Writing prompts responding to an Inua Ellams poem

A few exercises looking at Inua's incredible prize-winning poem 'Fuck/Boys'

Image credit: Oliver Holms

Yesterday officially marked the autumn equinox. And in theory, more time spent inside means more time spent reading and writing. So, here are a few prompts in response to a stunning poem by

Inua Ellams

.

Shout out to Cecilia Knapp for today’s post. She focused on Inua’s poem during our recent Skills Share day with First Story, and even though I was already familiar with the work, Cecilia’s workshop inspired me to write these prompts.

I’m certain you’ll already be familiar with Inua and his work. If not, Inua Ellams is an award-winning poet, playwright, and curator — Nigeria-born and UK-based. Identity, displacement, and destiny are recurring themes in his work, in which he mixes the old with the new and the traditional with the contemporary.

Inua has books published by Flipped Eye, Akashic, Nine Arches, Penned In The Margins, and Bloomsbury. Today’s poem, Fuck/Boys, was published in his collection The Actual on Penned In The Margins in 2020 (available here).

Inua’s poem as published by the Magma Poetry Competition 2018/19

Below is the typed version, in case that’s easier to read. You can see why I included the image, though: the shape of the poem on the page is vital to its core meaning. As people, we often feel as though society places us in a box. And in this instance, the poem begins with a boy practicing his boxing moves with his grandfather.

The use of slashes instead of full stops or line breaks is also very telling. I see this as depicting the “tiny fracture” that “burrows deeper” before “over the years others join.” It’s a powerful visual cue that tells you something before you’ve even started reading. This also impacts how you read it: it demands a breathless, almost relentless pace.

Fuck/Boys

 It starts early / A man compliments the tight nut of his
 grandson’s fist / Hit Me he says holding open his palms / The boy
 strikes and winces / Shake It Off We Are Men We Feel Nothing
 the man says / The boy tucks the tiny fracture into the sleeve of
 himself and strikes again / The fracture burrows deeper / Over
 the years others join / This when older boys squash butterflies /
 This when the teacher ridicules his painting / This when the
 fairy’s light dims in the film / They swarm inward / A shoal of
 needles through meat / shredding the vicissitudes of himself /
 At twenty they are a nest of thorns around his heart / They
 flatten to a hard shell / They close and crush him in / At thirty he
 is imprisoned for a fight he can’t justify / His heart is a gnarled
 knuckle now / but holds a spot of light / thin as spiritskin / in
 which the boy he was and the man he could have been / whisper
 / in hushed starlight / in dimmed symphonies of other ways of
 being

I also find it incredibly powerful how “being” sits alone on the final line. It’s an isolated, fleeting moment, contemplating how things might’ve been different. The word itself, too: not “acting”, or “living”, or “existing.” Just “being”, much calmer and more passive and more peaceful.

I’m reserving my bespoke prompts for paid subscribers below. For free subscribers, I invite you to read the poem at your own pace, let it percolate, and use inspiration in whichever way it comes!