What Sparks Poetry is a serialized feature that explores experiences and ideas that spark the writing of new poems. In our third series, The Poems of Others II, twenty-four 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. 

I started Early – Took my Dog –
And visited the Sea –
The Mermaids in the Basement
Came out to look at me –

And Frigates – in the Upper Floor
Extended Hempen Hands –
Presuming Me to be a Mouse –
Aground – opon the Sands –

But no Man moved Me – till the Tide
Went past my simple Shoe –
And past my Apron – and my Belt
And past my Boddice – too –

And made as He would eat me up –
As wholly as a Dew
Opon a Dandelion's Sleeve –
And then – I started – too –

And He – He followed – close behind –
I felt His Silver Heel
Opon my Ancle – Then My Shoes
Would overflow with Pearl –

Until We met the Solid Town –
No One He seemed to know –
And bowing – with a Mighty look –
At me – The Sea withdrew –

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What Sparks Poetry:
Tanya Larkin on Emily Dickinson’s [I started Early—Took my Dog—]


“When I was in high school, I wrote out Emily Dickinson’s “[I started Early—Took my Dog—]” in outsize Goth-y script and taped it to my wall—understanding little of it. I had come across it while doing the dreaded twenty-page research paper for US History, the hallmark assignment of many a college prep school. My teacher was kind. He allowed me to take a patently literary topic and wrench it into a historical one, which is how I found myself leafing through Dickinson’s Collected looking for vaguely feminist poems. This one must have stood out in its forceful expression of utter female power."
READ THIS WEEK'S ISSUE

Aingeal Clare reviews the best of recent poetry collections. They include The Caiplie Caves by Karen Solie, The Mother House by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, A Portable Paradise by Roger Robinson; and Still Life by the late Ciaran Carson. 

via THE GUARDIAN
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