Terry Trowbridge

Grade Schooler Deschooling Himself

red, revolutionary songs
and above your head
the birds
were an army in chorus

-from Gianna Patriarca, “Summers with Arduino”
in Italian Women and Other Tragedies

the birds teach him their songs
this boy who will not accept classrooms

he is outside, the rain paused for him,
the birds restarting their chorus

he prefers the dampness of rural lawns,
learning by osmosis by brushing up against
flower seeds and insects perched on stems

we do not know which tiny creature he is allergic to
but sometimes he comes inside with a swollen welt

he is present, here,
because, absent anyone taking his side,
he is the “troublemaker”
his desk moved to the hallway, isolated, alone,
trapped in the gaze of the other classes
on their way to gym or choir

the birdsong
he learns
bites are no object
burrs no sting

Terry Trowbridge’s poems have appeared in The New Quarterly, Carousel, Lascaux Review, Kolkata Arts, Dalhousie Review, untethered, Quail Bell, Nashwaak Review, Orbis, Snakeskin Poetry, Literary Yard, Gray Sparrow, CV2, Brittle Star, Bombfire, American Mathematical Monthly, Fresh Words, Mathematical Intelligencer, Canadian Journal of Family and Youth, Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, PPP, Synchronized Chaos, New Verse News, Five Fleas, Borderless, Literary Veganism, Indian Periodical, and more. His lit crit has appeared in Ariel, BeZine, British Columbia Review, Hamilton Arts & Letters, Episteme, Studies in Social Justice, Rampike, Amsterdam Review, and The /t3mz/ Review. Terry is grateful to the Ontario Arts Council for his first writing grant, and their support of so many other writers during the polycrisis.