Browse poems celebrating and exploring identity, individuality, and the self.

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won’t you celebrate with me” by Lucille Clifton
won’t you celebrate with me...

I’m Nobody! Who are you? (260)” by Emily Dickinson
I’m Nobody! Who are you?

"Disarming of Shadow, Arming of Light" by Rachel Eliza Griffiths
I wish I were like Johnny Cash...

Remember” by Joy Harjo
Remember the sky you were born under…

My Skeleton” by Jane Hirshfield
My skeleton, you who once ached…

Summoning the Body That Is Mine When I Shut My Eyes” by Jenny Johnson
Come second heartbeat sounding in the breast...

"The Mind in State" by Fady Joudah
Does consciousness exist only when...

"Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles" by Sally Wen Mao
In Lijiang, the sign outside your hostel...

I Have This Way of Being” by Jamaal May
I have this, and this isn’t a mouth…

I Know My Soul” by Claude McKay
I plucked my soul out of its secret place…
 
Famous” by Naomi Shihab Nye
The river is famous to the fish…

"Hunch" by Jay Parini
I follow it, the snail of thought...

The Cities Inside Us” by Alberto Ríos
We live in secret cities...

Nomenclatures of Invisibility” by Mahtem Shiferraw
My ancestors are made with water...

Sorcery” by Sandra Simonds
I’m a witch who lost all her powers, then…

from Song of Myself, I, II, VI, & LII by Walt Whitman
I Celebrate myself, and sing myself…
 
from Song of Myself, IV by Walt Whitman
Trippers and askers surround me...

The Desolate Field” by William Carlos Williams
Vast and gray, the sky...


Find more poems curated by theme on our Poems for Kids page, which features many poems suitable for teen readers.

more poems about the self