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 1

9/12/25

What are we really searching for?  Freedom is a recurring theme. It is so important. Freedom of thought, freedom of choice, freedom of the heart. But where are we finding our own freedom? It comes from many places, but mostly from looking inside and realizations that come from our own hearts. We may have gone down some dark paths. We may have made some seriously wrong choices. But each path, each choice, leads us to our true selves. We grow from the ways our paths have twisted and turned.

A freedom of sorts comes to me in song.

So I hope the birds keep singing me their melodies.

I hope by heart can harmonize with the leaves of trees in the breeze,

And play a small part in that symphony of nature.

What will be your most prominent feature?

That you’ll be free of any guilt in the future.