POETRY PROMPTS
Jenny Qi

I love persona poems, and Margaret Atwood’s “Pig Song” and Jennifer Huang’s “song of chou doufu” are particularly delightful to me because they speak from the voices of things commonly viewed with disgust or loathing (a pig and stinky tofu, respectively). I find these emotions to be interesting, because we often feel them towards something we don’t understand, something we fear, and/or something we dislike in ourselves. Read these poems, and make a list of 3-5 things you or most people feel disgust towards (~5 min). Pick one, and write a poem in the voice of this hated thing (~15 min). Afterward, reflect: is there any change in your attitude toward this thing?

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