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Strategy Response 1, Week 1

Ever since reading Ai’s poem “Respect, 1967,” I’ve started to take poems written initially in a voice close to my own and write them a second time from a completely different perspective. The act of assuming another voice forces me away from the comfortable or triggering subject that allowed for my initial draft. Usually I write in a young, masculine voice, so when applicable, I rewrite drafts from an older and feminine perspective. I actually tried this in the poem “Beastiality,” one of my free responses for this week. I use this practice so that I don’t convince myself that my initial draft is amazing. Whenever I use this tactic, the second draft is almost always more provocative and more specific. Sometimes I blend the two drafts to give myself more language to work with, but I often just work with the new draft. In my poem “Black Paintings,” also written this week, I tried to combine the perspective of a father and son/fetus. I think both works are stronger because of this blend.

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