Maps and poetry have long been getting together (although I’m guessing their counterparts, cartographers and poets, have sat down together with less frequency). To be more accurate, poetry has long been engaged with cartographic language, subjects, and metaphors. Work by Elizabeth Bishop and Eavan Boland, to cite just two examples, deals with maps.

As does our featured poetry for this week: three poems from Sarah Sarai that engage with mapping in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. Sarai plays with the idea of locating oneself in “We’re always in a room.”, and offers instructions for a sort of elusive treasure hunt in “A Territory of the Miracle.” Read them here.

And about that parenthetical in the first paragraph: I’m declaring the second half of March Take a Cartographer to Lunch Month. They’re nice folks, in my experience, deeply interested in the world and having all sorts of ideas one might not encounter in poetical circles. Hey, and if you do this, let us know–we’d love to hear how things go.

Have ideas about Sarah Sarai’s poems? About maps and poetry? Do tell (preferably here, in the comments section).