On the night of November 5th and into the early morning hours of the 6th, I obsessively googled presidential election results. When all was said and done, 76,394,853 U.S. voters collectively elected Donald Trump, while 76,203,140 voted for other candidates— a difference of 191,713, or roughly the population of Mobile, Alabama. According to Exploding Topics, more people in the U.S. googled Fox News in November than any other news source, and I suspect a correlation.
As the days wore on, search trends shifted while many of us remained stuck in our feelings. Here are a few of the month’s highlights, each accompanied by a poem.
1. Mike Tyson, Muhammad Ali, and Evander Holyfield
Growing up, I often watched boxing matches with my dad, whose own father had been a Golden Gloves champion (stripped of his title for lying about his age to compete). My grandpa taught me a thing or two about the “sweet science” and left me with his old leather gloves and speed bag. Even if you don’t follow boxing, you’ll likely recognize some of the famous names that appear in November’s trending search list: apparently Mike Tyson is making a comeback.
In deference to the hardknock lives of many fighters, James McKean penned “Elegy for an Old Boxer.”
2. Bluesky Social
I’ve seen a few Teslas with bumper stickers that read, “I bought it before we knew Elon was crazy.” Talk about buyer’s remorse. Elon Musk generates strong feelings. Combining unpopular policies with less popular friendships, Musk recently prompted a mass exodus from X (formerly Twitter).
Personally, I never understood Twitter so it’s all the same to me. Others are flocking to a network called Bluesky. Thus, it felt appropriate that Kema Alabi simultaneously evokes the sky and harkens back to Donald Trump’s first electoral victory in their poem, “Undelivered Message to the Sky: November 9, 2016.”
Read “Undelivered Message to the Sky: November 9, 2016” by Kema Alabi
3. Coastal Flood Warning
Much of the east coast faced potential flooding mid-month due to abnormally high tides. Climate catastrophe is wreaking havoc. Where I live, we are experiencing severe drought and wildfires, which are atypical for the area. The undercurrent of natural disaster brings to mind “Gills” by Rain Prud’homme-Cranford.
Give us salinity to float in the betweens.
Surrender to flood waters.
4. Aliens in the Ocean
What in the world? When I saw this phrase on the list, I had to explore. Somehow, recent pentagon reports on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs) have certain lawmakers and politicians (and probably members of the general public) convinced that there are aliens in the ocean. Admittedly, most deep sea creatures appear awfully alien to us land dwellers.
Leave it to Aimee Nezhukumatathil to have a poem about sea animals at the ready.
5. The Onion
The Onion is buying InfoWars. That sentence almost-sort-of means something to me. The Onion has been a staple in my life; InfoWars is decidedly less familiar (but it doesn’t sound great).
There are a surprising number of poems about onions. Although I guess it didn’t surprise me too much— I chose The Onion from the trending search list on suspicion of poetry. It’s the layers. There’s Naomi Shihab Nye’s “The Traveling Onion,” and Juan Felippe Herrera’s “Jackrabbits, Green Onions & Witch’s Stew,” but I wanted to share “Monologue for an Onion” by Suji Kwock Kim because of that whole layer thing.
In December, I will search for snow— to ease the wildfires in my home state, and because I simply love it.
Written by Allisonn Church
Writer Bio: Allisonn Church was born in a small rural community to a mother who pinned butterflies in glass cases and hid scarab beetles in her jewelry box. Her first favorite poem was “The Willow Fairy”’ by Cicely Mary Barker. Find a list of Allisonn's published work at churchpoems.wordpress.com.