As Black History Month draws to a close, I wanted to pause – not to mark an ending, but to honor a beginning that never truly stops. February offers us a focused space for reflection, celebration, and learning, yet Black history, Black brilliance, and Black artistry are not confined to a single month. They live in our classrooms, our communities, our conversations – and in our poetry. So this week, I am featuring the powerful call and response poem: a poetry of connection where one voice calls and another answers. No one stands alone.

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Poetic Sundays: The Call and Response Poem

The call and response poem has echoed through many voices — in spirituals, protest chants, and songs — from fields to churches, from streets to stages. And it reminds us that poetry is not only something we read quietly on a page. It is something we speak, hear, feel, and build together. It helps us realize that we are not alone.

What Is a Call and Response Poem?

A call and response poem is written for two voices:

• Call → One speaker asks, declares, or prompts
• Response → Another voice answers, echoes, challenges, or builds on it

It grows from strong oral traditions in African, African American, and Caribbean cultures, especially in music, spirituals, work songs, and later in jazz and spoken word/slam poetry. It appears powerfully in the work of poets like Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou, where repetition and communal affirmation shape meaning.

The beauty of the form is that it builds through rhythm and shared speech, where one voice calls (asks, names, declares), and another voice responds (affirms, resists, remembers).

Structure Options

There’s no single “correct” structure, but here are common patterns:

• Alternating Lines: Call/Response/Call/Response
• Repeating Chorus: Call/Response (same line repeated each time)
• Expanding Echo: Call (short line)/Response (longer elaboration)
• Layered Voices: Multiple calls that receive a unifying response

Step-by-Step: How to Write One

Step 1: Choose the Relationship

Who is speaking—and to whom? Clear roles give the poem power and focus, for example:

• Teacher / Students
• Parent / Child
• Past You / Present You / Future You
• Fear / Courage
• Earth / Humans
• Past / Present
• Heart / Mind
• Brain / Screen

Clear roles make the poem powerful.

Step 2: Decide the Tone

What feeling should guide the poem?

• Playful
• Argumentative
• Inspirational
• Reflective
• Humorous
• Urgent or protest-focused

Step 3: Craft Strong “Calls”

Calls should:

• Ask a question
• Make a bold statement
• Issue a challenge
• Express confusion or emotion

Example calls:

• Why do you glow all night?
• Who is listening when we speak?
• What stories did you hide from us?

Step 4: Make the Response Meaningful

The response can:

• Answer directly
• Twist the meaning
• Disagree
• Deepen the idea
• Repeat for emphasis

Example responses:

• Because you won’t let me sleep.
• I am listening, even when you think I am silent.

As you write, read the lines aloud and listen to how the two voices interact. Does the second voice simply agree, or does it complicate, expand, or question the first?

Craft Tips

• Use repetition — it builds power
• Keep lines punchy
• Read it aloud (this form demands voice)
• Play with contrast (short call, longer response)
• Use formatting clearly so readers know who is speaking (labels, colors, or line breaks).
• Consider performing the poem with a partner, class, or group to feel its full energy
• If you are working with kids or students, try having one group be the “call” and another be the “response,” then switch roles so everyone experiences both sides of the conversation

References, h/t, and Further Reading

• In this Call and Response learning prompt over at the Poetry Foundation, the author urges us to write about things that oppose us and how we would respond to them.
• The Walking Classroom explores comparing poems like Walt Whitman’s “I Hear America Singing” and Langston Hughes’s “I, Too” through a call and response lens.
• Ashley Danyew offers rich collections of call and response songs and activities that work beautifully with children’s choirs and elementary music settings, while Dany Rosevear gives us a whole compilation of call and response songs to listen to!

My Call and Response Attempt

The Hummingbird’s Pause

Call
I asked that darling bird who comes each day
To sip awhile outside my kitchen bay:
“Hello, hummingbird, my dear friend –
what keeps you fluttering from start to end?”

