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Self-Made [1]

Poetry [2]
11.3.20

Self-portraits are often associated with visual artists, but poets have also experimented with this art form. In Gregory Pardlo’s “Written by Himself [3]” he writes, “I was born in minutes in a roadside kitchen a skillet / whispering my name.” Pardlo uses the anaphora, “I was born,” throughout the poem to include the lives that made his life possible. In “Self-Portrait, [4]” Adam Zagajewski employs declarative statements, “I like deep sleep, when I cease to exist,” to invite the reader to learn more about his life. Inspired by these two poems, write a self-portrait poem that seeks to tell the story of how you came to be. Try starting with a list of the things you like and love as a way to enter the poem.


Source URL:https://www.pw.org/content/selfmade_0

Links
[1] https://www.pw.org/content/selfmade_0 [2] https://www.pw.org/genre/poetry [3] https://www.pw.org/content/written_by_himself_1 [4] https://poets.org/poem/self-portrait