ABSTRACT
Poems don’t begin in poets’ heads. They begin with the earth upon which poets live. Nothing exists without that sustaining ground and poets are not ones to forget that. Indeed, poets revel in earthliness and earthiness: Their task, in many ways, is to take the full measure of what it is to live on earth. They seek to take nothing for granted and to touch the particular vibrancy of any patch of that ground-or asphalt or floor-beneath their feet. Any place in this world is rich in actualities-geographical,
environmental, historical, personal, and political. Poets summon up the welter of feelings that adhere to places.
