Genre: Poetry

In Sanam Sheriff’s poem “The Emperor Pats His Lips with a Napkin,” published in the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series, each line ends with renditions of the words, “object” and “subject,” a constraint the poet uses as a kind of outline. “Given that you are the object / of the emperor’s touch; given that you object // to his learnt repetition of love; given the abject / shame of a body entered by another body’s object // permanence,” begins Sherrif’s poem. Using a similar type of constraint, compose a poem that plays with different renditions of words that stem from the same or parallel roots. Play with the different verb tenses and homophonic meanings of your chosen words to paint your own portrait.

Published in n+1, Jynne Dilling writes a tribute piece to Michael Silverblatt, who died earlier this month and was the host of NPR’s Bookworm radio program for over three decades. Reflecting on his many insights, Dilling writes about an episode of the program in which Silverblatt talks to author David Mitchell about how stammering is a form of learning what to say. “Stammering is the language of the inner self,” says Silverblatt. “Before a writer does a final draft, the first draft is a form of stammering, trying to gum one’s way through the thing one doesn’t yet know how to say.” Compose a poem that begins as a stammer of sorts, in which you are learning how to say something that feels difficult or even impossible to articulate in language. How might holding on to parts of the stammering imbue your poem with valuable insights into your inner self?