Trash Poetics: Bin #1

Welcome to Trash Poetics, Bin #1

Poetry is trash, the discarded bits and pieces of what once was…those faded memories you remember each time you see a bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos or an empty tube of cherry lip gloss or that goofy AF condom package that make you cringe (why?).

Garbage is a portal for poetic exploration.

Think about it. Within the bin, we discard our hidden emotions and our state of health, the ways we nourish and destroy ourselves, the activities that make us feel alive or numb. The most intimate, erotic and absurdly surreal elements of our life’s poetry are discarded into a wasteland…

[the bin]
[that life-changing green juice]
[new dress price tags]
[56 page manuscript]
[bic pen packaging]
[crumpled tissues]
[cigarette ashes]

until we remember. 

Then we recycle—we look, listen, smell, and unfold its strange meanings with a poetic freedom only something so insignificant yet personal can allow.

When I ask you, what’s in your trash? What I’m really asking is, “What discarded detail reveals an intimate look into your present story?”

This is where we get our hands dirty.

We reach past the probiotic yogurt, the dirty napkins, and grab that little something—a styrofoam cup to the world, but to you, my queen, it was your chalice.

It’s precisely this utterly mundane moment that opens an unexpected portal to a devastatingly honest, hilarious and beautifully scummy poem.

Trash Poetics Exercise, Bin #1

Process as performance.
Material as the page.
Trash as an archive.

Let’s get started:

  1. Find trash that sparks a memory or feeling.

  2. With trash in front of you, ask your trash:

    1. What stories are you telling behind my back?!

    2. Tell me my story, trash! Don’t be a coward!

  3. Sharpie in hand, channel the poetry onto your trash.*

    1. Write on the inside of your trash,

    2. or over the text making your words bolder,

    3. or on a sheet of paper, making your trash the book cover.

  4. Document by taking a picture in any way that matches the poetic mood.

* Think outside of the wet box. The poem can be a word, or many. It can make sense to strangers or not. This trash poem is (for) you.

It doesn’t matter where you are. Trash is all around. And therefore, so is poetic potential.

Get trashy: DM a photo on instagram of your trash poem for the Dump section of Trash Poetics, Bin #2 - @scum.poet


Written by Ashley Michelle C.

Ash(ley) Michelle C. is a pastoral erotic scum poet\a/rtist. From books to video and sculpture to ephemeral installations, her poetry-based pieces erase borders between poem, person and performance. Ash's chapbook, Hotel Gilbert & other horny poems was published by ESTO ES UN LIBRO in 2024. Her work appears and is forthcoming in: Taco Bell Quarterly, Currant Jam, Bullshit Lit, Adult Groceries and more. You can follow her poetry on insta: @scum.poet