Poem of the Week | December 30, 2025

Cassidy McFadzean is the author of three books of poetry, most recently Crying Dress (House of Anansi, 2024). Her fiction has appeared in Joyland, Hazlitt, The Walrus, Future Tense Fiction, and elsewhere. Cassidy was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, earned an MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and an MFA in fiction from Brooklyn College, and now lives in Toronto. She is the 2025-2026 poet-in-residence at Arc Poetry Magazine.

“Strategies for Reading Aloud” by Cassidy McFadzean is our Poem of the Week.

 

Strategies for Reading Aloud

To count the classmates ahead of you 

To count the paragraphs ahead of yours 

To scan the paragraph you will have to read 

To note the problem words in the paragraph 

To think of synonyms for the problem words 

To accept you can’t replace the words because everyone is reading along 

To lose track of the paragraph the class is on 

To find the paragraph the class is on 

To count the remaining paragraphs until your turn 

To feel a rush of nausea 

To slip out of the classroom to use the bathroom 

To try to wait in the hallway until your turn has passed 

To discover your classmate waiting at the door 

To shrug when your classmate asks what’s taking you so long 

To return to your desk  

To ask your neighbor what paragraph you’re on 

To realize your teacher hasn’t skipped your turn 

To understand everyone has been waiting for you 

To feign ignorance as to what page you’re on  

To feign ignorance in answering your teacher’s query 

To look around at your classmates

To feign ignorance at pronouncing a word 

To clear your throat 

To press your fingers into your chair 

To press your fingernails into the inner flesh of your arms 

To press your fingertips into the space between nostrils and lips 

To feign a sneeze 

To sneeze 

To cough 

To feign a coughing fit 

To stand to get a drink from the water fountain  

To linger in the hallway until your turn has passed 

To return to your desk 

To discover your teacher has returned to your paragraph 

To hear the teacher call your name 

To feel your classmates’ attention on you 

To flip to the correct page 

To press your finger upon the word 

To hesitate at pronouncing the word 

To hear your classmate helpfully supply the correct pronunciation of the word 

To inhale deeply 

To exhale sharply  

To begin to sound the word 

To feel your throat clench as you sound the word 

To feel your brow perspire 

To feel the word stuck in your throat 

To hear your classmates’ whispering  

To hear the grating sound in your throat 

To feel the grating sound reverberating through your body 

To feel the grating sound reverberating through your desk 

To hear the snickers of your classmates 

To try to push out the word

To reason with the word

To negotiate with the word

To appeal to the word  

To run out of breath 

To inhale and meet once more the grating sound 

To feel your face growing hot 

To feel your scalp reddening 

To skip over the word 

To replace the word with another word 

To mumble the word 

To whisper the word 

To face the word 

To force the word 

To greet the word 

To grunt the word 

To accept the word 

To bear the word 

To bear down upon the word 

To curse the author of the word 

To push out the word 

To break through the word 

To finally release the word 

To butcher the word 

To break the word 

To fracture the word

To underline the word

To cross out the word

To black out the word 

To read the word and stutter over the next 

To read the word and stutter over the next 

To read the word and stutter over the next 

To read the word and stutter over the next 

To read the word and stutter over the next 

To read the word and stutter over the next 

To read the word and stutter over the next 

To read the word and stutter over the next

To read the word and stutter over the next 

To rest your head upon your desk

 

Author’s Note

I wrote this poem detailing my early experiences with stuttering, which, when I was a young person, were a source of shame, anxiety, and frustration. For years, I asked myself how something as seemingly easy as reading or speaking aloud could present such challenges, and in this poem, the use of anaphora allows me to closely examine and revisit those moments of hyperawareness, avoidance, and blockage. This poem is part of a manuscript–in progress tracing a journey from shame to self-acceptance that is inspired by the work of musician and poet JJJJJerome Ellis, who in their monumental work The Clearing positions dysfluency as a generative field that opens up time. As I write this note, I am listening to Ellis’s new album, Vesper Sparrow, which explores the interconnections between music, stuttering, and Blackness, and begins with Ellis proclaiming, “The stutter c-c-can be a musical instrument.” I am indebted to Ellis’s insights for helping me understand my own experiences of dysfluency and see the gifts that stuttering can offer.