The purpose of my creative response was focused on mass incarceration in the United States. I chose this topic because I believe that it is a modern day form of systematic discrimination which often goes unnoticed. I thought that this topic would be an important one to look at because through the use of poetry it could become relatable, but it is also a huge issue that is often hidden. In my project I wanted the audience to relate to the idea of being trapped knowing that you did nothing wrong and how this literally relates to mass incarceration and how millions are being thrown in jail for extended sentences for low tier crimes while there are individuals who have committed more extreme crimes but are often given lower sentences. I also wanted to get whoever views my project eager to learn more about the issue because there is a lot more to learn and I think that a lot of the information a person will learn would shock them. In order to this it was important that I chose a medium and mode which allowed me to make the issue relatable.
The mode and medium which I chose to use was a poem and photo mashup. I chose to use this form of media for multiple reasons, the poem was a way to connect the topic of mass incarceration to a larger audience. I was aware that mass incarceration is often only felt by some people because it is a discriminatory issue however I wanted the feeling of mass incarceration to be felt by everyone who views my project. I thought the best way to do this was to create a poem because often poetry has many meanings depending on the person who reads it. I also wanted to add images around the poem to make sure that the audience does not lose sight of what the main purpose of the poem actually is and that is to expose mass incarceration as an issue.
Using a multimedia format really helps connect with a larger audience and helps drive the main point much easier. Multimedia is a much better way to get the audience engaged and actually learning because of course an essay can be more informative and include lots of information, however I think that today we are at a time where people value getting information quickly and easily. Therefore I believe that media will continue to be people’s source of news and for this reason if issues want to be added and exposed media will play a huge role in getting it to the public. I also think that the idea of trustworthy sources has become something people often don’t worry about which is not something that is good, but it does allow for more people to help expose issues to the public. For better or for worse, the media continues to grow and become an essential part of our everyday lives and I think that it is important activists and organizations use this to their advantage and spread their message.
While creating my project the main issue that occurred when creating had to do more with the writing of the poem and some with gathering the images. When creating the poem I sometimes felt that I made it too vague and people wouldn’t be able to connect it back to mass incarceration and then in others I thought that I made it too specific where people would not be able to connect to what was in the poem. Additionally when trying to find images for the mashups I noticed that a lot of the images are often copyrighted and this meant that there was not a wide selection of photos to use. This did not make my project very difficult however I did realize that if I used a mode which required more pictures that this would possibly become an issue. In order to combat these issues I tried to mix up how vague and how specific my poem was so that in some parts the poem is vague but it is made up for in other stanzas where I speak more specifically about mass incarceration. When trying to find images it helped to turn on creative commons license on the usage rights so that it showed me all the images that I was allowed to freely use. Additionally, to widen the amount of images I am able to use, I looked at images that may retain related ideas. For example, the images I used not only depicted protests about mass incarceration, but also protests from Black Lives Matter because the two are connected.
A possible issue that could occur if this project is shared in a venue beyond that classroom is that people just read it and they feel nothing. For me the whole purpose of this project was to get a larger audience to feel how millions feel when they are unjustly thrown in jail. I think that my project currently may not be ready to be shared with a larger venue because I think that the poem could be more complex and therefore be more purposeful. I think that before publishing I would want to go back and reread the poem and try and pick out parts where I think the poem lacks complexity and try to replace that or edit it. I also think that the way it is formatted could be changed and made more complex where the images black and white I think that would be a great way to get the attention of someone.