“You must accept the door is never shut. / You’re always free to leave at any time, / though the hostage will remain, no matter what,” writes Erin Belieu in “Instructions for the Hostage,” from her fifth poetry collection, Come-Hither Honeycomb, published in February by Copper Canyon Press. In this villanelle—a strict poetic form wherein the first and third lines of the poem are repeated throughout—the terms of the metaphorical hostage scenario underpinning the poem are recontextualized, their meaning deepened as the reader learns that the speaker is both captor and hostage. In this way, the hostage scenario could be applied to any number of situations in which one is complicit in a kind of self-entrapment. Think of a time when you stood in your own way of progress, then write a poem in which you offer instructions to show that the door was never shut.

“What I have been thinking about, lately, is bewilderment as a way of entering the day as much as the work. Bewilderment as a poetics and an ethics,” writes Fanny Howe in “Bewilderment,” excerpted from a talk and published in the online journal How2 in 1999. Howe uses bewilderment as a way of understanding how the poem expresses the ineffable, claiming that it is “more than an attitude—but an actual approach, a way—to resolve the unresolvable.” Write a series of scenes in a personal essay that illustrate a time in your life when you were bewildered. How can one learn from the feeling of being perplexed or confused?

“Is this a voice that I can sustain throughout this novel? Will it continue to be, and also most importantly, can it sustain my curiosity?” asks Chang-rae Lee when discussing how he developed the characters of his latest novel, My Year Abroad (Riverhead Books, 2021), in a virtual event for the Asian American Writers’ Workshop. “You don’t want a voice that’s absolutely the same throughout.” Write a story from the perspective of one speaker that shows the character changing through their voice. Focus on how your character sees the world in order to show their evolution.

In my last post, I reflected on the ways writing can unite us wherever we live, and I’d like to continue that thread a bit more.

One recent example of how writing can unite us is Amanda Gorman’s poem “The Hill We Climb,” which she read at the presidential inauguration of Joe Biden last month. Gorman is the youngest inaugural poet at 22 years old, and the first youth poet laureate of the United States. She also received a Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award from Poets & Writers in 2020. Gorman’s reading was widely shared, and it’s likely you’ve come across it on your own social media feed. In fact, it was so popular that this past Sunday, Gorman became the first poet to perform at the Super Bowl.

The attention on Gorman’s poem got me thinking about how poetry can make us feel engaged in the world politically, socially, and spiritually. I believe poetry offers each of us different meaning and purpose. For youth, poetry can provide a seat at the table in an adult world that impacts them. For women and people of color, poetry can provide a space to empower their voice and take agency against systems of oppression.

I also thought about the role poets laureate, like Amanda Gorman, serve in public and the amazing work they do in their cities and states. Two previous Louisiana poets laureate, Peter Cooley and Brenda Marie Osbey, were kind enough to share their experiences with me for this blog.

Poets in New Orleans (and across Louisiana), you should know that the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities is currently seeking nominations from the public for the state’s next poet laureate, and you can submit recommendations now through February 24.

If you were selected as the next poet laureate of Louisiana, what role might you take? How would you use poetry to cultivate community and conversation?