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@powerpoetry / powerpoetry.tumblr.com

Power Poetry is a digital writing community for youth. This is our Tumblr.
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pigmenting
Physics says: go to sleep. Of course you’re tired. Every atom in you has been dancing the shimmy in silver shoes nonstop from mitosis to now. Quit tapping your feet. They’ll dance inside themselves without you. Go to sleep. Geology says: it will be all right. Slow inch by inch America is giving itself to the ocean. Go to sleep. Let darkness lap at your sides. Give darkness an inch. You aren’t alone. All of the continents used to be one body. You aren’t alone. Go to sleep. Astronomy says: the sun will rise tomorrow,Zoology says: on rainbow-fish and lithe gazelle,Psychology says: but first it has to be night, soBiology says: the body-clocks are stopped all over town andHistory says: here are the blankets, layer on layer, down and down.

Albert Goldbarth, “The Sciences Sing a Lullabye” (via pigmenting)

Source: pigmenting
#poetry#albert goldbarth#science
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philologistandbibliophile

Discovery Meet, Most Sweet Substantial

Discovery meet, most sweet substantial,  A grim victoire in sober fierce,  Which knowing in its talent fines  To piercing use; the cup hath brimmed And overflowed in talent honed, In vision sharpened, in captured Words, in greenery ripened, whet And narrowed to the bub of purpose,  As blade to stunted appetite. Learning synthesized, and lightly Levied spirits, all combined  To make esprit willing, singing rhyme. —

#power poetry#poetry#sounds#spoken word
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oldskoolhipster

Buried Confidence

I never really thought of my life as being a miracle

Although everyone around me did

Always reminding me about all I’ve been through

A rough place I don’t want to go back to or even think about

The sharp silver needles poked in various places on my skin        

That cold liquid going from the tall machine into my body

Different people standing over me as we awaited the good or bad news to come

I witnessed all the transformations to my body

From that monster they call chemotherapy 

My Hair

Hair that was once black and full

Flowing from the crown of my head to my shoulder blade

All fell out in a matter of days

Braid by braid

My new growth very thin and patchy

It all happened so fast

Making me dependent on hats and wigs

For my confidence

For my feminism

That was all gone

 My skin

Once a beautiful caramel chocolate shade

All clean and with an even skin tone

Now completely transformed

So many shades darker

With no exposure to the sun at all

Skin damaged

 Looked at myself in the mirror

The sight scared me

Didn’t really know who I was looking at

She looked so different from the girl I was used to seeing

The one I saw before was a bubbly, fun loving beautiful 10 year old

Loved by all her classmates

And the new person there scared me

So many mean word were said

Horrible thoughts came to my mind

Thinking what if it all was true?

What if everything they call me is what I really am?

Am I even beautiful?

 Slowly I just started shutting myself out

Didn’t say anything to anyone

I didn’t want to get along with them

Ignoring the negativity

I began to search for who I really was

Acknowledging the great miracle that happened

Started to see the beauty I possessed

Maybe not by their standards, but definitely by mine

My short, kinky curls make my head one of a kind

My dark succulent skin perfectly distributed all over

A tall goddess I have grown to be

And the sight really satisfies me

#power poetry#slam behind the curtain#cancer#body image#identity#self-confidence
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inkskinned
my name is BABY and you lean out of your car and spit at my feet it lands in a puddle in front of me and i am thirteen and in a suburban neighborhood on the way home from school and i gag and run with my backpack banging like the echo of your words against my back like you are chasing me all the way home my name is SWEETIE and i am fifteen in the city with my friends for the first time and we get a little lost and you follow us for a full block you name my friends HONEY and DARLING and WHY THE FUCK WON’T YOU TALK TO ME my name is NICE ASS and it’s two in the afternoon and i still feel my heart slam against my ribs because i am under a hundred and fifty pounds and i have weak lungs and weaker fists and while you saunter down the steps, swinging the beer bottle in your fist, my father who is walking behind me shouts, “she’s seventeen, you dipshit” and maybe i’m near my family but i don’t feel safe until we’re home again my name is JAILBAIT and my friend is laughing and we just graduated high school and we feel like we are on the brink of something beautiful and terrifying and she is in heels and about to throw up and you name her DRUNK ENOUGH and i have to physically drag you off and when we go home she cries for four hours because a night that should have been just teenage fun almost resulted in the end of her trust of humans my name is LOOK AT THOSE TITS and we are on a college campus and the boy i am with holds onto my waist just a little tighter while you drive up next to me. you name him THUG and throw a bottle at his forehead. i can’t stop shaking until long after it’s over. he says “it happens,” and i say, “it shouldn’t.” my name is DAMN GIRL and we are walking down the street. there are ten of you and two of us and you snap a picture when you think we’re not looking. you tell us to either come inside or you’ll fuck us on the street. you all laugh like this is funny. this is compliment. this is just something boys do to get ladies. my name is LITTLE LADY, my name is FINE MISS, my name is FUCK YOU AND FUCK YOUR FRIENDS, my name is LOOK ME IN THE FACE, my name is STOP FROWNING, my name is SMILE, my name is WHY DID YOU EVEN GLANCE AT HIM YOU WERE ASKING FOR IT, my name is THIS IS A COMPLIMENT so i looked it up according to Oxford that’s “a polite expression of praise or admiration” i think you’ve got the definitions mixed up my name is PRETTY THING, my name takes nice words and make them into bullet wounds my name is NICE BODY and no girl i know has dated a man who catcalled her, my name is GREAT RACK and it turns out that if you shout things at a stranger, they sound like knives more than flowers, my name is WOMEN LIKE YOU NEVER KNOW THEIR PLACE and every single “nice” thing you say to a woman is something you’d never utter to another man because you know that it’s derogatory, my name is PRINCESS and A REASON TO GET PUT IN PRISON and if another man spoke to your mother sister girlfriend like that, you’d kill him my name is SEXY and every time i hear someone raising their voice i am thirteen again and i don’t know who you are and i’m running home with a weight on my shoulders and your words like a slap to my spine and your laughter like a hanging, i am scared and alone and suddenly so small, and compliments are supposed to make me feel good not afraid for my life, compliments are a way of saying “i care and i appreciate you and i thought you should know it,” and if you really meant it as a compliment, you’d care about how i would take it - but you don’t mean it like that, you mean it to show off, you mean it to make us object, you mean it to shove our names into your back pocket so you can tell your friends “i saw the HOTTEST LITTLE THING yesterday” and they can groan about how we just walked away because you don’t see us go home with keys in our fists and all the lights on and we keep 911 dialed just in case and we triple-check our locks and we don’t fall asleep at all because your compliment knocked us over and took who we are if we are all saying “it doesn’t sound like a compliment, it sounds like a threat,” if you really wanted to make us feel good - wouldn’t you stop doing it?

COMPLIMENT =/= CATCALL // r.i.d (via inkskinned)

#poetry#rape culture#rape cw#street harrassment#sexism#misogyny
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poetryprompts

"Poetry is an exercise in empathy."

Have you ever heard a story, from someone you know or on the news, that is not part of your life experience but that touches you and you feel strongly about? Write about that story in a way meant to make other people feel strongly about it, too.

#poetry#prompts#writing prompts#empathy
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