A Worm Moon In March

Welcome to A Worm Moon, a poetry newsletter where I, Phoenix Yemi, share what I've been reading and writing through the month.

We arrived at the worm moon on the 25th March. It's the 5th of April, and I'd like to tell you that it came and I was singing at the gates of spring waiting, patiently, for the sun to let me in. But in truth I have been frantic, on my hands and knees looking for the earthworms, wondering when the ache will shift. It doesn't feel like spring and my faith is in shades of grey.

At the moment, I'm thinking about Getrude Stein and the roses. How maybe "a rose is a rose is a rose" is to say there is no word no other way for me to come close to the experience of a rose but you know and I know that despite the futility, the poetry is my way of trying. And then I think about hope, about the distance between expectation and reality, and how to surrender is to acknowledge that the perfect shade of green is elusive. Which is not to say that you don't stop dreaming, but that maybe for a moment this patch of moss will do, I am alive.

Yesterday, for a moment it felt like spring. I was walking down a long sloping staircase and the floor was a bed of rose petals. Bright and pink and red. The sky was blue. And the memory of summer was something vivid.

1

I was thinking about Mary Oliver's 'Worm Moon' when I wrote this poem. It's part of her collection Twelve Moons, where she writes about the shifting lunar cycles, the natural world, and how death is woven into the fabric of life. Part of the title and the last stanza are words from this poem. Sometimes I worry it's lazy but I like to think it's my way of acknowledging that I didn't arrive to the poetry alone. I'll share that poem below.

The collage features the painting *Figure holding a little teacup, 2019* by Somaya Critchlow.

2

We move towards liberation with the understanding that the work doesn't stop until all of us are free. I feel this deeply when I read the poets who have dedicated their voices to truth-telling injustice. Here are two poems that have affected me, the first by Fadwa Tuqan and the second by Mahmoud Darwish. I came across them in Against Erasure: A Photographic Memory of Palestine before the Nakba by Teresa Aranguren & Sandra Barrilaro, and I want to share them with you to commemorate Land Day in Palestine.

3

I've spent a lot of time with Gioconda Belli's poetry this month. I've been reading her collection From Eve's Rib and it feels so rich in eroticism and love and deep unwavering devotion to Nicaragua and the freedom of her people from dictatorship. These are two poems that I come back to often.

4

A blackout poem. It happened because I've been thinking a lot about form. Most of my poems are free verse, but after I read an interview with the poet Shane McCrae I couldn't stop thinking about writing sestinas.

He says something about how the form talks back to you, and I think it's in the frustration. You have to surrender and trust that the poem will tell you where it wants to go and that you have the capacity to follow. If you want to read my first sestina, here's a link. I'm in the process of writing another one, but I want to share with you the beginning and in the next Worm Moon you'll have the first draft in your inbox. The title of it I feel will be 'I'm Alive, Like A Wound' which is a line from Clarice Lispector's novel Agua Viva. This is how I arrived at the blackout poem. I read the first three pages and I knew what I wanted to make.

5

A poem to hold onto the dream of spring and what it means to hope. The title 'Still I am Burning Unconditional & True' is from the poem 'Update' by June Jordan. I hope this season is kind to you.