Notes From the Margins

This is work done by the Tacos and Trauma Writing Group, Fall 2025 - A writing group within the Margaret H. Ordoubadian University Writing Center of Middle Tennessee St

ate University (MTSU)

We met every Friday during the Fall semester 2025 to eat Tacos together and write, both separately and together, culminating in an extemporaneous group poem. Although the membership varied every week, the group began to write as a group whose voice became one as the semester progressed.

The following eight poems are the poems of this group. Thank you, Tacos and Trauma Writing Group for showing up for the group and for yourself.

Poem 5

10/10/25

We seek to define ourselves, beyond our personal identity. Who are we in the universe, in the grand scheme of life, the life that everyone is trying to figure out? We continue to ask the questions and wait for the answers. Sometimes the signs come crashing down on us, heavy. Sometimes the signs are subtle. What signs are you seeing?

What do you let define you—who you want to be? Your actions?

How do you know who you really are?

Just a combination of generational souls or something more?

I am fragments, glued and shattered by shared blood.

These fragments catch the light from the sun.

Raining down basketball threes is a lot of fun.