Project 1

The Astir Pencil (emulated from The Red Wheelbarrow by WC Williams)

every word on

paper

written with

pencils

scribbled down

english

next to the pink

erasers

Where the Seasons Change with Color (emulated from In a Station of the Metro by Ezra Pound)

The presence of changing leaves on the trees:

Wind with a crisp, bleak touch.

Artist Statement

I have chosen to emulate The Red Wheelbarrow by WC Williams and In a Station of the Metro by Ezra Pound because of their intriguing simplicity. When you first look at these poems, you see short sentence structure, you see two lines, you even see seemingly simple words. To understand the meanings, you have to look at the words used for imagery. That’s the thing about these poems, they are able to make you see just exactly what they are writing about. The poets use imagery in their word choices to convey a deeper meaning. They chose specific topics such as a wheelbarrow or the metro to signify the importance of a wheelbarrows function that connects humans and nature and to compare the liveliness of an area such as the metro to the beauty of petals. I wanted to challenge myself by attempting to write a seemingly simple poem that makes the reader envision what I see and feel. I wanted to describe a pencil with a limited number of words to show that there are endless possibilities in writing and I wanted to describe and compare the changing leaves to the winds that rush through the skies in the fall.

These two poems were relatively difficult to get started. For my first poem, The Astir Pencil, I wanted to describe an object that held infinite possibilities and was a necessity in life for many people. After thinking through some basic topics such as a car, a chair, an oven, a lamp, I came upon the idea of a pencil because when you write, any number of word combinations is possible. Then I had to think of physical objects similar to pencils such as paper and erasers. I didn’t want these objects to appear to hold a deeper meaning. I struggled to get the structure just right and you will notice that at the end, “erasers” is three syllables instead of two. I just thought it was the best choice for my poem regardless of the syllables. With my second poem, Where the Seasons Change with Color, I really had to think about the original poem, In a Station of the Metro. I wasn’t entirely sure what it was saying but I soon realized after some research that the poet was comparing a scene at the metro station to petals on a tree. Pound emphasizes the speed at which she sees the people at the metro through the word “apparition” as well as compares the wet, dark, leaves to what a metro underground would look and feel like. I wanted to find two subjects that I could compare. I ended up choosing changing leaves and cold wind. Though they are not drastically different, I thought they would go well together in a poem about autumn. I tried to write from my personal experience with the autumn season and how I felt being outside. I specifically chose descriptive words such as “changing,” “crisp,” and “bleak” to help the reader understand the setting that I was describing. I even added the word “presence” to relate to the hovering realization that the seasons were turning. In addition to these words, I chose the word “touch” very carefully. This word holds a lot of feeling and imagery. Used in the context of my poem, this words allows the reader to truly feel the wind on their skin. The chill of it as it whooshes around them as if they were outside in that very moment. In the end, I wanted my poems to look elementary and straightforward but with a little more attention to the imagery, reveal the comparisons and meaning of my word choices.

Mimesis is an incredibly important tactic in literature that really makes the writer understand other works. Through emulating other poets, I had to understand their style. It wasn’t easy trying to understand why they only chose to write two lines or why they wanted to emphasize one specific object but I was forced to look at their work and come up with my own, similar in style poems. Mimesis in my opinion is a tool for growth and understanding. It allows the writer to try out new styles and experiment with words under the limitations of the poem they are emulating. Mimesis allowed me as a young writer to appreciate how other people organize words and how they play with images. It is easy to get stuck in your own style but to truly grow as a writer, it is important to understand how other people view the world and the importance of little things. It is eye opening and challenging but it feels really good when you finally choose that last word in your poem that completes the whole puzzle. Mimesis helped me grow as a student by challenging me to write within other poets’ restrictions.