no more grandma poems

they said 
forget your grandma
these american letters
don’t need no more 
grandma poems
but i said 
the grandmas are 
our first poetic forms
the first haiku 
was a grandma 
& so too 
the first sonnet
the first blues
the first praise song 
therefore
every poem 
is a grandmother 
a womb that has ended 
& is still expanding 
a daughter that is 
rhetorically aging 
& retroactively living
every poem 
is your grandma
& you miss her
wouldn’t mind 
seeing her again
even just 
for a moment 
in the realm of spirit
in the realm 
of possibilities 
where poems 
share blood 
& spit & exist 
on chromosomal 
planes of particularity 
where poems 
are strangers
turned sistren 
not easily shook 
or forgotten

Copyright © 2021 by Yolanda Wisher. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 29, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.

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“In a workshop I attended many years ago, someone complained eloquently about people writing too many ‘grandma poems.’ For a long time, their testimony had me hiding my grandma poems—like big, comfy underwear—from the public, even from myself. This poem is a proud acceptance of my unabashed adoration for all grandmothers, but especially Christine Johnson, my great-grandmother with whom I spent many days of my first decade. She is the reason I write poems. The world wouldn’t turn without grandmas like her, who are everything.”
—Yolanda Wisher