What Sparks Poetry is a series of original essays that explores experiences and ideas that spark the writing of new poems. In Ecopoetry Now, invited poets highlight poetry’s integral role in sustaining our ecological imagination. Each Monday's delivery brings you a poem and an excerpt from the essay.
Timothy Donnelly
speaking. Do you read me? We have been waiting for you here
       in the shadow of our metaphor, under the seats of this thunderous
theater, on a hacienda loud with parakeets, which is itself
       an assemblage of assemblages. You can see how there is no

end to this. Times like these we are immortal together. Say the word
       and you’re our conqueror. Find the treasure and we split it
like an atom. Find the portal and we’ll take it like a daytrip, a trope,
       a paratrooper at the bomb bay door. We are what we are, only

infinitely better: old-school, ostensible, and not all that hiding
       stuff up our sleeves—it’s just arms and arms, which we admit to
freely. They extend to meet your needs. And how they keep you
       company: like a burgundy you can attune yourself to accordingly,

sip after sip. Golden apple, yellow pear. We are not worthless
       here, but cradled in a hold the escape from which is ever-imminent
even after it happens, even when we stand for nothing in particular
       other than the motion of it. More than furniture, more than vehicle

with wheels or wings, we are the voice you choose when you can’t
       choose two. We are your portion of all things. So if you feel as if
a spell is cast on you, or you can’t quite account for yourself, remember
       we’ll always be here at the bottom of it, over. All we have is life.
from the book CHARIOT / Wave Books
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Cover image of Timothy Donnelly's book, Chariot
What Sparks Poetry:
Matthew Tuckner on Ecopoetry Now

"Donnelly’s work has always been in conversation with Keats, but it is here, through Chariot’s strictness of form, that Donnelly broaches on what Keats called the 'egotistical sublime,' the notion that there is a direct correlation between 'voice' and environment. Form molds and directs the thinking in these poems, “This Is the Assemblage” included. Yet form also becomes a stricture to push against in these poems, further articulating the question asked by Whitman that Donnelly enlists as the book’s epigraph: 'to be in any form, what is that?'"
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Composite color image of the covers of the books shortlisted for the collection, and first collection, prizes
2024 Shortlists for Forward Prizes for Poetry

The United Kingdom and Ireland’s Forward Prizes for Poetry has announced this year’s quartet of categories, for a collection, a debut collection, a single poem, and a single performed poem, each with five shortlistees. "Actor, presenter, and poet Craig Charles is this year’s chair of jurors, joined by poets and writers Alycia Pirmohamed, Vanessa Kisuule, Daniel Sluman and Jane Clarke."

viaPUBLISHING PERSPECTIVES
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