What Sparks Poetry is a serialized feature that explores experiences and ideas that spark the writing of new poems. In our new series, Object Lessons, poets meditate on the magical journey from object to poem via one of their own poems. Each Monday's delivery brings you the poem and an excerpt from the essay.
One winter I lived north, alone and effortless, dreaming myself into the past. Perhaps, I thought, words could replenish privacy. Outside, a red bicycle froze into form, made the world falser in its white austerity. So much happens after harvest: the moon performing novelty: slaughter, snow. One hour the same as the next, I held my own hands or held the snow. I was like sculpture, forgetting or, perhaps, remembering everything. Red wings in the snow, red thoughts ablaze in the war I was having with myself again. Everything I hate about the world I hate about myself, even now writing as if this were a law of nature. Say there were deer fleet in the snow, walking out the cold, and more gingkoes bare in the beggar’s grove. Say I was not the only one who saw or heard the trees, their diffidence greater than my noise. Perhaps the future is a tiny flame I’ll nick from a candle. First, I’m burning. Then, numb. Why must every winter grow colder, and more sure?
"For days I could go nowhere. The temperature dwelled stubbornly below freezing. The roads were too slick to walk on. My car was encased in ice, a solid blue cube, and, quite comically, a red bicycle, leaning against a nearby shed, seemed to be waiting for me. I sat at the window, wearing two sweaters, looking at it."
"In one scene, when Richard returns to England after war, he presses his head to the earth and whispers lovingly to the land. Here it’s as if you were hearing Holland speak his sweet nothings in your ear, so intimate you could almost feel his breath against your cheek."
Resources for Supporting and Uplifting the Black Community
Thurgood Marshall College Fund: The Thurgood Marshall College Fund supports "public historically black colleges and universities and students. The fund has grown well beyond merely providing scholarships. It tackles the obstacles students face before, during and after college."
The African American Planning Commission (AAPC) Inc.: The AAPC is "a New York City-based nonprofit organization committed to reducing homelessness and addressing the related issues of domestic violence, HIV/AIDS, mental illness, substance abuse, shortage of affordable housing, and unemployment."
Black to the Future: "Black to the Future Action Fund is a think tank / act tank that works to make Black communities powerful in politics. We build our capacity to design, win, and implement changes to the problems we face. We expand and protect democracy, and fight for our democracy to work for us."
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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