“There’s always a chainsaw somewhere, / the high whine of a drill, somebody building something or / tearing it down, fastening metal to metal,” begins Marie Howe’s poem “Chainsaw,” published in the May 2023 issue of Poetry magazine. Taking inspiration from Howe’s opening stanza, write a poem that begins with: “There’s always a ___ somewhere.” You might similarly start with a sensory observation and draw a connection to it with larger, ever-present forces, the way that Howe explores the relentless drive of industry and human violence in her poem. Consider how the ubiquity of your object serves as a stand-in for other inescapable forces.
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