Meet August MacDonald, one of KCRW’s featured poets for the Young Creators Project.
Photo courtesy of August MacDonald.

Young Creators Project spotlight: August MacDonald

Each day this week, we’re spotlighting the homegrown budding talent sourced via KCRW’s Young Creators Project, a community arts mentorship platform celebrating the creative work of SoCal residents under 21. 


LA-native August MacDonald is currently a freshman at a small liberal arts school on the East Coast and has been experiencing seasons for the first time. 

“I have never been happier for it to be spring,” she says. 

MacDonald is interested in filmmaking and performance art. 

On writing she says, “I have always loved writing poetry and writing personal essays. It has remained a constant outlet for me, especially over these last couple of years. I find that through writing I can digest things much easier–I say that figuratively and literally as someone with IBS. I like any activity that allows me to study people–the way their minds function or the way they walk through the park near my house. I like dancing but I can’t remember routines, so I do circus instead. My poetry tends to focus on habits and brains and chameleon bodies–the ones that change, the ones that feel claustrophobic in boxes–and acceptance alongside contradiction.”

Although she was a performer at LACHSA, MacDonald performed her own poetry for the first time last summer for her college freshman orientation.

She’ll never forget “jumping in headfirst in front of an unknown crowd.”


My Chin

by august macdonald

Pimples on my chin
They tell me it’s hormonal
Eighteen and finally hit puberty
Female and lady and little
Licking strawberry shortcake pops
The last two bites are the best
Just dropped my pad in the toilet
Fished it out with my fingers
Squeezing blood out of my underwear
Around the bathtub drain it lingers
Watching sherbert skies melt on boulders
Falling into the high felt the sweetest
But sweets fades so I binge
And hope they stay
Eating is breathing
And I’m learning to control one
And let go of the other
Trying to find God in a chocolate bar
With my nipples free I sleep
In my briefs
Maybe I got that from you
Maybe I wanted that for me
Ever treat yourself?
Pimples on my chest
And the happy trail
Leading to female
Eighteen and finally female feels
Larger than life
Constricting with no boundaries
Dissect it like a frog and
Press it like a flower
Beautiful woman
It is whatever you want
You get to describe her
In the way you walk
In the way you speak
In the way you love

And cry and snot at midnight
I bought aquamarine in the desert
Mermaid jewelry
It told me to live in the present
Now I find God in my dad’s cooking
I could trace my mom’s eyelids
And my brother’s beard is growing faster than mine
Female body hair
One long hair on my chin
I tell them it’s hormonal
I never have to trim that shit

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