First, I tell them to not write the obvious.
Don’t say that they’re prisoners.
Show that they’re prisoners.
Ban the word “prison,” I say.
They don’t know what this room looks like.
They don’t know there’s no bars in the entire place.

You see this fly strip,
it looks like it hasn’t been changed
in eight years.
“Seventeen,” Troy says.
“How do you know seventeen?”
“Because I been here that long, and it’s never been changed.”

So paint that for them.
You see all these flies,
you see how this fly has been rotting for eighteen years,
describe it.
You see how hard that fly is,
like a little rock.

“That’s us,” Troy says.
“What?”
“We’re those flies.”
Right, I say,
exactly,
if you understand that, you understand poetry.

I Don't Have a Response for That