{"id":13492,"date":"2020-05-01T23:54:52","date_gmt":"2020-05-02T03:54:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/?p=13492"},"modified":"2020-05-01T23:55:36","modified_gmt":"2020-05-02T03:55:36","slug":"a-beautiful-body","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/2020\/05\/01\/a-beautiful-body\/","title":{"rendered":"A Beautiful Body"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Your body reminds me of one of those statues, like that of a Greek goddess<\/em><\/p>\n

Your words invoked tears and a gentle smile<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know if you knew it then or even now<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s one of the best things someone has said to me<\/p>\n

I made a promise to love myself<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I look at my body in the mirror<\/p>\n

With its curves and flab and indented ridges of stretched skin<\/p>\n

My frown dissipates<\/p>\n

My body is like that of a Greek goddess<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I wrote this poem during a time in which I felt particularly insecure about my body. As I said in a previous post, I\u2019m new to this whole poetry thing, but I feel as though this poem\u2014or at least this attempt at one\u2014was the best means of expressing how I felt at the time. I know I\u2019m not supposed to have to explain what a poem means, but I think it deals with an important subject of people\u2019s ever-increasing worries about their \u201cquarantine bodies.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no secret that many people go through times when they grapple with body-image issues. It seems like we more often receive negative feedback than positive, and dealing with insecurities about one\u2019s body can be a struggle. When confronting these issues, you can look at the comparison of a woman\u2019s body to that of Aphrodite. Now, Aphrodite is the Greek Olympian goddess of love, beauty, sexual pleasure, and fertility. Many stories portray her as the epitome of female beauty, and it has been said that men can\u2019t help but fall in love with her.<\/p>\n

While Aphrodite is said to be infinitely enchanting and desirable, she is also depicted as human-like in many physical renderings. She has beauty, but she also has flaws. This doesn\u2019t mean you have to look identical to Aphrodite\u2019s statue to be beautiful, but rather contributes to an understanding of respect. If the body a statue represents is respected, why can\u2019t yours be? What is it about Aphrodite\u2019s curves and rolls that are impossibly different from yours?<\/p>\n

Perspective matters, as does artistic expression. Rather than idealizing the images shown in social media and advertising, which often inundate us with objectified or altered depictions of the human body, turn to art. Art doesn\u2019t exclusively characterize the human body as a product. It represents a variety of body types that have been embraced throughout different cultures and different times. Art is also vulnerable to different interpretations. There is no one, singular perfect piece of art that all other artwork is meant to emulate. Similarly, idolizing one set body type diminishes the natural beauty that resides in each unique body. Statues that depict Greek gods and goddesses are works of art and so are human bodies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Your body reminds me of one of those statues, like that of a Greek goddess Your words invoked tears and a gentle smile I don\u2019t know if you knew it then or even now But that\u2019s one of the best things someone has said to me I made a promise to love myself When I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2196,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1534,1535,15,1512],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13492"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13492"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13497,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13492\/revisions\/13497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}