What Sparks Poetry is a serialized feature in which we invite writers to explore experiences and ideas that spark new poems and other writing. In Delineated: Prose Writers on Poetry, prominent writers of fiction and non-fiction reflect on how poetry illuminates their creative lives, whether as inspiration, a daily practice, or a thread of hope through difficult times.
She says, Your English is great! How long have you been in our country? I say, Suck on a mango, bitch, since that’s all you think I eat anyway. Mangoes
are what margins like me know everything about, right? Doesn’t a mango just win spelling bees and kiss white boys? Isn’t a mango
a placeholder in a poem folded with burkas? But this one, the one I’m going to slice and serve down her throat, is a mango
that remembers jungles jagged with insects, the river’s darker thirst. This mango was cut down by a scythe that beheads soldiers, mango
that taunts and suns itself into a hard-palmed fist only a few months per year, fattens while blood stains green ponds. Why use a mango
to beat her perplexed? Why not a coconut? Because this “exotic” fruit won’t be cracked open to reveal whiteness to you. This mango
isn’t alien just because of its gold-green bloodline. I know I’m worth waiting for. I want to be kneaded for ripeness. Mango:
my own sunset-skinned heart waiting to be held and peeled, mango I suck open with teeth. Tappai! This is the only way to eat a mango.
"Faizullah to me is a poet that speaks to in-betweenness and to the myths of model minorities. That night in Vermont, I felt electric when I heard the poem. Her anger was something I had been scared to ever utter."
"Friederike Mayröcker, who was among the most influential and decorated German-language poets of the postwar period, died on Friday in Vienna. She was 96."
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.
