1. Read the poem 

2. Do your own reflection on it, noting what it inspires in you

3. Feel free to use your own reflection as your prompt or…

4. Use the selection of prompts below the poem

5. Pick one that inspires you and write (feel free to use only one or write several poems using different prompts) or…

6. Don’t use any of the provided prompts and follow your inspiration from wherever it comes

Enemies

If you are not to become a monster,
you must care what they think.
If you care what they think,

how will you not hate them,
and so become a monster
of the opposite kind? From where then

is love to come—love for your enemy
that is the way of liberty?
From forgiveness. Forgiven, they go

free of you, and you of them;
they are to you as sunlight
on a green branch. You must not

think of them again, except
as monsters like yourself,
pitiable because unforgiving. 

—by Wendell Berry

Next Read Around is September 4, 2020 at 4:00 PM PST

My Thoughts

The rift between parties and groups in America is easily inflamed by the rhetoric of extremes that demonizes the other side. I admit I can hardly watch the news without crashing into curses or collapsing into a stupor. I don't typically think of people as “enemies" and have avoided using that label throughout my life. No surprise since I was an idealistic summer of love teenager in the 60’s in the SF Bay Area.  I “imagined" a world without enemies, one in which we have the means to manage our differences; one in which we somehow find a way to lift up the least among us while bringing out the best in all of us. 

Wendell Berry’s poem, Enemies, articulates the dilemma I face when I "collapse into curses” over what seems to me to be the delusional posturing, the divisive and hateful rhetoric, and the absolute lack of responsibility for the effect of such power grabs in the political environment. It is hard to fend off my own ranting long enough to “care about what they think” or to avoid “hating” the  “enemy” when I dip my toe into their stream. If ever there was a time to consider how far we have fallen or how difficult it is to live the imperative to love the enemy, this is it. In the rhetoric of extremes, we are indeed fighting for the soul of America and not just out there, between “us and them,” but inside, as Americans, when we let hate fester in us and foster enemies in our own hearts and minds. 

Week 21 Prompt Menu

1. What does the word “enemy” conjure up for you?  Write a poem about what that word “enemy” means to you and what it does  inside of you when you hold someone or something as your enemy. 

2. Think of a time when someone opposed you (or opposed someone you know or imagine), who thwarted your effort or tried in some way to defeat you. Write a poem about how the experience of this “enemy” impacted you (or the other). What did you learn or gain from it? What might you do differently if you had a do-over?

3. Think of a time when you opposed someone else, when you thwarted their effort, or tried in some way to defeat them. Write a poem about what it was like to  treat someone as an “enemy.” What justified your action? What did you learn or gain from it.? What might you do differently if you had a do-over?

4. It seems all children go through a period of fear about monsters. Write a poem about your childhood fears of, and perhaps fascination with, monsters. For instance, I was fascinated by monster movies, like the early Frankenstein, werewolf, and vampire movies, and I often had nightmares after watching them. Who or what would you say is a monster in life now? For instance, the trial of Joseph DeAngelo, the golden state killer, just eneded in California and he could certaily qualify as a moral monster. 

5. Write a poem about hate. You could consider how we use the term in everyday language, for instance, when we say “I hate it when that (whatever that is) happens;” or “I hate being stuck in traffic.” Write a list of things you “hate.” What is the impact of ascribing such an extreme emotion as hate to simple events? What are the benefits and downsides? Or take it a step further and write an ode to hate: personify hate and have a conversation, let it teach you what it wants, what its role may be in the world, or, more personally, how it serves or impedes you in your life.  

6. Write a poem about forgiveness. This could be from either side of the equation: being forgiven or forgiving another. Or take it further and write about the imperative to “love your enemy.” Can you hold someone in your mind as an “enemy” and yet love them? Berry implies that fogiveness or the abilioty to ‘love your enemy” leads to liberty or a kind of freedom in which both the enemy and oneself can go on in life freely. What do you think would happen if you were to “love your enemy?”

7. Write from whatever else in the poem inspires you or from elsewhere in your life.