Project 1

Poem emulating Jack Gilbert’s “Machiko Dead”:

She keeps her head up as if she’s balancing a book on her head, voices non stop rushing through her mind. When her muscles begin to weaken, yearning to give into the weight of the book, she finds a new focus. She studies the distinct features of those surrounding her, and discovers new motivation through the chaos. As she continues to grow stronger and stronger, holding the book higher and higher, she sees others’ books far less balanced than her own. She sees some peoples heads dropping, some regaining their strength, and others that seem invincible. She removes the daunting weight from her head, allowing herself to experience the world in its entirety. She embraces others’ skepticism. Finally, she is free.

Poem emulating Sylvia Plath’s “Metaphors”:

At only six years old

gone is too hard to grasp.

All you can do is stare

at walls too blank to see

and hearts too cold to love;

burdened by expectance.

Artist Statement: I chose to emulate “Machiko Dead” by Jack Gilbert because I like the way that he was able to portray such a strong feeling through a short metaphor and how the repetition of “he” throughout the poem kept it focused on only one character. I chose to emulate Sylvia Plath’s “Metaphors” for my other poem because I enjoy the consistency of having the same number of syllables in each line and I thought it would be a good challenge to try to apply that idea to my writing. Despite it being shorter in length, I had a much harder time emulating Plath’s work. I think this was because I tend to over explain things when I write, and only being able to have such a small number of syllables per line forced me farther outside of my comfort zone than I anticipated. I had a much easier time emulating Gilbert’s poem, probably mostly because it was less structured. But, I did struggle to emulate the way that he was able to use repetition without making it too repetitive. I had to flip many of my sentences around a few times to get them to sound correct in context. I was overall more challenged by my selection than I thought I would be, especially because I usually stay away from writing poetry as I have never thought of myself as good at it. Through this project, I have learned that mimesis is a valuable part of creative writing to reveal nuances about your own writing style that you never noticed. As we often get used to doing things in a certain way that works for us every time, mimicking others can show you different ways to go about and execute writing even though it might push you out of your comfort zone.