A Worm Moon In July 2024
Welcome to A Worm Moon, a poetry newsletter where I, Phoenix Yemi, share what I've been reading and writing through the month.
July was undulating country lanes, the kind bordered by hedges, so I couldn’t see beyond the path, only the rising and falling of heartache. I think that’s a romantic way of telling you that July was hard, was beautiful in a way you can’t necessarily see but know is there, beyond it all.
We were reading ‘Disorganization & Sex’ by Jamieson Webster for the Worms Book Club. What stayed with me was page 24, in which Jamieson references Lacan as she writes ‘What is can never be an excuse for the abandonment of one’s desire’, that ‘power manifests in order to keep desire under repression, and desire undermines the dynamics of power.’ With poetry, I’m writing towards desire. It directs my attention to the present, to the flesh of what drives me, what it means to be in motion and how easy it is for the sadness to flatten me. Sometimes I feel the world as narrowing, as the constricting body of a snake, and there is no space to breathe, to exist, but writing towards desire emboldens me to write the world I want to feel, to seek out that world, to make that world. I think of hope suspended on a string, a crescent moon aglow in the darkness of night. The star I follow.
As I write this, I’m remembering June Jordan, her anthology Directed by Desire, how it’s bible-thick, that it’s been a while since I’ve flipped through the pages. I’ll share one of the poems I land on. Maybe it will speak to this moment.
1
I keep returning to the poem ‘Stations’ by Audre Lorde. It haunts me that maybe I am the woman waiting at the station, waiting for the best version of myself to arrive, for the knight to arrive. The image is finding its way into my poems. This one is ‘Elephant Desire, Crushed’.
2
Joyce Mansour. One of my favourite surrealist poets. Here is 'Spontaneous Fires' & ‘I Stole The Yellow Bird’.
3
I wrote this to say I desire you and it hurts. The poetry is what is beautiful, everything else is murky, is do I see a beluga whale or a shark? It’s difficult to trust, and trust is implicit in the falling. I know the answer if I listen to my intuition.
4
From 'Land To Light On' by Dionne Brand. In the first poem, it's the last line that settles over me"I knew my life come still like a heart waiting at the reed of itself.", and I think about the moment before the opening up, the tension between movement and stillness.
5
I want to leave you with a poem that serves as guidance for a meditation. The intention is grounding, is follow the image of the weeping willow to touch; find a tree.
Thank you for reading. I hope you've liked the poetry.
What poems have you been reading this month?
If you feel like sharing, please send them my way. You can email me at phoenixyemi@gmail.com or you can find me on Instagram @phoenixyemoja
💌 With Love, Phoenix 💌
