Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Identity

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Midweek Motif ~ Identity

Meaning of identity according to dictionary is "who or what somebody/something is". Very simple. But aren't there numerous ways to identify who we are? Our sense of self develops from our own principles, values, community and culture. Quite a patchwork quilt we are and complex.

Moreover we tend to change with shifting situations.

Some interesting quotes:

"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passion a quotation."---Oscar Wilde

"My friend I am not what I seem. Seeming is but a garment I wear -- a care-woven garment that protects me from thy questionings and thee from my negligence. The "I" in me, my friend, dwells in the house of silence, and therein it shall remain forever more, unperceived, unapproachable."---Khalil Gibran, The Madman

"I am not one and simple, but complex and many"---Virginia Woolf, The waves

"I believe that true identity is found....in creative activity springing from within. It is found, paradoxically, when one loses oneself. Woman can best re-find herself in some kind of creative activity of her own."---Anne Morrow Lindberg

So today let's unfold our own story, our "Identity".


A few poems for inspiration:

If

by E.E.Cummings

If freckles were lovely, and day was night,
And measles were nice and lies weren't a lie,
Life would be delight,--
But things couldn't go right
For in such a sad plight
I wouldn't be I.

If earth was heaven and now was hence,
And past was present, and false was true,
There might be some sense
But I'd be in suspense
For on such a pretense
You would't be you.

If fear was plucky, and globes were square,
And dirt was cleanly and tears were glee
Things would seem fair,--
Yet they'd all despair
For if here was there
We wouldn't be we.

As I Grew Older

by Langston Hughes

It was a long time ago.
I have almost forgotten my dream.
But it was there then,
In front of me,
Bright like a sun--
My dream.
And then the wall rose,
Rose slowly,
Slowly,
Between me and my dream.
Rose until it touched the sky--
The wall.
Shadow.
I am black.
I lie down in the shadow.
No longer the light of my dream before me,
Above me.
Only the thick wall.
Only the shadow.
My hands!
My dark hands!
Break through the wall!
Find my dream!
Help me to shatter this darkness,
To smash this night,
To break this shadow
Into a thousand lights of sun,
Into a thousand whirling dreams
Of sun!

I'm Nobody! Who Are You?

by Emily Dickinson

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell!
They'd banish -- you know!

How dreary to be somebody!
How public like a frog
To tell one's name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!


Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community.

                (Next week Sumana's Midweek Motif will be The Inanimate & The Non-Human)