Generations of Gamma

and other thoughts on the letter "G"

The gnawed nipples
Of the giant gorilla
Giving life,
in the grasslands 
Grounding….

A grandmother’s labor
As she peels, she grinds
The garlic
Over a gas stove
Hygge…

The goldfinch hen,
Atop her green-blue eggs, 
Glides through the morning fog
Gathering twigs and bugs 
Giving… 

I wrote this poem as part of an exercise in THE PRACTICING POET: WRITING BEYOND THE BASICS by Diane Lockward. Ted Mathys’s poem, Apostrophe to S, is featured in Chapter 2, and Lockward provides a prompt for us to write our own Alphabet poem. I asked my daughter for a letter to start my challenge, to which she chose “G.” With Grace as her middle name, I thought this would be easy. I clearly had an affinity for the letter, choosing that name to supplement her first.

A majority of my mother’s siblings’ names start with the letter as well. Geri, Glenda, Glennon, named by their mother, Geraldine.

I started the exercise by making a list of words that start with G: Gorilla, grace, grass, Grinch, guile. Then I thought about words that use G as a homogenous digraph (when two of the same letters make one sound). Hygge (always a fun one to play with), eggs, foggy. Then, words that end in G. Spring. Wing. Fog. I researched the history of the letter, which evolved from the Greek gamma.

Once I felt saturated and content with my G knowledge, I tried to see which words could come together to create a poem. I loved the idea of using Gorilla, because the animal is not one that I feel is often found in lyrical writing. Poets use birds, animals that move swiftly and gracefully. Animals who create motions that move like the combinations of letters and words to create poetry.

A gorilla is not that. I had already been thinking about gorillas, too, because of the yoga pose that makes me 1. Feel silly and 2. Touch my feet, my least favorite aspect of all of yoga.

I pondered: “What is beautiful about the word gorilla?”

Is it the structure of the word, the way the first sound comes from deep in my throat and ends with a dainty “la” from the tip of my tongue?

Maybe.

I don’t even like gorillas. And I’ve built my TikTok algorithm, brick by brick. As an animal lover, I have to manipulate the FBI agent inside TikTok by scrolling VERY QUICKLY past monkey videos, so I am not pushed more monkey content when swooning over animal rescue posts.

The monkey videos that I don’t quickly swipe away? The gorilla mothers.

Another G word came to me, then. Generations.

Generations of gorillas. Girl Gorillas. Breastfeeding, while still doing all the things that gorillas do. Just like the grandmother in the next stanza, and a goldfinch in the last. Just like me. A mother, trying to nurse my child (hypothetically now, thank heavens) through life, while still doing all the things that mothers do.

I loved this exercise, and I find my poem imperfect, raw, yet brilliant in my own beholding. Just as all writing starts as and should be.

Happy writing,

b