Barakat’s poetry is a confrontation between “language” and “meaning” that keeps the reader frustrated and searching for elusive interpretations. I find this enticing as a translator. "The Universe, All at Once" was a collaboration; Salim participated in selecting poems and excerpts. And while we had long discussions, he resisted analyzing his work. He set the challenge in his text, and I accepted it as a reader and a translator.
Huda J. Fakhreddine on Selections from A Spiritual Admonition |
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 | This April, Poetry Daily would like to turn the spotlight on YOU, the loving READER of poetry. What is it that makes you give yourself over to a poem? Which poem in Poetry Daily made you think, surprised you, moved you, or changed your world just a little?
Educators and students: we’d especially love to know what you think. What poems on Poetry Daily have excited you or inspired your own writing? How have our poems triggered students' enthusiasm and teaching breakthroughs? Maybe our poems have suggested writing prompts that approach the writing of poetry in new ways?
Choose any poem from our archive of more than two thousand poems since 2018 and tell us about it in 100 words or so. We’re not expecting a “professional” answer but one from your heart, nothing is too trivial—for a chance to be featured in our groundbreaking What Sparks Poetry series and win a free book!
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"A Conversation with Kaveh Akbar"
'In high school, I realized that being a writer was a thing you were allowed to do, specifically being a poet was just a thing that people still were, and that’s how they made their way through the world, 'Akbar says. 'I was like, "All right, that’s what I’ll be, then. Problem solved." I’ve never really wavered from that clarity.'"
via IOWA NOW |
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What Sparks Poetry:
Evie Shockley on Language as Form
"I found this truism (which seems to readily reproduce itself: 'one sin begets another,' 'one tragedy begets another,' 'one wedding begets another') bubbling up in my brain. If only one vote begat another in that inevitable way, I sighed, thinking of how hard it was to get women’s right to vote established as the law of the land—and of how long it was after that before Black women were able to exercise their 'women’s rights.'" |
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