In February of this year The New York Times Magazine announced a revamped issue with new fonts, columns, writers, and most surprisingly the announcement that they planned to publish a poem each week: Poetry is often seen as a quaint preoccupation, but we believe it is a vital experience, particularly when published within a newspaper, where the clamor of pressing timely items calls for the counterpoint of a more timeless note.

Needless to say, as the author of nine books of poetry, I was thrilled to read this announcement and curious to see just how they’d present the work. For four months now Natasha Trethewey, former U.S Poet Laureate, and professor at Emory University has selected a single poem from a number of poets, introducing each work with a comment on how the piece impacts her personally.