The Year in Dispatches, Poetry

This week, as we look back on the year, I’d like to highlight the work of some of the poets featured in Dispatches. It’s sometimes hard to pin a location to a poem, and at the same time, a poem can often take readers more accurately to the heart of a place than a reported dispatch. This year’s poems took readers all over the world, from sleepy American towns to European cities to remote forests and islands. Here are a few of my favorites, all worth a second look:

Yvette Christiansë’s haunting “Uneasy Sleep”, which takes readers to a tiny island in the depths of the South Atlantic;

Cralan Kelder’s spare painting of Bali, “Bring ‘Em Home”;

Krista Leahy’s late night in a small town, “Redressed”;

Brian Simoneau’s view of the Pacific, “Poem With Snowy Plovers”;

and finally, poet Kobus Moolman’s moving essay about teaching poetry in prison.

Photo from Flickr Creative Commons