During my first two semesters, I emphasized the efficacy of understanding and compromise as a persuasive technique, via Rogerian rhetoric. But after reading two essays, one by David Wojahn and one by Tony Hoagland, on the lost art of invective in poetry, I want to foil my lesson in compromise with one in persuasive shaming.
Writing Exercise
In his Inferno, Dante Alighieri describes Hell as nine concentric circles where sinners are tortured with punishments that have a certain “poetic justice,” so that the punishment is ironically related to the sin. Flatterers are buried in human waste, a.k.a., they are literally waist-deep in their own bullshit. Adulterers are blown back and forth by storm winds, just as lust violently sways one’s emotions. Fortune tellers and false prophets have to wander through eternity with their heads turned around backwards, because they claimed to see into the future.
For this exercise, imagine an eternal hell for one of your enemies, whether an individual or a group, where the punishment befits the crime. Describe the punishment with as much sensory detail and imagery as possible. Hopefully you’ll have fun taking your revenge through writing, but see if you can also justify that revenge. Describe the person’s crimes so persuasively that your audience too will take pleasure in revenge.
*Thanks to David Wojahn and Eve Salisbury for inspiring this prompt.
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