- June 23, 2022
Susan Stewart
Now that the thread has caught fire,
the hem lies ragged.
Now that the pain throbs deep,
the vein appears.
- June 22, 2022
Hayan Charara
The trees alongside the fence
bear fruit, the limbs and leaves speeches
to you and me. They promise to give the world
back to itself.
- June 21, 2022
Szilárd Borbély (translated from the Hungarian by Ottilie Mulzet)
We are troubled if we must speak of death,
which is merely a part of existence. It is not existence
itself. It is nothing but a ray of light falling obliquely
on the forking branches bending above the path.
Poetry Daily Depends on You
With your support, we make reading the best contemporary poetry a treasured daily experience. Consider a contribution today.
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.
