Floodplain

Emily Tuszynska
we walked and rested and walked again bowing                                                                 then kneeling to each contraction as it came                                                                 some bright bit of blue                                                                 caught on the far bank without panic I felt each crest carry me farther away from you
from the book Surfacing / Grayson Books

What Sparks Poetry is a serialized feature that explores experiences and ideas that spark the writing of new poems.

In Ecopoetry Now, invited poets engage in an ecopoetic conversation across borders. In poems and poetics statements, their work describes important local differences, including bioregion and language, as well as a shared concern for the Earth. We hope to highlight poetry’s integral role in creating and sustaining a broadly ecological imagination that is most alive when biologically, culturally, and linguistically diverse.

Emily Tuszynska on "Floodplain"
Photo: Emily Tuszynska
A. D. Lauren-Abunassar
Suppose          I have lost that false             start. Gone plunging my         hands in confession:              It's been years      since I fell in         love with the light of an ocean.

Who

Kevin Killian
His body, in state, or tumbled through a rinse cycle drying in the feathery wind lint on your net, your intersticed net, who I loved so long but not enough
Ariana Benson
Come, while the billows surge, the froth soft and warm. While foul minds lie blank. A body of water is, in the end, but a field in which you cannot be shackled. Know yourselves, now, as but souls clothed in skin, saying I do in refusal, as one above the arched break.
William Letford
Heard a noise from the forest and dropped into a crouch Imagined an empathy zombie Slevering kindness
Mónica de la Torre
In October, transmissions paused temporarily in certain regions of the planet. No marks made it to the page then, hence the retroactive declaratives.

Poetry Daily Depends on You

With your support, we make reading the best contemporary poetry a treasured daily experience. Consider a contribution today.

Each member of our diverse board selects poems for our daily poem feature and works with us to identify new outstanding, interesting publications for our thousands of daily readers.