Response
“Each day a new flower blooms somewhere,
Waiting for me to spread her fare.
And when I sip, I find one more –
so off I go again, door to door.”

Call
She flurried away before I could wave goodbye,
But when she returned, I said, “Hello—oh hi!
When do you perch and rest a bit?
Or do you never truly sit?”

Response
“I rest between the beating air,
In hidden branches, light and spare.
The pause is brief – the work is sweet.
There’s always more nectar to meet.”

Reflection
And as she shimmered into sky and sun,
I wondered how much we might get done,
if we, like her, would pause between
the seen and unseen, the rush and serene.

~ Vidya Tiru @ LadyInReadWrites

Recently

On My Blog & at Home

My recent posts since and including my last Sunday Scribblings:

• Celebrate Armchair Travels and Mother Languages with Wondrous Books
• Sunday Scribblings #244: When Experience Becomes Poetry in the Nyamgur

Upcoming

On My Blog & Homefront

Not sure about what will appear on my blog but on my homefront, it is the same old, same old. Back to routines after a week-long break for me (which I spent on homework and home-work).

This Week’s Celebrations

Literary Celebrations (close-to-it also!)

• Literary birthdays this week include: W.E.B. Du Bois and Francesca Simon on the 23rd; Gillian Flynn, Wilhelm Carl Grimm, Laila Lalami, and Rainbow Rowell on the 24th; Anthony Burgess on the 25th; Victor Hugo on the 26th of February; Lawrence George Durrell, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Steinbeck, and Peter De Vries on the 27th; Hermione Lee, Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket!), and Tony Robbins on the 28th/29th; Ralph Ellison and Robert Lowell on 1st March
• It is Pinocchio Day on the 23rd!
• February 26th observes National Letter to an Elder Day – celebrate it by sending an elder a handwritten letter to show you care. It is also Tell a Fairy Tale Day.
• Feb 28th is National Essay Day, in honor of Michel de Montaigne (his birthdate), who wrote the first-ever ‘essays’

Foodie Celebrations

• Something I have not made for a long while now (but used to way too often before) – it is  National Banana Bread Day on the 23rd
• The 24th observes National Tortilla Chip Day
• While the 25th is National Chocolate Covered Nut Day
• Up next is National Pistachio Day on the 26th of Feb. It is also National Toast Day (which is observed on the last Thursday in February)
• The 27th brings with it National Strawberry Day and National Protein Day
• While National Chocolate Souffle Day and National Pancake Day bring sweetness to Feb 28th!
• March to a healthy start with National Fruit Compote Day and National Peanut Butter Lover’s Day on the 1st of March

Other Celebrations

• The 23rd is World Peace and Understanding Day
• Followed by Introduce A Girl To Engineering Day on the 24th of February
• And then, it is time to be quiet for it is Quiet Day on February 25. It is also Inconvenience Yourself Day (observed annually on the fourth Wednesday in February).
• Black Lives Matter Day is celebrated annually on February 26th. It is also Carpe Diem Day
• Feb 27th observes World NGO Day, National Polar Bear Day, and National Retro Day!
• March 1st celebrates women of color with National Black Women in Jazz and the Arts Day and International Women of Color Day. It is also World Music Therapy Day and Global Day of Unplugging. Plus, a couple of holidays for everyday – this date is Share a Smile Day, World Compliment Day, and Zero Discrimination Day.

Related Reads and More

• The Simple and Timeless Essay: How, What, and Why of it
• Fairy Tales and Finding Magic in Life
• The Magic of Fairy Tales: Tell One Today
• Sunday Scribblings #97: Fascinating Fairy Tales and Poems With Power

Wrapping up my Sunday Scribblings

So dear reader, you have reached the end of this Sunday Scribblings! As always, I welcome your thoughts, comments, and suggestions about this post. Will you attempt the call and response poem, or do you have a favorite one? And do let me know if you plan to celebrate any of these mentioned celebrations this coming week?

Linking this to the Sunday Post over at the Caffeinated Reviewer and the Sunday Salon