12/30 & 13/30: TC Tolbert & Jos Charles

Dear ones, forgive me! Life got in the way and I missed a day, but I am back with a two-fer:

First we are reading the beautiful parenthetic epistle "Dear Melissa [I Wish You]"

https://poets.org/poem/dear-melissa-i-wish-you

We also have an incredible poem exploring the borders and shapes of relationships and bodies from Jos Charles, "A Note on Form" (second poem at the link): https://theadroitjournal.org/issue-thirty-four/jos-charles-poetry/

We are going to take two angles on maternal relationships. Who has been a mother to you, who have you mothered? What is the shape of a mother, the borders?

You will first write an epistle yourself, to someone you could call a mother (remember, gender is fake, maternal care and strife is real). Then you will write a note on the form not only on the person or thing you deemed "mother," but also on the poem you wrote. Feel free to make liberal use of parentheticals, after the TC Tolbert poem (and my own scattered thoughts in this post).

We're getting weird, and bold, and fearless!