School of Quietude

If you want to win an argument, says Kim Fu, don't write a poem:

Poetry is a difficult medium for argumentation—to explicitly try to make a rhetorical point, change people’s minds, or convey information. I find the “argument” often sneaks up on you, by first engaging you in a different way, at an aesthetic or emotional level, or by journeying through a parallel or metaphor that seems far afield. It’s a strange, slow, trusting way to make a point. That can be especially refreshing in the polarized, 24-hour-news-cycle, internet-thinkpiece era, where everyone is constantly yelling at each other.