A Worm Moon In May 2025
Welcome to A Worm Moon, a poetry newsletter where I, Phoenix Yemi, share what I've been reading and writing through the month.
‘It is April…
no May
it's May'
Time lags, the day absorbs the night, and I feel it but can't name it until the poem appears. Frank O'Hara and his poem St. Paul and All That, and at first, it's only the fragment above, so I have to search for it. It's easy. And then I think of the word May, how it expresses the possibility, on a good day, the probability, of blooming. Hope lives inside the word. And then I sift through my memories of this month and how the waves were large, but still
'I am alive with you
full of anxious pleasures and pleasurable anxiety
hardness and softness
listening while you talk and talking while you read
I read what you read'
Which is to say that sometimes sunlight is something like an embrace. The mornings are easier, and I want to stretch towards the light and lean in. May—the last month of spring, and I am thinking about the necessity of resilience, about the wild English tulips being born again because of, and yet beyond, the knowledge of winter, of suffering.
1
We were reading Chelsea Girls by Eileen Myles for Worms book club. I have yet to finish it, but with the poetry I feel moved by the myth of the Light Warrior, and what it means to commit yourself to the present moment, to finding romance in the dirt. The poem below is inspired by them.
I would like to go mudlarking with Eileen Myles, search through the mud, volcanic ash, for something insignificant, precious, small, pockets of light. Here are two poems by Eileen Miles, from their collection Snowflake/Different Streets, 2012.
2
A blackout poem. Page 26 and 27 of My Death by Lisa Tuttle. I felt myself unravelling as I was reading, and I’m still confused now having finished it, but in a way that lends itself to electricity, to hunger.
I was drawn to the book because of the cover image, a painting of two women with tails and matching hair that mirrored a lion’s mane, dancing, or in an almost embrace, wild. It is Hekas Hekas (Dancing Pair) by Marjorie Cameron Parsons and I’ve used it for the first page.
3
Alice Notley. She died earlier this month, and I was reminded of The Descent of Alette, and how its existence opened up a world in me. Thank you, Alice Notley.
4
A new publishing endeavour. YOU ARE WHO I LOVE. A way to make my poems something tangible. This first one is a poem I wrote while in the wetlands in Walthamstow, thinking about moulting, elemental tenderness. I was looking for a moment of stillness.
They fold out to A4 and can be carried with you as a bookmark.
5
The Nakba. 15th May. A day of commemoration for the mass displacement, genocide, and dispossession of Palestinians and their homeland.
I want to share with you the poem ‘Face Lost in the Wilderness’ by the Palestinian poet Fadwa Tuqan. Her writing is resistance. These are the last four stanzas, but there’s a heralding of energy, a movement that feels like a wave, a resurrection, a revival of spirit and faith, and I think of June Jordan, of A Litany for Survival, that globally, our struggles for liberation are inextricable.
P.S
An experiment in form, in the visual representation of poems. It’s the first stanza of The Birds by Eileen Myles.
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 💌
