The world is burning and I’m lesson planning 

Lacy Snapp

 

picking which day I will teach students

about the function of a line, and when to break

the rules, learn enjambment, deconstruct

what others say is convention. On which day 

does metaphor become reality, once coded

poetics a signal to split open the world, as Hughes 

said, to find the source of the worms, the rot, 

scoop it out, arm ourselves, as Hurston thought, 

with a sharp oyster knife? The world is flooding 

and I’m lesson planning, how many days should I allot 

for classes we will cancel because of natural 

disasters, how many more students will lose 

their homes to elemental forces, when will I? 

I won’t even make some allegory that the river,

the winds, are vengeful for all that we’ve done 

and keep doing—they’re just responding 

to the stage we’ve set, there’s nothing biblical 

to this, but wouldn’t it be easier to assign

this moment to forces outside of our control? 

The world keeps turning and I’m lesson planning

because it’s all I can control, or that’s the myth

I’m supposed to believe—that all of this 

will keep happening, and we’re just along 

for the ride. Strap in. Hang on. The world keeps

turning and I’m lesson planning and, yes, 

it’s burning, and yes, it will keep coming, and 

yes, I’m sure it will all get worse before it gets

better, so maybe here is where I build 

into the schedule the volta, because can 

workshopping a poem be the scaffolding 

for changing the world? We ask, what do we like here, 

what is working, what could we do differently, 

do better? Revision, revision, re-envision, 

don’t get too attached to this draft:

remember we all hold an eraser, the pen. 

Lacy Snapp is a poet, professor, and woodworking artist in East Tennessee where they plan university and community-based literary events. They serve as Poetry Co-Editor of Appalachian Places, a board member of the Johnson City Poets Collective, and a co-editor of The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume VI: Tennessee, second edition. https://www.lacysnapp.com/