Month: January 2020

Young Minds of Medium

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I am posting this here since it is the first challenge of the year. I will also post the last challenge of the year via ACG on WordPress as well.

snohaalegra
Snoh Aalegra

Young Minds of Medium

What Is Your Favorite Song & How Does It Inspire You?

What is your favorite song? How does that song inspire you? How does it move you? What does it engage in your mind, heart, and soul that you simply have to share how you feel with others when you hear that song? Is it the lyrics? The melody? The sampling or longevity of the artist?

Poetry
Micropoetry
Fiction (no more than 850 words)
Non-fiction (no more than 850 words)
And, your heart. ❤

•You will need to be a current user on Medium for this challenge. Request to be added as a writer by emailing me at acorneredgurl[at]gmail[dot]com with “Please Add Me” as the subject line. For the young ones, ages 15–25 already contributing to ACG, please submit your work in draft-form directly to A Cornered Gurl for review, scheduling, and/or publishing. You can submit twice per week, your works will be published on Monday and Friday of that week.

Please have a suitable image for your work with notable credit to its source/artist (Please include the link!). You can find plenty of great images via Unsplash, Pixabay, and Pexels. If you are the source for your image, please caption that.

Please subtitle your entries “Young Minds of Medium Music Call” and tag your pieces with the following: “Growth” & “Music.” CHALLENGE SUBMISSION BEGINS NOW!

The start date for publishing the YMOM pieces is Monday, February 3, 2020, and the end date is Friday, February 28, 2020. Other contributors to ACG, please, no worries. You can submit as you normally would to A Cornered Gurl and your work will be published as well, however, a total of three pieces will be published on Mondays and Fridays for all other writers, leaving the floor wide open for our young ones. I hope you will understand and accept this.

*Please remember that A Cornered Gurl is a read-for-all community and there will be no metered paywall or locked pieces published here. Thank you!

And now, my current favorite song by Snoh Aalegra:

Young ones, this is your first challenge of the year. Please bring it, loves!

Originally published in A Cornered Gurl on Medium.

sound off

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Photo by Noah Buscher via Unsplash

An Audio Poem for Ezinne Ukoha

they don’t expect you to
sound off . . .
your version of one . . . two
three . . . four
isn’t what they thought
counting would be.
you shout from the rooftops
of every dilapidated building,
saying what the world
wants all of us to deny.

“no justice. no peace.”
you do not rest in the throes
of ignorance, you carry a lightning bolt
solid enough to pierce through
the toughest skin
and light’em up.
from your lips come
the fruits of our labor —
an homage to an undying fight.

strength is you.
on a screen amongst millions, you
let your words fly,
uncertain if they can still
reach someone.

they do.
they can.
they will.
I am a follower,
a faithful reader too.

you are touching me.

if you ever feel like the
world is sitting on your shoulders
happy to be around weighing you down,
know that you’ve lifted hundreds up
and we would stand
at attention if it meant your words
could conjure up the next
uprising.

the love you have for
your people — for those oppressed
and shot down, unfortunate
and dismayed jumps out
of every offering
you have to give and we
could pay our tithes with
the amount of truth you
share and still have plenty
left over to help others.

you are the navy by yourself.

and many hate to see your
fleets coming, but you
attack at will.
you’re ready.
you aim.
and, you fire
hitting the target
every single time.

if passion had a partner,
it’d be you.
you are scaling bumpy
terrain yet you manage
to keep your breaths steady.
I pity the trolls.
they don’t have a chance —
you sass them educationally
with just the right amount
of hot sauce and butter . . .

you burn’em up.

the moment you refuse
to sound off is the moment
the world will miss
one of its gifts who
has been trying to save it
for decades.

rise up, Ezinne,
don’t ever let them
catch you falling.

*Author’s Note: I have been reading Ezinne for at least four years now and with each read, I can still feel the presence of her undying will to use her words to express/fight for/and push towards justice. Originally published in P.S. I Love You via Medium.

November 21, 2016, my first poem for Ezinne:

Say You Will
Then You Won’t

Featured Poem of the Week

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Sylph Hemery contacted me recently to be added to A Cornered Gurl and I reviewed her profile, read some emotional and relatable pieces and knew she’d be a great addition to our community. Below is her first contribution. I connected with it upon the first read. Here’s hoping you will too.

Some Poems Spill Out

Free Verse

Photo by Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash

My crammed heart, chokes, splits open.
Dis-enslaved blood bestrews the naked page.

The wine red drops speak in tongues,
Ecstatic searchings for sacred words with hands

To hoist me up,
To steady the teeterings and quakes,
To sate my spine with pristine dignity.

In these words, I stand without cowering,
Scoured of hunching shame, brave.

Originally published in A Cornered Gurl via Medium.

Gloomy Saturday

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Many thanks to The Drabble for hosting another offering of mine. I am always grateful.

Gloomy Saturday

buildings-1867550_1280

By Tremaine L. Loadholt

She doesn’t know what today will bring. She awakened to a cold, rainy morning. The dust is beginning to settle around her. Her dog barks. She signals a neighbor or the post. Whoever it is, it’s far too early for smiling. Coffee percolates, wafts through the air. She wraps her cold fingers around the base of the mug and gently sips. Rain catches her windows—taps at them hesitantly.

Should she get dressed?

She looks outside, views the slow and steady cars driving by, and thinks to herself, “Get dressed for what?”

            
Tremaine L. Loadholt lives in Southeast U.S. Her work has appeared in several literary journals, anthologies, and print magazines. She has also published three poetry books: Pinwheels and Hula Hoops, Dusting for Fingerprints, and A New Kind of Down.

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