February 25, 2025

A note about this week’s poem: Often, I think of the game Jenga when I’m navigating my way through a poem. If you’re not familiar with it, Jenga (which I just learned comes from the Swahili word “kujenga,” meaning “to build or construct”) is a game in which players take turns removing one block at a time from a tower constructed of 54 blocks. Each block, once removed, is then placed on top of the tower, which creates a progressively more unstable structure. The game ends when someone either removes or puts a block on the tower that causes it to tip over.

In Jenga fashion, I often start with a longer block of writing and begin removing words or phrases (or even whole sentences) to see if the poem can “stand” without them. This is a bit of trial and error but I imagine that with each removal, I’m creating more spaciousness in the writing, making room for the reader to enter. I’ve learned over time that the lines I’m most attached to are the ones that usually don’t need to be there, that they’re in the way of the path through. I continue chipping away until I find a balance (for me, at least) between structure and space. This can be a surprisingly exhilarating experience, like clearing the closet of all the socks whose mates never turned up. Suddenly, the cubby where the orphan socks were taking up real estate looks fresh and inviting, freed of clutter.

This week’s poem is a rather radical act of Jenga: I started with 548 words and got down to 72.

swimming

This morning, I thought about devoting myself
to a new hobby every month of the year.
Like it was my job. I pictured this, briefly,
over a bowl of Corn Bran: potholders, metal detecting,
photographs of my cat, jigsaw puzzles, limericks.
The morning lurched ambiguously ahead.
The rest of the week with its lists.
How do we let go or begin anything?
In my spoon, a softened square
swimming in milk.