Jenna Goldsmith
Poem on the morning after Toni Morrison’s death
On this morning
all poets have one thing in common
and that is that we are poets.
And we have another thing in common
and that is we are writing
poems about Toni Morrison.
We write in coffeeshops
and kitchens and
cars and beds and bedrooms
and classrooms
writing about the life
and death of Toni Morrison.
And what Toni Morrison taught us
in our writerly lives and
personal lives and professional
lives and political lives
and our lives as citizens
and our lives as Americans
and that those are
really the same thing
and that is another thing
Toni Morrison teaches us.
Toni Morrison of the two-name club.
Hear my poem of clichés about Toni Morrison.
Beloved amongst us
writer and reader
what if cliché means consensus?
As in everybody.
As in who amongst us can deny
this black woman
this woman
this writer
this thinker
this life
as of complete consequence?
On this morning
I join the ranks of every other poet
writing about Toni Morrison.
Every poem will likely be called
what this poem is called which is
“Poem on the morning after Toni Morrison’s death.”
I don’t want this poem
to be novel
with a novel title
and a novel theme
and a novel volta.
For this morning
I join the ranks of every other poet
who is writing a poem about Toni Morrison.
I want my poem to be like every other poem
on the morning after Toni Morrison’s death.
The title will be the same and
the volta will be Toni Morrison’s life.
You see
this poem
which every other poet
is writing about Toni Morrison
doesn’t say much
it doesn’t know much.
Jenna Goldsmith is the author of the poetry chapbook Genesis near the river, (blush books, 2019). Her work has appeared in Rabbit Catastrophe Review, New Delta Review, Utterance, and The Waggle, among other venues. She is the interim program lead for the low-residency MFA in Creative Writing at OSU Cascades. She lives in Bend, Ore.
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