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.
"Each time I read 'Superpower,' I’m astonished by the turns the poem keeps making: from the playful to the horrifying, spanning over a hundred years in a few lines. The poem moves from an imagined fantasy of a superhero, to the folk hero John Henry, to an unnamed enslaved woman, to a (re)imagined memory of the speaker’s mother."
"To read Judith Hall over nearly three decades is to witness the evolution of a genuine poetic innovator less interested in self-promotion, publication, and awards (although she’s won a significant number of major prizes) than in formal enactments of difficult truths—often painful truths about girlhood, beauty, violence, illness, and the limits of language itself."
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.
