Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl Woman - Age 24 Cameras have never been my thing. For years, I didn't even know how to smile. Seriously. I would practice in the mirror but whatever I practiced never came out that way in my photos. When I was in the third grade my mom [...]
Category: poetry
Church Girl
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl - Age 22 Yesterday I headed to the grocery store in hopes of getting cheap eggs; otherwise, I avoided shopping areas at all costs. Because the next day was going to be Easter. Time for Peeps, pantyhose, shoes, and Easter ham. At sunrise, I was on the [...]
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Invictus
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl - Age 20 "I am Sheeee-Rahhh, Queen of the Universe!" Laysha's long legs stepped out of the line of us and struck warrior pose. Courtney, a Decatur-where-it's-greater native, stepped out of the line to pop and drop in a tootsie roll every time her name was called. [...]
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The Cipher
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman - Age 19 I joined the AUC (Atlanta University Center) Poets' Society in the first semester of my freshman year. Ryan, the guy I was digging at the time, walked me to Trevor Arnett Hall on his campus, Clark Atlanta University, for my first reading rehearsal. It [...]
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If “if” was a fifth, we’d all be drunk.
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl - Age 17 I borrow my title from the archives of my big sister, Denise (bka Niecy). And from my own archives, a poem from the artist at 17. If only I wasn’t a drama queen. If only I had realized he wasn’t the beginning and ending [...]
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Mrs. Kopay
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl - Age 13 She was stylish, had cool handwriting, and she loved Snickers bars. Since they were her favorite, she kept a stash that also served as prizes for good behavior and/or good work. When I was sent to her class in seventh grade I wasn't sure [...]
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Playground Politics
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl - Age 11 12 was to be a big year. Soon there would be no more recess; real bras; and the boys would grow up into the kind from our teen novels who danced with the girls and wrote loving notes folded four square; the teachers would [...]
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Harriet Tubman ain’t take no stuff
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl - Age 10 My birthday falls on the first day of Black History Month. So it was shortly after I turned 10 that I performed in what became one of my best secular public plays ever (if I do say so myself). I was Harriet Tubman and [...]
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Langston, My Man
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl - Age 9 Langston Hughes and I go back to fourth grade. Mrs. Slattery's class. That was year I challenged the notion of who, I think, I knew myself to be. I tried to be loud, bold, and whatever else I thought the cool kids were. [...]
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Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl
I read somewhere that as an adult you become whomever you were at age 7. Part of me thinks: scary thought. The 7 year old I was—always trying to write the longest story in Mrs. Fountain’s class—with the neatest handwriting (we received a grade for penmanship) is not wholly unlike the woman I have become. [...]
darlene anita scott 