Joanna Rosenberg 

Our facilitator Joe McGonegal led a fun, interactive creative writing session called “Poetic Justice,” that took me back to high school English class! We were asked to pick a topic from a list that consisted of various issues of the day—war, poverty, racism, etc.—and write a poem predicting how it will look in 2021. I chose climate change and focused on the positive impact that the pandemic has actually had on the environment and how after this is all over (if it’s ever over), we have some proof of what is possible to steer climate change in the right direction. We were also asked to use a buzzword of the moment, so I chose the word “hoax” (as in climate change is a hoax, the coronavirus is a hoax, you get the idea). The title is a nod to Public Enemy’s song, “Don’t Believe the Hype.”