The Poetics of Estrangement

With prompts & poems by Nancy Meyer, Yours Truly, Leigh, Fey & Weil

Happy effing New Year fam. We made it. Made it to what? Is time real? What joy, love, fresh hell awaits? More shall be revealed.

Ah, the holidays—what a wonderful opportunity to indulge in comparison & self-pity. To convince ourselves that we are not happy enough, wealthy enough or close enough to our family members—and then to “choose kindness” & “live, laugh, love” anyway.

Okay, okay—sure, I enjoy some Bing Crosby, Lindt chocolates & watching Bad Santa in front of the fire. But I do not get with the toxic culture of holiday cheer. My life has been nothing like a Hallmark card, and that doesn’t change because some folks decided to celebrate “Jesus’s birthday” by building credit card debt and making Jeff Bezos rich AF. So, in the spirit of just saying no to toxic holiday culture, let’s talk about estrangement.

I am teaching an upcoming class at Brooklyn Poets on what I like to call “the poetics of estrangement.” Being estranged from family over the holidays can be painful, surreal and/or a huge relief. Sometimes, all three of these are true.

Recently, my mother gave me a stack of old photos, all of which included me, my father and my sister. I have not had communication with my father in nine years. My sister died by suicide in 2017. Of all of the human beings in the photo, I am the only one still “alive.” I found myself drawn to the photos in unexpected ways, focusing in on the objects in the photos, or blacking out one (or all of our faces). Here is an example—a photo of us on a camping trip in northern Michigan (the “U.P.”—upper peninsula), circa 1982.

Below, I will suggest an exercise you might try with old photos.

Our guest writer this week is Nancy Meyer, whose poem “Fraying Bridge,” is the source of one of our weekly writing prompts:

I have written many difficult poems, but this is quite possibly the most difficult to read. I have only read it aloud once and did not get through it without crying. Here is “Ask Jesse” (content warning: animal cruelty) which appears in my newest poetry collection, DAUGHTER OF THREE GONE KINGDOMS (Perugia Press, 2024).

Why do we hold on & when do we let go? What does it mean to mourn, accept or surrender to familial estrangement? How do these experiences impact our perceptions of the world, each other & ourselves? How do we navigate our lives when a living person walks, or is turned, away? Below, I will share another one of my poems and several of my favorite poems that tackle the topic of estrangement. Thank you to Nancy Meyer for her poem and for the related prompt!

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