When New Zealand psychologist Benjamin Betts attempted to map human consciousness with mathematical methods, I was taken by the shape of these metaphysical landscapes, their soft hues, familiar shapes, and aspiration for precision. The only things missing were the ancestors who haunt my own consciousness that is often wide awake at night. It is in these conversations with personal ghosts that insomnia becomes a nocturne in search of home.Monica Ong on "YELLOW INSOMNIA." and "AMBER INSOMNIA." |
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Palestinian Poetry Collections Recommended by Kaveh Akbar
"Darwish is a really important Palestinian poet, editor, and journalist, and [No One Will Know You Tomorrow] is a selection of the past decade of his poetry. That means that it travels the gamut. There are storytelling poems, where he creates myths and little miniature fables, almost like snow globes that you can shake and hold up to the light. There are dream visions about a homeland from which he has long been exiled. There are also love poems."
viaTHE NEW YORKER |
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What Sparks Poetry: Carol Moldaw on Drafts
"In many ways, this draft marks the end of my blind groping and the beginning of the poem proper. Nothing I’d written up to that point had caught my poetic interest linguistically; my thoughts, preoccupations, and perceptions had been floating around without substance or anchor. In this draft though, images began to coalesce, and the lines develop a distinctive voice—the poem’s voice." |
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