Breathe. As in. (shadow)

“I often revise poems using my ‘shadow poems’ exercise detailed in the book Spellbound: The Art of Teaching Poetry. I take a poem, and then rewrite it in different ways or contexts: the poem’s shadow, the poem with mustard, the poem divorced, etc. This poem is the ‘shadow’ of ‘Breathe. As in.’, a response to Eric Garner’s murder by police, which was originally published in Transition magazine. Both poems are part of my ‘Living in the Abattoir’ series, set in a speculative space similar to the USA, in which people of color live in an abattoir (slaughterhouse) in which they are both workers and meat. The poems address how under difficult circumstances people pursue both survival and joy.”
—Rosamond S. King

Thanks to Samiya Bashir, author of Field Theories (Nightboat Books, 2017), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month’s weekdays. Read a Q&A with Bashir about her curatorial approach this month and find out more about our guest editors for the year.