About the Young Writers Project
YWP, an independent nonprofit based in Burlington, Vermont, engages young people to write and use digital media to express themselves with clarity and power and to gain confidence and skills for the workplace and life. YWP publishes about 1,000 students’ work each year here, in newspapers across Vermont, on Vermont Public Radio and in YWP’s monthly digital magazine, The Voice. Since 2006, it has offered young people a place to write, explore and connect online at youngwritersproject.org, which has only one rule: Be respectful. For more information, please contact YWP executive director Geoffrey Gevalt at ggevalt@youngwritersproject.org.
This poem, Beautiful, was written by Elizabeth Magnan, 16, of Fairfield. Elizabeth attends Bellows Free Academy in St. Albans and recently performed her poem at a Young Writers Project writing conference at the Vermont College of Fine Arts in Montpelier. Elizabeth writes about learning to accept and love one’s own body.
Beautiful
By Elizabeth Magnan
[A]ll day I sucked in,
trying to hide
any traces of fat
on my body,
but tonight,
looking in the mirror,
I feel beautiful.
I used to hate my hair,
the frizziness,
the plain brownish-
blondish mess,
but tonight
I see the curl,
the golden glint,
the beauty.
I always wanted
to hide my face,
the roundness,
the acne, the rough,
unsculpted eyebrows,
but tonight
I see my bright
green eyes
and gentle curve
of my lips,
forming a smile and
crinkling up my eyes;
I have found my beauty.
I have decided
to love me
and my features,
all of them,
because only I
can decide if
I am beautiful or not;
only I have this power,
and I have decided
I am BEAUTIFUL.
Check out the November issue of The Voice, the Young Writers Project monthly digital magazine. Click here.