Congratulations to Year 12 students Caitlin and Liesel who came second in a mini-slam poetry competition organised by the State Library! They wrote a moving poem about identity and performed it perfectly. We’re excited to share it with you below.
Identity: the qualities and expressions that characterise a person
This is not an epic
A tale of clinical, chimerical triumph
That ambles through its inauguration of grandiose acclaim
To the culmination of strife ending in
Prosperity
I am not Theseus
Lauded for my victory, faculty, virtuosity,
For slaying a beast for the
enjoyment of the masses
I am not Orpheus,
Not Perseus,
No hero of the universe,
I am the antithesis
Of a resolved three act story,
A concluded five act play
What is beyond this day
Of reckoning
Is beckoning me closer and still
I have no answer
To the call
Of old conscience
Confusion; comprehending
Ascending
Synthetic self-conception
Debilitating self-deception
Not a true reflection
A recollection of what led here
To the mind’s eye
A pageant of pretending;
Celebration of my mediocrity
a panegyric on the pleasures of malt whisky
Made palatable;
Rotating the sweetness
until it
Burns
Bitter in my mouth
Mellifluous, gentle roundness on my tongue turned sharp,
And the facade
Fades,
Merely days
Until I am left to figure out
The maze that lies ahead
Instead of wading through
The shallows
Of familiarity where the sand beneath my
Feet is warm but shifting
Existing in a state of ambivalent stagnation
Sand filters through my fingers
Sand that makes glass
Makes concrete
Sits fragile, wet and heavy on the path leading me away
From the shallows
Only then can I rise
Unlike a hero
Immortal in their triumph
My time is limited
To what I am gifted
By the fates’ design:
One more line
Identity: you must weave it yourself
Caitlin and Liesel
Year 12 Students
