“Two Hands” Nonviolence Poem

In my Theory and Practice of Nonviolence Peace Studies class yesterday we had to split into groups to come up with a clever way to teach the rest of our class a portion of our assigned reading. The group I was in decided to write a poem to get our content across. We had to teach the class about Barbara Deming's "two hands" of nonviolence and creative energy. I'll leave my description of what those two things are at that and let you try to figure it out from the poem. Feel free to leave comments regarding the poem here. The poem itself is after the break.

Deming wrote about the “Two Hands”
In defiance of authority a person stands
But concern for the others you must keep in mind
So stand your ground but keep your heart kind

The action/reaction cycle must be broken
So we should take nonviolence as the token
So “shock and awe” is what we must do
And Sharp calls this political ju-jitsu

Let’s cool the desire for retaliation
And promote peace and love in every nation
While the enemy thunders around like a troll
The challenger maintains equilibrium and control

Violent methods always repels and divides
While love on the other hand always provides
Take the angry energy and turn it into learning
This will create the solution for which everyone is yearning

Nonviolence enables us to hate the sin, not the sinner
So in the end, everyone is still a winner
Liberation sets the oppressor and oppressed free
The movement ends where everyone is happy!

So let’s follow Gandhi, don’t be a dumb blondie.