Working in the spirit of Krysten Hill’s “Nothing,” write a poem built around a single word. This can be a word you love or are in awe of, one that challenges or eludes you, one you fear or find comforting, one you hear too often or too little, one you simply cannot shake. Whatever you decide, let this word be your anchor, what you keep circling, interrogating, and reimagining. Consider how Hill treats “nothing” as a site of accumulation: a pressure point, a negligence, a curiosity, a means for connection, a word that means something different depending on who speaks it. As you write, allow your word to become equally layered. To speak, to change shape, to teach or surprise you, to reveal its many rooms. 

Here’s the link to the poem: https://poets.org/poem/nothing

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Susan L. Leary (she/her) is the author of SENTENCE (Nine Syllables Press, fall 2026), selected by Eugenia Leigh as the winner of the Nine Syllables Press Chapbook Contest; More Flowers (Trio House Press, February 2026); and Dressing the Bear (Trio House Press, 2024), selected by Kimberly Blaeser as the winner of the Louise Bogan Award. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in such places as Indiana Review, North American Review, Third Coast, Cream City Review, Smartish Pace, The Arkansas International, and Verse Daily. She holds an MFA from the University of Miami and lives in Indianapolis, IN.