What Sparks Poetry is a serialized feature that explores experiences and ideas that spark the writing of new poems. In our fourth series, Object Lessons, poets meditate on the magical journey from object to poem via one of their own poems. Each Monday's delivery brings you the poem and an excerpt from the essay.
The island I called Hag Island in this poem isn’t, after the ten or so years since I wrote 'Local History,' an island anymore, not even at full high tide. What was island has become something more like a hump in the marsh. The salt brook that runs through has shallowed out and shifted. Everyday erosion and hurricane winds will do that."
Writers and editors from around The Atlantic's newsroom choose poems to revisit and savor. "Poems hold power. As my colleague Hannah Giorgis put it: 'Whether by conveying the scale of national grief during a pandemic, or exposing the relentlessness of racism, poetry has already created new ways of experiencing, and surviving, life’s darkest chapters.'"
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.
