Winner of the Toni Morrison Day Creative Writing Contest 2026
We flaunt fragments forged in fire.
Censored shields guard our empty minds.
We lay siege with sentences.
Trebuchets sinners use to cast synonyms:
Coax, coerce, contort, constrain.
Control. We teach the plebs
Paradoxes, atrocious antonyms:
Armistice, amity, pacifism, pacification.
But will you pacify your infants so?
Lance their language? Helmet their hamartia?
In lieu, brandish ballades and parley with pantoums.
Exchange poems, not blows.
A legacy of literary devices, before your devised discord.