 An On-Going Project
The self-portrait is one of the more difficult projects for any artist to undertake. In a way, the entire creative process is in itself a self-portrait--the response of self to the world--which may explain why writers and others become so defensive toward criticism. Our work is a little piece of ourselves laid bare--not just our child or something we have made, but ourselves. But writing specifically about the self is, perhaps, more difficult because it is sometimes hard to find the boundaries of where the individual ends and the world begins, particularly for the artist.
On April 29th, 1999, EnchantedWords issued this challenge in response to an article on "the nature of poetry and criticism" (see FAQs):
Now, since you've gotten two very good perceptions from two poet's minds, one would say they are also good in a sense of being a poet but that would just be going overboard with EXPANDING one's head, ya think? I have a challenge...
From what you all know of your inward taught progressions of thought about poetry, bring within 20 lines, two stanzas, free verse, a vision about yourself. Yes, you telling me about you in a poem. What you witness is something that is very difficult to do, because it allows the mind, yours, to invade where one does not want to go...why? Memories, personal protection of soul, not allowing yourself to be vulnerable. Don't lie, don't cheat, and don't use someone you imagine you'd like to be. Just you making a poem about you...A lesson of power within words to a poem.
I suggest this as an on-going project because so few members responded to this challenge though I think it an exercise we all ought to explore. One need not, however, be confined to the restrictions of size and dimension which EnchantedWords has suggested (he did not adhere to them himself). I think these were provided as a guideline and for the sake of brevity. Walt Whitman's "I Sing the Body Electric" is an amazing self-portrait, but posted to the message board we would be reading from May Day until Christmas.
Below find entries to this challenge.
Works Presented
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Self-Portrait
Am not the guy of ordinary style,
nor allow the fruit of heart to grasp another,
without comfort of spirit,
from dreamer to seer. |
| � |
O' red hair I have,
mannerism that follows it till I die,
welsh makes the soul strong,
and wisdom from heart's far realm of light,
comes for the person I to be,
of which does not relinquish easily. |
| � |
I am whom I am to be,
made of spirit to which many come to,
carries inward of some truth,
for the humbled way of life,
and a touch to someone in need,
comes with an ease,
my willingness for comfort and peace. |
EnchantedWords © Copyright, 1999
(823, 990429)
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Self-Portrait One
I am the white hot wash across the midnight sky,
stars so close together
it is impossible to distinquish a single light
but a blur of brightness
that fills the spaces in between
removing the dark to some other
distant part of the universe. |
| |
I was born before men counted millenium
or knew to number them
before there was individual conscious
when all there was
and all there ever would be
and all that lay in potential only
resolved to a single thought. |
| |
I danced among the three sisters
and knew the fiddler's tune on the dark meadow
before they turned to standing stones,
before the Druids worshipped them
and called them gods.
And all their power of taunt and song
is about me, is in me, is me. |
AngelPie_Mouse, April 29, 1999
Angel-Pie Mouse (JB) � Copyright, 1999; All Rights Reserved
(825, 990429)
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