I plan to either create a video that fades from scene to scene or to create a 3D image that represents my poem.
If I were to create a video representative of the poem I chose, I would use a lot of the locations mentioned in Howl by Allen Ginsberg. He mentions locations such as Brooklyn Bridge, Union Square and the East River as well as many scenes typical of New York City such as subway tunnels and dark alley ways. I plan to capture the somber tone in the first part of the poem through a song that will most likely be instrumental. This poem mentions areas and people that appear to be impoverished as shown by the lines “woke on a sudden Manhattan, and picked themselves up out of basements hung-over with heartless Tokay and horrors of Third Avenue iron dreams & stumbled to unemployment offices, who walked all night with their shoes full of blood on the snowbank docks waiting for a door in the East River to open to a room full of steam-heat and opium,” as well as many others throughout the poem. I hope to capture the struggles that are portrayed in the lines as well as the somewhat aggressive tone used when Ginsberg recites this poem.
Another option for the digital portion of my essay would be to make a 3D image. I would use the second part of my poem which describes a character named Moloch. Allen Ginsberg goes into great detail about this “creature” and describes every part of it : ‘Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb! Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long streets like endless Jehovah’s! Moloch whose factories dream and croak in the fog! Moloch whose smoke-stacks and antennae crown the cities! Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks! Moloch whose poverty is the specter of genius! Moloch whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen! Moloch whose name is the Mind!”. I would use all of these descriptive words to create an image that I feel would embody the character of Moloch. Moloch most likely is a description of the corrupt behavior of businessman and individuals in society in general. I would incorporate that main idea in the 3D image as well.
