First National Yoga

The title First National Yoga suggests a national yoga program designed by bankers and self-care app developers, but the poems within move with genuine intention. Written during a period of personal transition that led directly into the collective upheaval of the pandemic, these poems reach for balance amid isolation and uncertainty. The poems started as a haiku project, another significant practice rooted in the power of observation and experience, but overall the form is used loosely...
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The title First National Yoga suggests a national yoga program designed by bankers and self-care app developers, but the poems within move with genuine intention. Written during a period of personal transition that led directly into the collective upheaval of the pandemic, these poems reach for balance amid isolation and uncertainty. The poems started as a haiku project, another significant practice rooted in the power of observation and experience, but overall the form is used loosely here. Similarly, the section titles exaggerate internet yoga video titles, which are often named after a common goal or feeling (Yoga for Sore Back, Yoga for When You're Feeling Scared), but the subjects of this collection are more niche or misguided than those addressed by yoga (mourning Carrie Fisher along with the rest of the internet, restoring Shawn Kemp to his prime athletic glory). These titles mock the co-opting of anything sacred, but First National Yoga uses these imperfect, popular versions - your overworked elementary school teacher introducing you to haiku, overhearing your roommate's yoga video buffer under poor Wi-Fi - to regard our most intimate stillness and mutual motion.