This thesis investigates how service work and creative expression function as modes of democratic practice in an era of intense polarization in America. Drawing on immersive volunteer experiences with over 20 different organizations, this project combines poetry and political analysis to explore how lived experiences of policy are articulated and interpreted. Situated within scholarship that reconceptualizes civic engagement as relational rather than purely behavioral, the study makes the claim that service and art operate as forms of democratic infrastructure, particularly during and after the Trump administration. Service provides proximity to policy consequences, while poetry translates those experiences into affective and narrative forms that shape civic understanding. By placing a form of creative writing in dialogue with political science, this project illustrates that storytelling can serve as an admissible mode of political inquiry and that attentive listening constitutes an active form of civic participation in various polarized contexts.
Acknowledgements: I would want to thank my professors and family!