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Two poems by Gilbert-Chappell students
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Fantasy
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I said can you feel that sun and she said no and I beckoned her out of the shadows and tilted my face skyward and my skin lit up gold crown to sole and I said can you feel that sun and she said no and I took her hand and pulled her close and pressed my nose to her temple and breathed in her warmth and I said can you feel that sun and she said no but her voice held the nostalgia of a thousand dusks and I cracked one eye open in suspicion and she was radiant and grinning
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Jude McDonald
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❀ ❀ ❀ ❀ ❀
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Affirmations for My Twenty-First Year
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I am tensile and easily missed. I am choral, and archaic, and autumnal in fashion.
When the temperature drops, I wear a sensible pair of stockings that attract
a sensible amount of attention. I am wild-footed. I am uneven in an interesting
way. When there is singing, I listen. I believe in jackalopes and the miracle of modern
medicine. I am trustworthy. I am the end of a bloodline. When there is not
singing, I will ask for there to be singing.
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+++++ A lover (lover! Lover, lover) once siad I was a flashlight cutting through
the dark pier of “something, like, life, maybe?” She was not a good poet. This year,
I am no one’s flashlight. I will tell lovers (lovers!) forget your wavering, cut the shit,
you should not need me to know where to step. And anyway, you know how to swim
+++++ don’t you?
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I am tall. I am tawny and approachable. Where there is love to be found, I am
a good hunter. When the moon rises, I offer traditional greetings. I am funny.
I am funny, funny, funny. I am not a flashlight, I am something hotter. Fire,
why not! I burn your eyes. I burn your tongue. I burn your mother’s hands
when she takes me out of the oven. I am a blackberry cobbler baked fresh.
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+++++ I am an East Coast native. I am kind. I am the hand of gnarled oak clawing
at a telephone wire. I am kind. I climb bare-bodied birches in winter and watch
my breath. I am light and breezy. When lovers say I am anything, I will say, “No,
I am not.” I am kind. I am a friend to cats and children. I have a certain allure. I leap
off cliffs and build houses where I land. I am kind. I will be kinder.
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Lauren Mills
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❀ ❀ ❀ ❀ ❀
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When there is not / singing, I will ask for there to be singing. Both of these poems are full-throated affirmations, songs of self uplifted, revealed, celebrated. Every time I read Fantasy my smile grows broader and broader line by line. To become radiant and grinning, oh how I wish it to be so. Why shouldn’t every day be an opportunity to discover joy? Exactly the same with Affirmations. Enter the universe of miracles and music and hot blackberry cobbler. My hope in our world is restored when even one person chooses to be kind. And kinder. Let’s all join in.
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❀ ❀ ❀
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Witness: Appalachia to Hatteras (2025) is the annual anthology of the Gilbert-Chappel Distinguished Poet Series of the North Carolina Poetry Society. Poet Mentors in the eastern, central, and western regions of the state spend six months guiding student poets, culminating in public readings and this published collection. The 2025 Distinguished Poet Mentors are Gideon Young, Maria Rouphail, and Mildred Kiconco Barya.
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Jude McDonald (Raleigh, NC) is a Black, queer poet, multimedia artist, and writer. He focuses on complex themes like love, identity, and reflection, and asks his listeners/viewers to stop in close and embrace vulnerability. Lauren Mills (Sherrills Ford, NC) currently attends Dartmouth College as an English and Creative Writing major. She is interested in Shakespearean theatre, the weather, getting funnier, and dogs that have the size and temperament of cats.
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