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Thanks to everyone who participated in the self-portrait poetry project! Congratulations to Marie Elena Gaspari whose entry “In the Marketplace” was selected as the winner of the $50 prize. Check out all the great self-portrait submissions below, and stay tuned for our next poetry project. |
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Poetry Project: Self-portrait in 40 words (or less)
$50 will be awarded to our favorite poetry project submission |
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La bailaora
The nails in my shoes pound out rhythms like a rainstorm like notes rolling on the roof of the mouth fingers serpentine the air you breathe my skirt breaks into blossom as I dance the color red |
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Credo
Seek out knowledge with a watchful eye. Become a mix of human and machine. And know that some day even death may die, While life shall never lose its wondrous sheen.
— Leonid Chernukhin |
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"Model"
Jagged, ragged My thoughts are rippled, puzzled Twisted, gone
Pale, stale My skin glows from under fake makeup Lights, cameras
A dose of pose Am I pretty enough for you now No, yes
Knife, strife This is a cartoon, not a life
— Olya Nakonechny |
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I hold a can of hairspray, My mohawk is up. Mirror doesn't let me see Who I really am.
— Olya Nakonechny |
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Phantoms
The mask fell, crumpled, like the thin wavering that accompanies the fatal futility of drifting leaves. All the while, the sound burned, spellbound, in the crisp avarice that shattered stillness beneath the ground.
— Anonymous |
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The Portrait of a Poet
Where black seas are unending And where the self rolls over foaming white Turning up the mossiest of turf, in bellowing roars Only velvet underground laid down like bricks I am a poet; I lay out in form of words
— Allison Rekuc |
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i did write for love now i seek ads on craigslist damn you grownup life
— Sarah Chisolm |
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Self-portrait in Love
love not love love not love not love not love not love not love not love not love love love love love love love love love not love not love not love not love not love love love love love
— Thomas Viola
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truth be told
my stories always contain elastic truth stretched each time to add interest for any of you that may have already heard this story before I’ll tell it two or three different ways before I’d ever lie about it
— Carl Palmer |
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I thought I would be happy when I turned twenty. when I found true love -- when I switched jobs -- if I became famous -- if I got published I guess not.
— Zippy Quick |
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my eyes are most open when sleeping
I'm told my eyes are lost for I'm a dream
my eyes only focus on whats not there yet
— roberto beltran |
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My Locks
A personality that alters from day to day, creates playful curls or uncertain waves whose sway send men’s heads in a whirl. Straight and serious creates knots, warning guys that brave fingers may get tangled in my brown locks.
— Amelia M Anderson |
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"Duel Eyes"
White and pink, brown and black Then, two blinks. One hums softly while its twin roars in rage. They stare at each other Before turning their white backs to you and me One big brown eye and his arch enemy.
— Edwige K. |
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"Miss Perfect"
Scared of what they’ll see coward Of how I’ll be perceived critical
No longer the angel they adore selfish But a spiteful imp
Miss Perfect is the name prideful In admiration? vengeful And all I see are my faults liar
— Amelia M Anderson |
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- H.E. -
maelstromed, adizzied cup-'n-saucer ride's lies yet not afollow the fallow they in prism'd like playskool windups haute unsprung
— H.e.m.
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Aspirational Infancy is the agent that produced the zeal Inborn tendencies kept me clean in the filth Reliance on perseverance now I’m self-made I am my own hero, I reflect on my own role model Aspiration of self eradicates stereotypes
— Jody Johnson |
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Fourteen Red Lines
Fourteen red lines Bleed the tears I cannot cry.
Words of hate I know I shouldn't think But it's okay if they're for me.
Anger, seeming righteous, pulsing through the veins. I feel fine, there's nothing wrong But then I do it again.
— Alexandria Brown |
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Misunderstood
Starry eyes, shine bright. So much they see But they cannot see as mine. They see so many things So many things they know. And yet when they look into mine You do not see. I cannot be known.
