2.10.16

Peer editing session: Found Poems Look for: --ideas and content: Is there a clear motif? Is there a clear theme that emerges by the end of the poem? --punctuation--does punctuation effectively move the poem along, or does it allow the reader to pause/stop at the right moments --indentation--do indented lines affect reading/meaning? --stanza organization--how do the stanza breaks affect reading? --repetition--how does the use of repetition affect theme?

Model: Artist Statement

MODEL OF THE FINAL WRITTEN COMPONENT

Sample Poem Sample Artist Statement Eyes down,
 * “The Whole World Blind”

blank,

nothing but two open wounds,

weary of speaking,

everything blurred as in a fog

Suffering drowned in

tears like wax.

Crime inscribed in the pupils of his eyes. Nothing left in the sky but dead stars, dead eyes.

Eyes open. Staring into the void, gaze distant, otherworldly.

Yes I saw it--saw it with my own eyes, A whole world passing by. a blind destiny

My eyes close as though to escape time. And out of the dark A corpse gazed back at me.

But I had no more tears. ||  || In writing the poem “The Whole World Blind,” my goal was to use the motifs of eyes and tears to reveal Elie’s central idea that, when people continually experience and witness human suffering, they must become desensitized to the suffering and horror in order to emotionally survive. In the opening stanza, I describe how Elie’s eyes are, “blank” (2) and “weary of speaking” and how everything is “blurred as in a fog” (4-5). As time goes on in the camp, he sees and personally experiences many examples of dehumanization that shake his conviction in man’s innate goodness. In order to persevere beyond this realization, and to not drown in it, he must become unemotional, and allow himself to escape in the dulled emotions suggested by the phrase “blurred as in a fog.” The connection to tears throughout the poem reinforces this idea. Initially, I describe how his suffering (and other’s suffering) is “drowned in tears like wax” (7) to show the way that Elie and the other prisoners cannot dwell in the reality of suffering and pain that surrounds them; they have to let their tears and true emotions harden like wax so they do not “drown” in them and give into death. In order to emotionally survive such horrors, one must “escape time” (20) by suppressing emotions and distancing oneself from the senses even if it means that the person one becomes is rendered unrecognizable and tearless.

Watch: Documentary about Elie visiting Auschwitz.

HW: Found Poem (with two visuals) and Artist Statement due Friday.