Stumbling into Metaphors

Most of my poems begin with people and the things and places that matter to them. These offer up details that I hope will make readers feel as if they're there, but because every word matters, the details have to do more than evoke a setting. Sometimes they'll create a mood, which I don't have to spell out. Sometimes I'll repeat them through a series of poems to set a pattern, and show what's constant and what changes in a life. In the section of Borrowed Names about Madam C. J. Walker and he...