New feature: LGBT+ Poetry Playlist
Young Poets Network
Latest Writing Challenges

Reinventing Myth: Poetry and Mythology Challenge

Out with the old, in with the… old? Poets have been using ancient mythology as the basis for their writing for hundreds of years: today, we’re challenging you to re-invent myths, and even make up some of your own! As part of this challenge, we’re running a free online writing workshop for 14-25s on Saturday 2 […]

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Latest Writing Challenges

The Love Poetry Collage Challenge

Roses are red, violets are blue, today on Young Poets Network we’ve got a new challenge for you… This challenge is now closed. We’ll announce the winners on this page in the coming weeks. The challenge: create a love poem by collaging other poems together. Have you ever read a love poem and thought, ‘I […]

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Latest Features

Poetry Playlist: LGBT+ History Month

February is LGBT+ History Month, so we’ve put together a handful of our favourite poems by queer poets, ranging from thousands of years ago to the present day: enjoy! Mary Jean Chan, Names ‘Chan perfectly captures the feeling of telling half-truths about partners to parents – a very relatable experience for many queer people… The […]

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Latest Features

How to do a freewrite

Scratching your head on where to start your next poem? Not sure how to break new ground in your writing? In this feature, Olive Franklin talks you through one of the strongest tools in the contemporary poet’s arsenal: the freewrite. Freewriting is a technique in which you write continuously without going back to edit or […]

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About
Latest Poem
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            [ID] => 24653
            [post_author] => 40
            [post_date] => 2024-01-18 12:39:10
            [post_date_gmt] => 2024-01-18 12:39:10
            [post_content] =>  

What are you?

 

Burning up,                   moon-faced      scar, 

tucked into the folded corners of the 6 o’clock sky. 

Little hailstorm, packaged up in a jacket 

with bleeding     roll-up sleeves.

 

            You do not belong here.

 

Not with your    soft                  hands

covered with roosting moths,

their frayed cotton wings            falling

off        you       like cobwebs.

 

Not with your face                     all scrunched-

-up, like it is jealous of how         meteors

can know both the         sky and the ground

so                                 honestly.

 

    No.               You do not belong here,

 

strung out against the wash of blues

            like a clothes wire,

  a beached plastic          cup,

               your limbs taut,           pulled into knots,

       you, clipped onto your own body with clothes pegs.

 

You cannot belong here.

   Not until you              lose

the pretence,                              promise

you will want                 to be wanted 

and picture it.                

 

    Learn to        live

like the rest of us,           a life

where the          mirror is netted

with wire,                      barbed,

where                the constellations

are shapes that make sense

that are familiar.

 

            Look at yourself.

 

     You’re kidding, right?

                        Get serious.
            [post_title] => Self-portrait as a sky that does not know you
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            [post_modified] => 2024-01-18 12:39:20
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            [guid] => https://poems.poetrysociety.org.uk/?post_type=poems&p=24653
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                    [wpcf-published-in] => 
                    [wpcf-date-published] => 2024
                    [wpcf-summary-description] => This poem is a winner in the Self-Portrait Challenge on Young Poets Network.
                    [wpcf-rights-information] => 
                    [wpcf-poem-award] => Winner, The Self-Portrait Challenge
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                    [ID] => 24662
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                    [surname] => 
                    [title] => Amelie Simon
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Amelie is a winner of the Self-Portrait Challenge on Young Poets Network.


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