A poem should go beyond what you already know, and if it’s going to go beyond what you already know, a poem might say something that begins to have y… - Jericho Brown

It is the hardest thing to take chaos and make order of it. Poetry is a veil in front of a heart beating at a very fast pace.

A metaphor is a sign of desperation when we need another world to describe what we are feeling. Metaphors are about desperation and safety. We call out to metaphor because a metaphor makes us feel safe.

What happens at the beginning of your poem has to—because it’s a poem—be transformed by the end of your poem. So if the triggering moment for the beginning of your poem is a known political moment, I am fine with that, that’s great. But as I’m reading, I expect it to change because that was just the trigger…