Reflections on the Teche

I am judging the first round of Cybils Poetry this fall. If you have a favorite poetry book or verse novel that was published between October 16, 2020 and October 15, 2021, consider nominating it here.

In her poem “Taking Out the Trash,” the late poet Kamilah Aisha Moon, who died at the age of forty-eight last week, takes a seemingly mundane task and makes the activity profound. Write a poem about a daily chore or everyday task that brings attention to your body. Try, as Moon does in her poem, to take time describing the movements of your body.

Poets and Writers, The Time is Now

I often write poems on my daily walks. Maybe I’m building a collection of these? Today’s poem is in conversation with Kamilah Aisha’s poem Taking out the Trash. It is definitely in drafty draft stage.

Viking Funeral
after Kamilah Aisha Moon

On trash Monday
when the men of the house rush out
to fill the can with white bags bulging 
with detritus of our lives,
I turn my pace against the wind,
watch toilet paper streamers (is it homecoming?) 
grow into ghostlings dancing beneath old oaks.
They mound like fairy mushrooms in a circle around bulging roots.
I gather my dog’s waste into a green bag,
flip it around my hand like a glove. The neighbor
stops her barely awake car, rolls down the window to say thank you
for being a responsible pet owner.
I guess not everyone does this. Some leave their trash
where it lands to rot and rest until the soaking rain washes
it out to sea. Place me
in a canoe for a Viking’s burial, my husband says.
There will come a time to say goodbye, to lay our bodies
down to fire, but let me be
breathing today, again and again,
not ready to release air into fire.

Margaret Simon, draft

Ever since I read Naomi Shihab Nye’s collection Cast Away with poems about trash, I pay more careful attention on my walks. I pick up things I can carry and create my own poems about trash.

Irene has the round-up today. She has an amazing collection of poems about art called Artspeak. I asked my second grader to choose a poem to read today and copy. She chose Why Roses. We copied the form on the board like this:

Why ____________

because…

because…

because…

because…

I am __________________

Here is Avalyn’s debut poem on my blog about the Van Gogh painting Starry Starry Night.

Why Starry Night!
after Irene Latham

because our solar system has stars
because the stars are in the Milky Way
because the moon looks like a face
because stars make constellations
I am the galaxy.

by Avalyn, second grade

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