A Triple Win: For Poetry, Literacy, and Community

This year I once again wrote 30 Poems in November as a  fundraiser for the Center for New Americans in Northampton, Mass. For this fundraiser, writers compose one poem each day in November. Friends and family donate to support free English classes and a range of services for immigrants and asylum seekers in Western Mass.

I’m proud to have been one of the 100 or so poets who joined together to raise over $80,000 for this worthy organization. This is a win for literacy, for community, and for poetry!

Today, I’m sharing one of those poems to celebrate the completion of this challenge.

My poem “Self Expression” is about my mother, who loved to write–but who in the final chapter of her life, during her struggle with Alzheimer’s Disease, was unable to communicate well through writing or even speech.

An Unfinished Life

Early in her disease, I brought my mom to a poetry festival. That day she purchased (at my urging) a lovely orange journal. Unwilling to admit how powerless she was over her waning abilities and the fact that it was unrealistic to think she could still enjoy journaling, I encouraged her to write in her new book.

After her death in 2015, I found the orange journal, empty except that first page where she had tried to write about our special day together–a day which was also fraught with the stress of trying to navigate the seemingly simple tasks of going from here to there and doing this and that. I tucked the book away in a closet. Then, in October of this year, when I was looking for a notebook to use for my 30-day poem project, I found that orange journal and decided to use it as my own. Each day when I sat down to write, I was aware that I was picking up, in some ways, where my mother had left off.

Here’s a poem I wrote to honor that journal–and all that is left unfinished in each life.

Self Expression

At Piccadilly, we’re in the business of self-expression”. (from Piccadilly Journals, Piccadillyinc.com)

The subway tunnel, once simple

line from A to B – labyrinth now.

Walls press breath against chest.

Your daughter, motherly

cups your elbow in her hand

through sliding doors: Sit down.

Stand now. Park. Lunch. Bookstore.

Not that. Buy this. This

Piccadilly journal, orange. Satin ribbon,

elastic closure. But your tongue has lost its way;

humble sentences stick inside your mouth.

Mute blossoms drift, delight you

their sea-whoosh in your ears.

“Mom, try!” Cold wind,

lifts syllables into coil and hiss.

“Write! You used to love—” The weather

is lovely. Each letter, a heartbreak. We talk,

we walk about. Then you are gone.

Things seem quite—

The sentence in black ink,

never ends. You are bone dust

empty now. Heavy—

your book unwritten

in your daughter’s hand

now. Her pencil shushes

across pages you left bare.

Copyright 2021 Tzivia Gover