Best Poems Written by Lance Iota

Life According To a Debater: a Policy Case Found Poem

The 1AC is a shot in the dark. 
When we use interrogative strategies
we create zones of visibility and possibility.
The potentiality for deliberation
towards a new politic.
 
The study of bare life signals
radical transformations;
The constitutive ambiguity of theory
is never clear-- is always double
Thinking of thinking; 
A reflection that interrogates
the link between life and politics.

The relation between power
is complicated to consider.
The most authentic paradigm:
Sovereignty corresponds to ability
And ability not to be: a state of exception.

An act is sovereign when it realizes itself. 
Bodies are made intelligible 
through visibility and value. 
When these components 
are removed, what is left?
 
Operating in the shadows, 
the truth often stays hidden
Fights break out like
“walking on minefields.”
Silently governed interests
implement policy which
silently neglect populations
further into the margins.

The bodies of the victims 
emphasize this state of
exception making it more difficult 
to identify, articulate and critique.
There are rare but significant attempts
to conceive the indistinguishably 
between law and life.

Debate helps curtail individual power: 
to shape behaviors and attitudes,
to be made visible and speak to the 
systemic character of American injustice.
The possibility to fill the void
and mitigate impact of fighting.

Education can have a 
dramatic impact. Mental 
stimulation and meaningful 
human interaction cause 
social connection,
Zones of indistinction
regain the meaning they lost.

The key is to create alternative 
conceptualizations of self 
in relationship to others.
With broad political and social 
movements standing behind,
uniting the call on the part of
democratic transformations. 
Any radical change will be 
more than cosmetic.

Young people now carry the banner
of struggle. Of democratic life. 
A variety of discourses developed 
to avert stemming the flow--
reverting to secrets we do not know.

Claiming that debaters can “solve”
by repeatedly rejecting and interrogating 
the tradition is a key strategy in creating 
new modes of being the secret to every exception.

How it unfolds remains to be seen.

Copyright © Lance Iota | Year Posted 2017