Think of someone or something that is in opposition to you, that complicates or threatens your health, well-being, or even existence. What in this world, in its current manifestation, works against you? The someone or something can be singular or plural, individual or collective. If a thing, it can be a physical thing, like a polluting factory near your home, or an abstraction, like capitalism or a parent’s unrealistic expectations or definitions of success. It may be useful to write a short list until you discover a topic that you want to spend some time with.
Time yourself as you write in some way (with a timer, the length of a song, or the length of a page). Write for roughly 3 minutes in response to each of the prompts below. Try to write for the whole time, without stopping, in sentences, with no line breaks. Work to get all of your thoughts on the page, without worrying about what you are writing, or how. It is encouraged to follow wherever your mind leads.
- First, write everything you know about what opposes you. This can include experiences, historical facts, feelings, etc.
- Then, write down what you would say to what opposes you if you could say anything without fear of reprisal. What questions would you ask?
- What does or would your opposition say to you? What would it ask?
- Finally, write a list of comparisons about what opposes you, and related experiences. What is this like? What is it like to be you in this situation?
Read “Call & Response Between Colonizer & Colonized” by Desirée Alvarez.
Questions to consider, on your own in writing, or in discussion with others:
- How is this poem a call and response? Who is speaking in each line? Who is the “you?” The “I?”
- How does the speaker describe her experience here? How would you describe the images used?
- What kinds of comparisons are used here? What information do they provide the reader about the speaker’s experience?
- What do you notice about the form of the poem (how the poem looks on the page)? How does its appearance relate to the content of the poem.
Write a poem that imagines a dialogue between you and what opposes you. Name what opposes you in the title, and in the body of the poem describe that person or thing through images and comparisons. Compose the poem in couplets. Think about how the couplet form, a stanza of two lines, relates to the relationship between you and what opposes you, and a call and response.
Maggie Queeney (she/her) is the author of In Kind (University of Iowa Press, 2023), winner of the 2022 Iowa Poetry Prize, and settler (Tupelo Press, 2021). She received the 2019 Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize, a Ruth Stone Scholarship, and an Individual Artists Program Grant from the City of Chicago in both 2019 and 2022. Her work appears in the Kenyon Review, Guernica, the Missouri Review, and The...