In her interview for The Fight & The Fiddle, Mahogany L. Browne talks about the challenge she had in breaking down big concepts for young readers, asking “How do I say racism in twelve-year-old?” In trying to speak to younger audiences, she discovered, “We are so shrouded in the beauty of language that we’re actually running away from the heat of the truth.” Using this challenge as a prompt, write a poem that wrestles with describing or explaining a complicated and abstract idea to a twelve-year-old. Consider it an opportunity, as Browne did, to “peel back those layers to figure out what we’re actually trying to say.”

Read more in this issue: Interview | Critical Essay | Poems