After looking over all the poems that were on the syllabus, I ended up choosing Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”. For the visual presentation of the poem, I thought it would be interesting to connect it to my argument that Wordsworth’s writing creates perfect photographs in our minds.
I’m actually working on the digital essay with Crystal so I’m excited to see what we’ll be able to create!
So I have decided to write do the digital essay about clouds. Well, to be more precise, William Wordsworth’s poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.”
I’m going to be working with Vanita on this. We might make an actual animation, or do something related to photography. We haven’t decided yet on how we’re going to do this. There’s a possibility of combining a series of photos to make a video, sort of like still shots.
Its actually quite difficult to come up with something immediately but this is definitely a working progress.
I have been having a lot of trouble deciding which poem to write about. However after a lot of searching I re-read the first poem i read for this semester, “Ode on Solitude” by Alexander Pope. After reading this poem a few times i felt like i could visualize what Pope was talking about. This was a first for me, i have never really felt like i could understand a poem. Soon after i realized i could make a pretty decent slide show out of it. I came up with a bunch of ideas for pictures, but i am worried that i will have trouble filling the 5-7 pages of this assignment. I am not sure how long i will be able to talk about such a short piece of writing. In writing my “Shitty Draft” I found myself repeating a lot.
I picked a poem on food. For digital essay project, i am going to make a stop motion animation. I am going to have it look like ingredients for the dish is cooking itself into a dish. I am going to put text in between to explain what is going on and why I am making what I am making for this poem.
This poem to me seems like it is talking about gluttony. This poem suggests that gluttony is happiness. So that made me think. If gluttony is one of seven deadly sin and gluttony is happiness, does that mean happiness is a sin? I am going to do more research about gluttony and come up with my interpretation of the poem.
– Brandon (Jeong Yoon) Ryu
After much searching I’ve chosen a poem and figured out what I’m going to do for my digital story. I’m much more excited about the digital story than the essay. I won’t give away the whole thing so I’ll just say that I am doing the poem “Where the sidewalk ends” by Shel Silverstein and I’m going to be doing a slideshow for the digital story.
As for the paper, I am certainly having trouble saying what I want to say. Finding articles off of JSTOR wasn’t too difficult for finding things on my author, so I’m glad because I imagine other people might have trouble. What I’m having trouble with is that this is such a long paper and I’m afraid that all of what I wrote about had almost nothing to do with the articles or the author and I think it’s supposed to. I feel I focused too much on the aspect of interpretation and not enough on…I don’t know, something that I’m supposed to be focusing on. I really have no idea. It’s just a really shitty first draft.
On another note, I’m not sure if we should all bring the poems we are writing about or not. The outline does not say to do so for the drafts and I know some people may have really long poems and also we should find most of the information we need to know from the essay, so do we bring it? I’m going to attach mine since it is a small poem.
Good luck everyone!
This poem project is not supposed to be hard and yet my brain can’t pick a poem. I don’t know where to start but I am considering to write and create a digital story of “The Weary Blues” by Langston Hughes. For my digital story I plan on creating a slideshow since I am not the tech wiz and certainly don’t want to mess with a camera and be a producer. Digital photography is somewhat easier and which I can handle. Maybe I might take pictures of music instruments.. but something along the music line to illustrate Hughes poem. As for the thesis don’t have it locked down as of yet but my opinion is that he is expressing his culture and racial identity. Alor during the time that the poem was published in (1926) African Americans were taking a part in the “Renaissance”: rebirth of African American writers, artists, and painters..etc. There was also the emergence of Jazz and the Blues, which Hughes incorporated in his poem. Not certain as to why he would incorporate music in his poem, maybe to reflect what was going on in society. I heard an audio recording of Hughes reciting the poem and it sounded dreary and sad, hence the title “The Weary blues.”
Well I just finished writing up the first draft. Technically it’s not even a shitty draft because it’s difficult for me to just fill up five pages of just ideas and thoughts and quotes from a poem, especially if it’s a sonnet. I decided to take my time and write a normal draft that is organized and hopefully has a strong thesis.
For the digital essay, I’m probably going to do a slideshow, but haven’t figured which images or how to even approach it. I do know that I will be using visuals, audio, and maybe text. I am going to give myself a week to figure things out for this digital essay.
I’m definitely going to be using Keats’ poem, “When I Have Fears.” This poem really speaks to me. We all have fears. Some more than others. We fear death, we fear that we might never get to try something, we even fear that we might not appreciate things enough.
I was thinking about doing a slide show about what Keats fears, but now I think i’ll do a slide show about my fears. I know that it will be hard to capture in a picture, especially because i’m not very creative. I’m going to try my best not to make the pictures too literal. I might take pictures of things that I like to do and things that i’ve never done, but wish I could do. Hopefully this process won’t be as complicated as I am thinking it will be.
In Emily Dickinson’s “Tell all the Truth but tell it slant,” she uses a lot of language relating to electricity such as circuit, light, bright and lightning. Using such words, I think she is trying to express that the truth can be very shocking. She says “too bright for our infirm delight,” basically saying that what we find happiness is can be unpredictable and that the truth can surprise us, not always in a good way. She states how when lightning is explained to children in a “kind” manner, how they are eased into the concept. We are basically all the “children” who need to be eased into the truths in our lives. The last two lines say how we cannot face the truth (because it is too harsh) in basically the same way that we cannot look directly into the sun. We have to be introduced to the truth gradually, or it will become too much for us.
This is the poem i came up with after reading “when i have fears” by John Keats.
When I fear I may die
When I fear I may die
Without showing my full potential
Without making a change,
Or being famous
And think that I may never see
The harvest of my efforts and dedication
And think I may never be starstruck
By the marvelous beauty of the avatars
Starring the film based on my stories
And think I may never know if the journal of my daily adventures
Would be analyze, compare and contrast
By a group of college freshman
Who seek their identity
When I fear I may die
Without me the world continues
Is the thought filling my brain