— Alexandria Brown |
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Dancer, One Of Many
My sanity, whatever the collective definition My Sobriety, by definitive strengths Both depend on powerlessness To the Great Power The Goddess Only understood With veins free of contamination And surrender to everything By shaking my hips with moving feet
— Thais Rose |
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Double Image
went to your medicine cabinet this morning there they were to calm this hurt can't judge you all I know is what I heard read, seen in print Jack, Cap'n, Crown, Henny closed the mirror door all I could see
— Robert Gibbons |
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Black Sheep
Black sheep I may be But our wool Is rarer And makes much Prettier sweaters Than does yours. So when you dare To look down on me Just remember You’ll buy My sweater later So that you can look cool
— Denise Benjamin |
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Stealth Crossing through shadows, Nimbly dodging the glow of street lights, Five more blocks to go. Homeward bound at 3:37 a.m, Alone, female, emblazoned by my own boldness. Softly treading the urban forest, Like a midnight bandit.
— Macie Eng |
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A FACE AND A SERVANT TO GRACE
There is only but a face, red cheeks, and a voice full of grace. Harmonious gestures, like a gesture, I am a servant. I am what I am, again and again, but only a face, and a servant to grace.
— A.J. Harwood |
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The “be quiet” stuck but my left hand snuck by unnoticed and the words bled out were let out like butterflies released from cupped hands |
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STATIC QUOTIDIAN 2
I don't cook, rather I open things in 13 hour nights, you want bigger portions take smaller bites, trouble...folks...have......habits
— H.e.m. |
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Elusive
No man can possess, seduce, or abuse me. No man has power over me, I am in complete control.
No man will capture my beauty, I will escape from them. I am as elusive as a butterfly.
— Anonymous |
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FOOLSCAP
the error is the expectation of logic, reason to relies write on a new page onto a margin 'twixt head and home
— H.e.m.
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The Hand of Tara
The hand of Tara, The Lotus Born One falls upon me And now, in a brilliant, spiraling, mandala of light, I am dancing open the heart of the universe, one laughing, golden, step at a time
— Marie Elena Gaspari |
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In The Marketplace
In the marketplace the beggar girl’s arms wrap round my waist she buries her head in my silk-clad stomach small brown fingers search for my hand together we walk through the Nepalese dust to buy powdered milk — Marie Elena Gaspari |
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Barefoot Beneath the Moon
I am Marie Elena Light Beloved of God I am a woman unto myself dancing barefoot beneath the moon. That is all the beauty I need
— Marie Elena Gaspari |
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All My Pieces
Sometimes I have to sit So very quietly To hold all my pieces together Even one weightless tear dropping might shatter everything
— Marie Elena Gaspari |
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Dreaming the Sun
Standing in the moon I am dreaming the sun Spinning straw into gold razor-fine filaments of hope, of longing, too tightly stranded to bear the pull of wanting
— Marie Elena Gaspari |
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The Belly Dancer A honeyed wave rolls from my hips spilling sloping gold over arched thighs A languid, ribboning flow A red-jeweled undulation released within the rippling, ovaled surrounds of the womb in a liquid almond ebb
— Marie Elena Gaspari |
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The Screaming
It's going to be a long night The screaming will go on for hours I will spend all night holding the hand that lies next to the screaming because I believe every voice deserves to be heard
— Marie Elena Gaspari |
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pad one three i get down when the laundry is low and there’s no way to paula’s but places to go where they’ve seen my cleanest shirt this week and i know they remember my name
— Matthew Dickens |
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i flutter in my cocoon yet it is my flight in my most beautiful world.. I am a silk worm.
— Kamal Dhillon |
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PISCES
Still as stones in a raging river I'd rather not be.
Water~ bubbling, flowing, Changing. I'd rather be...
I'm the fish that swims Alive.
— Nikko Palmario |
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Beach Bones
The world underneath my skin is tiny silver waves that tremble with each breath and corrode my emotion rocks until they are sand, that can drift through my brain fingers like the ashes of a cremated truth.
— Caitlin Kawaguchi |
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the only time I’ve ever been kissed
I sleep with crystal stars dangling over my head on fishing wire. One time there was this earthquake and one shattered against the wall, slicing my cheek. That scar is my reminder that I am special a star kissed me.
— Caitlin Kawaguchi
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SELF-PORTRAIT
I am still the girl I was Heart and Mind experienced now Maturity overtakes her Flowing with children The child resigns but will not quit Complexity surrounds her I am still the girl I was. . . . . . And beyond.
— Rhonnie |
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In The Marketplace
In the marketplace the beggar girl’s arms wrap round my waist she buries her head in my silk-clad stomach small brown fingers search for my hand together we walk through the Nepalese dust to buy powdered milk — Marie Elena Gaspari |