I’ve been thinking about how to talk about gun violence through my poetry. It’s a topic very close to me since the whole premise and impetus of me starting The Battleground youth program was because of a series of teen gun shootings that I was present at back in 2017. It was in witnessing the reality of a gun culture propelled by children that awakened in me a deep sense of concern at the ease with which they can gain access to machines that are solely designed to kill.