The Poetry Haul Challenge
Week Five - #artstackpoets #artstack
Artstack poets, we’re back for another round! Week 5 of The Poetry Haul is here, bringing a fresh set of words to spark your creativity. Whether you’re new to the challenge or a returning poet, this is your chance to push boundaries, play with language, and craft something meaningful.
This week’s 10 words:
capital, analyze, diversity, illusion, style, ammunition, trauma, recognition, rejection, self
Where will these words take you? A poem about personal growth? A reflection on society? A dive into identity and resilience? You decide.
How to participate:
Write a poem using some or all of the words.
Share it with us by [posting directly on Substack with #artstackpoets] and tag us ARTSTACK please remember to type @ with our name and click our account. From there our account should be highlighted.
Share your poem in the comments or in our online art center (tag #ThePoetryHaul so we can find it!).
Engage with other poets—this is about community, connection, and expression.
Need inspiration?
Authorship
Excuse me, what is this?
Says who?
The patriarchs wrote a mindless script,
a fake authority passed hand to hand,
each unforgettable lie inked in holy reverence.
A constitutional right to rule, they claimed,
as if power were ordained,
as if voices could evaporate
if ignored long enough.
But the unruly ones never forgot.
We carve our names in the margins,
widen the space between the lines,
turn the page, and claim the next chapter
as our own.
The senior keepers of the old world
circle around, clutching their tattered pages,
desperate to keep their story intact.
But the ink has faded.
And we are writing something new.
THE JIG OF JUPITER
Let space answer for us because
We want to walk across the orbiting
Rings. We will not drown even if
There is a mindless crack in the
Hull of our mahogany boat.
Feathers and filthy flowers crown
The unruly round heads of the mirror
Humans. A kiss on the forehead
And a cut of a piece of hair from
My lineage. We became fake friends.
I would never take the King’s
Name in vain, but I also do
Not know his name or which part of
This unforgettable vermilion planet he reigns over.
At this point in my life–a new chapter–
I only remember the faces with bright eyes
And a deep soul behind them. I can
Always find them in the crowd.
Let me feel what sets the hearts
Of the mirror humans on fire.
Taking my hand, they lead me
To a desert land with a view of Mars.
In a circle, we twirl and jig around, we
Swing and hop, we samba and
Foxtrot into the heart of Jupiter
And the end of amour.
We want to grow into the flowing
seas before they evaporate. We will not climb,
Even if the mountains tell the senior King
The meaning of our translucent wings.
During the daytime, we float in the
Vast subsurface oceans of Europa.
From the land of gas, to the spheres
Of frozen years, we trespass on
The sacred moons and make music.
Yet, alas, I look back on Earth,
And for what it is worth, I feel
A pull to this familiar place
Where I was birthed.
Cobalt skin and tattered olive clothing,
I learn my constitutional rights and I
Make a name for myself amongst
The beings who reflect back pure truth.
If it was not for my curious
Heart and that wooden boat,
I might have never explored
This place or discovered this terrain.
In a circle, we twirl and jig around, we
Swing and hop, we samba and
Foxtrot into the heart of Jupiter
And the end of amour!
oh my gosh 😍 thank you for the feature! I feel happy to be a part of the haul :D
The poetry Haul Challenge Week Five #artstackpoets #artstack
WORDS: capital, analyze, diversity, illusion, style, ammunition, trauma, recognition, rejection, self
Excavation
.
They called me an imposition,
a disruption in the carefully laid bricks
of a house I never chose to build.
You are a disgrace, they said,
as if dignity was theirs to grant,
as if worthiness was something rationed
by the hands that held the scales.
.
I was raised on illusions—
an ancestry tangled in whispers of obedience,
a style dictated by capital and hierarchy,
a world where patriarchy wrote the rules
in ink of blood and expectation.
The so-called Christianity they preached
held no room for the likes of me,
only ostracism wrapped in holy robes.
.
Rejection became my oldest companion.
It taught me to analyze the cost of inclusion,
to see the ammunition of their words
aimed at the marrow of my self.
Toxic shame slithered through my bones,
curled itself into my breath,
made a home where my voice should have been.
.
I carried the weight of white slavery’s echoes,
the exploitation of bodies and minds,
the burden of being unseen, unheard,
a product of capitalism’s indifferent machine.
But even within the fractures of history,
I searched for my reflection—
for the glimmer of something unbroken,
for the fire they could not extinguish.
.
So I turned to the shadows,
to the unlit corridors of my being,
and I did the work—
somatics, embodiment, the reclamation of flesh,
a liberation that was never gifted,
only forged in the depth of knowing.
.
There, beneath the weight of imposed names,
I found my own.
Recognition bloomed not from their lips,
but from my own awakening.
No longer a vessel for their shame,
no longer a mirror for their distortions—
.
I stood, unshaken.
Now I walk where diversity is not a plea
but a birthright,
where equity is not debated
but woven into the very fabric of belonging.
The ghosts of rejection no longer haunt me,
for I have named them, faced them,
and left them behind.
I am not what they told me to be.
I am what I have chosen to become.
.