I created my found poem based off of the song “Scars to Your Beautiful” by Alessia Cara. My method for creating this poem was to shape it as an hourglass. The figure that is seen as ideal in society is an hourglass figure. If a girl doesn’t have that they are seen as “not good enough”. This makes it so that girls think the body defines who they are as a person. I decided to start the top line with the beginning of an eating disorder. It starts with a mirror or an image. Then in the middle of the hourglass I went into what society deems as the perfect women. Their body is sculpted whether by plastic surgery or photoshop. There is nothing wrong with plastic surgery unless someone says that that is their natural look. Then it becomes a problem and girls compare themselves to that image. At the very bottom of the hourglass I used words that are the aftermath of the societal views of women. Girls start to starve themselves and have internal scars because they don’t feel that they are beautiful.
While writing this poem I felt a lot of emotions. I personally suffered from an eating disorder (and still do though I am trying to recover from it). I had anorexia and this affected me physically and mentally. I would look at Victoria Secret models and think “I have to look like them or I will never be loved by a man” or “this is how I have to look”. These words like “hunger”, “pain”, and “hurting” all brought back the emotions I felt. I feel like these words are not just ones that I can relate to but words that affect so many of the girls and women in society.
Hi Alaina! I love how your poem is shaped like an hourglass. It really puts in perspective what women believe they should look like. The way you rearranged the words to show the pain that comes with beauty was so perfect. Great job!!
Hello Alaina, Your poem really stuck out to me! I really think this is a topic that needs to be talked about more. I feel growing up in our society women face very impossible standards. It is horrible that with things that we have in this society such as social media and technology all ages of girls are affected by these hard and definite standards, and feel there is one image of the idea of pretty, attractive, or desirable. I really enjoyed how you adapted the writing techniques that we’ve seen throughout Zong!, in particular how you spaced the words out in an hourglass to symbolize the body standard women in our generation are forced to endure.