Before I began this poem I made a list of short, simple words: bottle, door, note, globe, then put them together without any clear intention, except for sound and rhythm. A week later, on the twentieth draft, I began to see where the poem might be going, and wrote the last two lines with the state of the world, and our country, in mind. When the poem appeared in "The Paris Review" in September 2020, many readers told me how it summed up their feelings about the pandemic. I hesitated to tell them I wrote the poem in 2019, before the pandemic. But I know how tired they were then too.Wyn Cooper on "Message in a Bottle" |
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Let the Light Shine in 2021
Welcome to a new year of the best contemporary poetry delivered to your inbox every morning. We hope the poems we choose delight and inspire you, whether they are written in English or translated from the cornucopia of the world’s languages. Stay safe and stay well. |
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"On Mark Bibbins’s 13th Balloon""The intimacy captured here, particularly in the verbal exchange between the speaker and the beloved, is raw, self-deprecating, and real. The speaker of these poems is a witness—coming to the hospital to watch his beloved die—and is always aware of both the failure and the necessity of that witnessing." |
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 | | 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. |
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What Sparks Poetry:
Mónica de la Torre on "Variation I""Take, for example, the 'verdura' rhyming with 'segura' in the Camões, which in the translations I’ve already written appears as verdure, greenery, and lushness depending on what the variation in question most needs. Hatherly does this herself throughout when she uses a range of synonyms, and interestingly also thought of her reinterpretation of traditional texts as an act of translation that has the effect of altering the original." |
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