Leslie Battle seeks, finds connection in ‘From Spark to Fire’

Though poetry has long been an integral part of Leslie Battle’s existence – she still has in her possession a poetry journal she kept in eighth grade, which she said is filled with verses trading in heavy issues such as racism and depression – it wasn’t until more recent years that she finally accepted the reality that she is indeed a poet.

“When we were doing ‘Weaving the Threads,’ the first [writing workshop] in ’24, it was a monthlong series, and I think it was the third week before I was like, ‘I’m actually a poet,’ as opposed to being like, ‘I’m just a stand-up comic and I’m not sure why y’all let me in here,’ said Battle, who will take part in the “From Spark to Fire” poetry reading at Streetlight Guild on Sunday, Dec. 7, appearing alongside Karen Scott, Marquita Byars, Schyler Butler, Rachael Scott, and Miccau McClelland. (The readers were all part of a recently concluded workshop orchestrated by Sayuri Matsuura Ayers that required each to work toward a full-length poetry collection for release.) “And I’m so grateful to these programs, which have really gotten me to focus on my writing again. And it’s only in the last 18 months to two years where I’ve finally been like, ‘Why don’t I put a book out into the world and see who could benefit?’”

Some of the poems in the collection assembled by Battle date back more than a decade, collectively documenting her gradual rebound from grief, a handful of its earliest verses having first emerged when she was fresh off of a divorce and not long after she lost a child to meningitis. 

“And I was going to my counseling sessions and saying I was fine. And I wasn’t, but there was some trauma defense stuff in play, because I didn’t want to trust other people with the parts of me that were vulnerable,” said Battle, who traditionally in these moments has turned to the page, describing her notebook as the one place she has always been able to fully let down her guard. “I have one poem specifically that deals with an abusive episode – not super graphically, but basically what my thought process was at that moment. And I actually read it to my therapist, and he was like, ‘People would benefit from hearing that, because there are so many people who don’t understand the dynamics of an abusive relationship and why people stay in them. And you being able to articulate that is kind of uncommon.’ And that’s the thing I’m hoping to demonstrate with this collection, at least, showing that there’s space for grief but also giving yourself a way to move forward.”

Battled credited the “strength in numbers” granted by her fellow “From Spark to Fire” cohorts with giving her the courage to finally assemble her collection, tentatively titled Caution: Reconstruction Zone and planned for spring 2026 publication. The process has been clarifying for the poet, who acknowledged that she has developed a greater sense of empathy for the younger version of herself, whose pained verses make up the earliest chapters of the book. (The collection is structured around sections named for the five stages of grief and progresses linearly through time.)

“I’m learning to love her a lot, where in those [initial] moments I was more self-critical,” said Battle, a military veteran who went on to compare this emotional healing with recovering from a physical wound. “I mean, scar tissue has its place, right? And I think what’s really worth exploring is, okay, you’ve gotten this wound and it’s scarred, and we call it healed. But did you really get the wound cleaned out? Or is there something in there festering?”

The shift in tone is evident as the collection progresses, with more recent poems focused on those moments of calm that can exist amid the turbulence and the sense of perspective that has begun to introduce itself in the writer with age. 

“I’m in a much better place in life at this moment, so a lot of the things I write about now have more to do with reflecting on living in this time and making sure I do notice the things that bring me joy,” said Battle, who envisions this collection as the first in a series of four. (“Not including my memoir,’ she added.) “There are definitely parts of this collection where it’s like, ‘I survived it, and there were times it wasn’t pretty, but I’m okay now.’ And really, if you’re not feeling pretty right now, it’s okay. … More than anything, I hope that what I put out is in some way encouraging to people. Things are heavy right now, and what I want is for folks to not feel as isolated and alone.”