Poems for August 2025's Trending Searches
Every month, I peruse Google Trends and find that the public has been searching for sports teams, athletes, actors, and political headlines. These are the stand-bys. It’s not every month that folks have reason to google things like radioactive shrimp, but August was a special time filled with magic, love, goofy words, disease, and threatening crustaceans. We’re two thirds of the way through 2025 and nothing should surprise us anymore.
Unsplash Image: Dark sky, crescent moon.
Black Moon
August 22nd-23rd saw a semi-rare black moon. It was the third new moon of summer, which is typically the last, but this special summer will have four. Being third-but-not-last is the black moon’s claim to fame. Black moons are allegedly a great time for introspection and manifestation, if you’re into that kind of thing.
What poet doesn’t worship the moon? Can you even be a poet if you don’t? There are far too many moon poems in the world for one person to sort through, so I’ll happily share the first that springs to mind for me (every time): Chen Chen’s “i love you to the moon &.”
Unsplash Image: Page of the dictionary showing words starting with ‘poi-‘ & their definitions.
2. Skibidi
Skibidi landed in the Cambridge dictionary this month, along with delulu and tradwife. I can’t keep up with gen Z/alpha slang, but I respect the constant evolution of language. Take this list of Victorian slang terms for example. In 2025, saying you’ve “got the morbs” when you’re feeling sad sounds pretty skibidi overall.
Creating and sharing new words is an amazing gift. However delulu we think these kids sound, you have to appreciate the way they’re cultivating their generation’s legacy through language. W.S. Merwin said it well: “Certain words now in our knowledge we will not use again, and we will never forget them.”
Unsplash Image: Silhouette of hands making a love heart shape against a warm, yellow sunset
3. National Couples Day
In the world of minor holidays, August 18th was National Couples Day. Sounds like an invitation to read some love poems.
Much like the moon, love is a near-universal muse for poets. There are thousands of love poems to read, from sweet and sappy to harsh, hurtful, or humorous. I’m sharing Jen Cheng’s “Prayer of Light” because of its masterful form paired with sincere, specific, relatable, vibrant words. What’s not to love?
Unsplash Image: Rows of bones, skulls lining the center.
4. The Plague
Googlers were collectively curious (and maybe nervous?) when a person in California tested positive for bubonic plague. According to officials, approximately 7 individuals test positive for the plague each year, a disease carried by some rodents and their fleas.
UK Poet Laureate Simon Armitage drew inspiration from the plague when writing his poem “Lockdown” during the early Covid days of 2020.
Unsplash Image: Three yellow shrimp in an aquarium tank.
5. Radioactive Shrimp
It’s exactly how it sounds: the FDA issued a recall and warning for possible radioactive shrimp sold at Walmart. While no shrimp have actually tested positive for radioactivity, they’re said to have been packaged in a facility that violated safety regulations intended to prevent radioactive exposure. I really had no idea this was a concern in food processing. Noted.
Are you craving shrimp now? I hope so, because Campbell McGrath offers a vivid sensory description of Hemingway eating shrimp in his poem, “Hemingway Dines on Boiled Shrimp and Beer.”
Thankfully, plague masks are back in fashion so we can stay prepared for the times we’re living in. Just stay away from shellfish unless you’re ready to become a mutant superhero (probably). Hopefully everyone manifested something great for September.
Written by Allisonn Church
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.
