November Writing Prompt: Is Thanksgiving, in All Its Complication, the Most Poetic Holiday?

Home for the Holidays (1995), the crush of personal and national memory, and a sneak peek of a new PopPoetry feature.

In America, Thanksgiving is rife with memory—both our personal memories and our national memory. The problem is that like our own personal memories, sometimes our remembrances are faulty or we intentionally attempt to forget. The first Thanksgiving was not quite the event that many American schoolchildren are brought up to revere. Instead, the holiday is rooted in violence, genocide, and colonialism.

Perhaps it’s fitting, then, that for all its food, family, 5Ks, and feel-goodery, Thanksgiving is also emotionally freighted for many of us in a personal way, too. How could a holiday with such specious origins be anything else? Aren’t we all raw, sensitive, and alive to the horrors of the past on this day? Rippling with tensions both new and old between family members and friends? Feeling sensitive about the quality of our pumpkin pie? Dreading a conversation with a small-minded uncle? I often think of a line from Home for the Holidays (1995), when I start to feel trepidation about the holiday rising in my blood:

Claudia: That’s what today’s supposed to be all about, right? Torture.

Adele: That, and giving thanks that we don’t have to go through this for another year. Except we do! ’Cause those bastards went and put Christmas right in the middle.

Later this week, I’ll be debuting a new feature at PopPoetry: