Alice Walker

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Alice Walker is an internationally celebrated writer, poet and activist whose books include seven novels, four collections of short stories, four children’s books, and volumes of essays and poetry. She won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction in 1983 and the National Book Award. Source

Be Nobody's Darling

Be nobody’s darling;

Be an outcast.

Take the contradictions

Of your life

And wrap around

You like a shawl,

To parry stones

To keep you warm.

Watch the people succumb

To madness

With ample cheer;

Let them look askance at you

And you askance reply.

Be an outcast;

Be pleased to walk alone

(Uncool)

Or line the crowded

River beds

With other impetuous

Fools.

 

Make a merry gathering

On the bank

Where thousands perished

For brave hurt words

They said.

 

But be nobody’s darling;

Be an outcast.

Qualified to live

Among your dead.

Published:

None

Length:

Shorty

Literary Movements:

Civil Rights Movement

Anthology Years:

2021

Themes:

Strength & Resilience

Literary Devices:

Irony

the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect

Simile

a comparison between two unlike things using the words “like” or “as”