Conjunctions/Connections, After Nicole Sealey’s “And”
Read and listen to Nicole Sealey’s “And” several times. Then take a minute or two to write down your thoughts and questions about the poem.
Select a conjunction (other than "and"): for, nor, but, or, yet, so. Compile a list throughout the day of words that include the conjunction. Feel free to break out your dictionary and thesaurus.
You will use the language you collected to compose a poem. Keep the sound of the word in the air as long as possible through rhyme and repetition. Do not try to write a poem that tells a story, or makes logical or narrative sense. Follow the sounds of the language. Allow yourself to play.
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…