As I begin thinking of which poet and ultimately which poem to write my final paper for this class, I feel sort of torn between Audre Lourde and Gertrude Stein. Both have such unique writing styles and the subjects of their poems are completely different. Lourde, as we learned, is the queen of writing excellent sentences with just few simple words. However, Stein is the queen of repetition which brings such power to what she is writing about. I now understand what Professor Kaufman meant about her comment of being very Gertrude Stein when we had to write a speech in Ehrenreich’s voice and use a literary element from “The Birthmark” which my group had repetition. I think I might be leaning towards working on a piece from Stein because I have been learning and experiencing much repetition in my own writing due to analyzing “Hills like White Elephants” and understanding the power of the message that stays in your head.
In thinking about the digital essay part of the paper, I admit I am still a little frightened by the notion that I have to create something so visual that snapshots what my thesis will be. I have only recorded short snippets on my six year old camera no longer than thirty seconds. I have seen YouTube videos with collages of pictures, music and short movies and I have never really thought that I could accomplish something like that. After seeing the sample ones in class, I feel somewhat more assured that it is possible to create a masterpiece and that we can interpret how we want to show our thesis in different ways. As of now I guess I might be working alone but that might be subject to change of course after we find out what people want to work on and if there are similar topics. As for ideas of the video itself, I like visuals a lot such as artwork and words that really stand out. I also really appreciate music because that helps videos to flow and also I have always listened to music more for the lyrics then the actual rhythm and beats. I would like to incorporate some of these aspects into my final masterpiece.
You shouldn’t worry about the video! It seems hard at first but after the class where Luke comes to help, you’ll just realize it’s all fun in the video.