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PoetrySnaps! Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: Big

Courtesy: Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

In the debut segment of KNAU's new series PoetrySnaps!, host Steven Law introduces us to Colorado-based poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer who writes a fresh poem every day. In her poem, Big, Wahtola Trommer explores a post-pandemic world where lost time and pent-up energy take center stage:

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer:

I was thinking about how much we humans have a propensity toward making ourselves small; how the world, in fact, seems to insist on us being shackled by ‘shoulds’, and inhibiting our creativity, our self-expression, our sense of self.

I suppose that part of what I was exploring in this poem is what happens when we lean more deeply into our full potential, what happens when we don’t accept the boundaries that we’re given by others, or more importantly I suppose, the boundaries we place on ourselves and what could happen. What could happen if we allowed ourselves to really explore and lean into our fullest potential.

Big

This is, perhaps, the year to learn to be big.
Spruce tree big. Cliffside big. Big as mesa,
as mountain lake. Big as in cosmos, as in love.
Being small has never served me— constricting, contorting, trying to fit into a room, into shoes,
into a name. Let this be the year to escape all those little
rules with those little shoulds, all those little
cages with their little locks. Time to make of myself
a key, time to lean into immensity. Time to supersize
communion, time to grow beyond self. Time to
open, to unwall, to do as the universe does,
accelerating as it expands, not rushing toward
something else, but changing the scale of space itself.

About the poet:

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer is a Colorado-based poet. She is the author of many poetry collections and a former Poet Laureate of San Miguel County, Colorado. Wahtola Trommer was also named Poet Laureate of Colorado's Western Slope by the Telluride Institute.

About the host:

Steven Law is a poet, journalist and educator based in Page, Arizona. He is the author of a collection of poems called Polished.

About the music:

Original music by Flagstaff-based band Pilcrowe.

Steven Law was the co-producer of KNAU’s series PoetrySnaps!
Gillian Ferris was the News Director and Managing Editor for KNAU.