Poetry speaks, in part, the language of place—exterior, interior, and especially the intersection where the outer and inner come together, that vital third place that is evoked in these poems.

Narrative poems move time forward; lyric poems often try to capture the experience of a single moment in time, and reading “Hum”—especially aloud—presents the brief but unforgettable experience of getting buzzed by a hummingbird.

A major theme in 'Ordinary Psalms' is the speaker’s incipient loss of sight, a condition with rich metaphorical possibilities for the blindness of humanity in the abstract and also more concretely in recent American political cycles.

I love poems like this one that help me retrieve memories of my childhood in Pennsylvania.

So many events from the past reappear in a different light, and in that light how often my parenting was found wanting. Can any mother escape blame? We are fallen gods. — Meryl Natchez

This poem is about thirst and how a life of thirst then quenched with a fistful of water can make you contend with all the women you could have been, the children you could have had, and the ever-changing body you are given.

My poems “Revision” and “Definitions” were both written out of a need to grapple with my experience of being trapped and defined by my female body—by the physical, biological, often excruciating facts of it—in a way that men are spared.

That’s an effective strategy, choosing a title that multiplies associations in the reader’s mind even before the poem is read. Will the poem involve any of these things, or instead, play off of my expectations and surprise me?