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no more grandma poems

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

Yolanda Wisher is the author of Monk Eats an Afro (Hanging Loose Press, 2014).

Themes

About this Poem

“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

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west of philly

they asked me to write a poem like a lush life,
a johnny hartman poem. a poem that would make
your fake eyelashes fall off. a poem with the city all
up in it. a poem, matter of fact, like a city, one that
can only be reached by train. yeah, write us a poem
like a train, but not like coltrane. just write a coltrane
poem that contains the essence of the city, the way
the horizon sounds like elvin jones playing cymbals
& trash trucks. i mean, just write a poem that contains
the essence of west philly—a poem you’ve already
written—write that.

Yolanda Wisher

2018

Poems

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no more grandma poems

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