The Lost Lagoon Emily Pauline Johnson It is dusk on the Lost Lagoon, And we two dreaming the dusk away, Beneath the drift of a twilight grey— Beneath the drowse of an ending day And the curve of a golden moon. It is dark on the Lost Lagoon, And gone are the depths of haunting blue, The grouping gulls, and the old canoe, The singing firs, and the dusk and—you, And gone is the golden moon. O lure of the Lost Lagoon— I dream to-night that my paddle blurs The purple shade where the seaweed stirs— I hear the call of the singing firs In the hush of the golden moon. This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on November 20, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.

 

 

no more grandma poems

Yolanda Wisher

they said  forget your grandma these american letters don’t need no more  grandma poems but i said  the grandmas are  our first poetic forms the first haiku  was a grandma  & so too  the first sonnet the first blues the first praise song  therefore every poem  is a grandmother  a womb that has ended  & is still expanding  a daughter that is  rhetorically aging  & retroactively living every poem  is your grandma & you miss her wouldn’t mind  seeing her again even just  for a moment  in the realm of spirit in the realm  of possibilities  where poems  share blood  & spit & exist  on chromosomal  planes of particularity  where poems  are strangers turned sistren  not easily shook  or forgotten

Copyright © 2021 by Yolanda Wisher. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 29, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets. Subscribe to the Poem-a-Day Podcast     “In a workshop I attended many years ago, someone complained eloquently about people writing too many ‘grandma poems.’ For a long time, their testimony had me hiding my grandma poems—like big, comfy underwear—from the public, even from myself. This poem is a proud acceptance of my unabashed adoration for all grandmothers, but especially Christine Johnson, my great-grandmother with whom I spent many days of my first decade. She is the reason I write poems. The world wouldn’t turn without grandmas like her, who are everything.” —Yolanda Wisher