‘The process of writing a poem feels like a form of daydreaming. That imaginative aspect makes it possible to visit another person’s mind. Of course, detailed research is necessary before beginning, but once I’ve read a lot of first-person narratives from a particular historical situation, I feel empathetic enough to venture into a sort of time travel, asking what living in that era and geographic location felt like. I don’t pretend to offer complete answers. Poetry is a process of questioning. I think one of the most important devices for achieving this time travel approach is the combination of first person and present tense, both so common in verse yet relatively rare in historical prose.’
Cuban American poet and novelist-in-verse Margarita Engle, the American Poetry Foundation’s Young People’s Poet Laureate