Daniel Quele-Madrid

Professor Tony Barnstone

English 410: Senior Seminar: Graphic Novels and Graphic Poems

11^th October 2011

Graphic Poetry Project – Introduction

“Paradox:” An Unnourished Uncertainty

            “Paradox” seeks to refurnish in the mind the uncertainties that are not foreign within the realm of life. Paradoxes serve to illicit answers that are elusive to the nature of their questions, often leaving life lingering in doubt with seldom resolved but often explored questions.  Graphic poetry is to the traditional sense of the word poetry a deviance from which it escaped but from which otherwise it would not have existed. This departure from the norm is what I have hoped to capture as to showcase that the certainties cannot exists without the uncertainties just as much as a graphic poetry is merely just a graphic without the poetry of it to offer a distinctive life onto its very own.

The text serves as an illustration itself as a captured voice enmeshed within the simplicity of a paradox absorbed in the complexities of its uncertainties.  A paradox can be expressed with a few words, as in “War in Peace” and “Freedom is slavery” from George Orwell, though the extent of its significance is much greater, though often rather entertaining to examine in an attempt to digest its meaning and connection to life.  R.P. Draper’s “Concrete Poetry” explains that “concrete poetry is a game, a delightful one for the poet to devise and, when successful, a source of delight for the participating reader” (Draper 330). I have chosen paradoxes that provoke, hopefully, self-contemplation as in “One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star.” This can trigger, I have hoped, self-reflection of his or her own understanding of an inner vital part of the self or lack thereof.

I have adopted the comic influence as a visual aesthetic. In Richard Peltz’ “Aesthetic Theory and Concrete Poetry: A Test Case” he asserts that “a concrete poem…represents a deliberate denial by its creator of what a poem is thought to be” (Peltz 27). Although to some extent it may be perceived I have overtly “denied” any tradition formula of creating a poem, I have not forsaken the value and worth of the process in creating it. I have used the images of question marks as poetic narratives themselves that supplement the textual paradoxes not simply and coincidence, but rather, as an intended purpose.  Pineda in her discussion of concrete poetry claims that “different elements are taken from different systems and incorporated into a completely new experience,” to create a new form of poetry (Pineda 380). I have encompassed a comic strand as an attachment to poetry in an attempt to create this new found “experience” absent before or otherwise neglected in the past. “Paradox” is a confrontation of my understanding of paradoxes. I, much as society, am an infant to the nature of paradoxes, and I have tried to projects such belief through the pinkish color.   

            Ultimately, my goal was to create a graphic poetry that is just as playful as to the nature of paradoxes and their existence. Life is absorbed in a flood of paradoxes, and therefore, in a flood of uncertainties. Paradoxes are interesting, spark curiosity, but inevitably, create and offer a sense of instability to truth. Can truth every be truly known when it lies within the uncertainty of a paradox?

Jeanette Reyna "Heritage"

Jeannette Reyna

Enlish 410

11 October 2011

Graphic Poetry Project

Heritage

Expression through art, whether written or drawn, is difficult for me to produce. I developed anxiety and tension throughout the process of creating the project. I feel this tension when I look at the final images of my project as the words are clearly juxtaposed from the text. Lacking artistic ability, I felt using a form of collage would be the best way for me to produce a graphic poem. Although the photographs I selected are strong images, I feel my words give the images an added dimension of understanding or raise questions about themes expressed within the image itself.

Questions of cultural identity have long informed my attempt to understand the world around me. Taking Chican@ Literature with Dr. Arroyo has only multiplied those questions and a need to express them in some form. The first graphic poem utilizes street art by Banksy that appeared in my hometown of Boyle Heights earlier this year. This image has either been called Caution!, Fun or Kite Dream. The image is an iconic one that appears along highways between the United States and Mexico border in California, most notably between San Diego and San Ysidro. In Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud explains that an iconic image, “like the atom, [has] great power locked in [those] few simple lines” and they “demand our participation to make them work” (45, 59). The sign is iconic as a California road sign because of the goldenrod background. This sign has cultural significance because it is only featured by the international border where illegal border crossings appear to be the norm and motorists must be warned of the potential risk of pedestrians on the highway. Banksy has altered the sign by placing a flying kite attached to the man’s had. Underneath the image, I have added the inscription “We still have our dreams, but which way do we run?”. In viewing the original street art, we participate in the act of “reading” the image, while reading the inscription raises questions about what the message of the art actually is. Most people could easily identify the image as a road sign parody. However, as we read the image and compare it to the original sign, we notice that the runners are going in the opposite direction. Are these runners in fact going back to Mexico, or are they running somewhere else? The nuance of this piece and its placement in Boyle Heights allows for much to be discussed.

The second collage-esque image is inspired by William Blake’s illuminated poems and Frida Khalo’s penchant for placing an inscription in her paintings. The photograph is from John Rees’ dia de los muertos series and features a woman with a calavera face sitting on a seated elk type animal. In “Imaging Interiority: Photography, Psychology, and Lyric Poetry,” Laura Mandell argues that “the medium of photography shows us that romantic interiority may be understood as itself a byproduct of literary authors’ investigations of the limitations of printed media before 1810” (218-219). The inward turn characterized by Romantic poetry features the attempt to understand the outside world from within. Mandell points out that a critical theme in the lyrics of Blake and Wordsworth is the expression of the loss of sound. With poems having the ability of being made available through larger production runs, the reading aloud of a poem was not essential in the poetry experience. Blake’s attempt to create voice and sound in his poems is displayed through his illuminated texts. The images correspond to the text; however, sometimes the text was unclear and would need to be sounded out to understand. Blake also incorporated words into his lyrics that suggest sound, such as song, laugh, and voice. A photograph provides an inner dialogue for the photographer, but it is also void of sound. The voice disappears and all we can experience is what we see. This does not mean that the poem or photograph lacks as an art form, it just means that the reader or viewer’s understanding is limited. In an attempt to bring sound, and more specifically a voice, to John Rees’ photograph my poem uses Blake’s example of incorporating words that suggest sound, llanto, voice, and whistle. Because the poem appears as an inscription above the calavera woman, the words can be perceived to be spoken by the photographer. The portrait is a sill image of a moment in time and the inscription allows the viewer to temporarily travel into the photographer’s inner space to gain insight into that moment.

 

 Introduction to "Induced"
     If this concrete poem had to be compared stylistically to any other poet, it would probably be e. e. cummings. Though the shape is not definitive, there is a specific order in which the poem needs to be read. The proximity of the words to each other is also a stylistic choice, meant to emphasize certain emotions and certain words. The repetition is also a tool for this. If we were to take a page from Scott McCloud's theories about negative space being just as important as the content, it is important to read this poem for what is there as well as what is not there. It is intentionally vague in one sense, because the content is difficult to discuss, but I hoped to evoke at least a part of the feelings associated with what this poem is about. The short words, the repetition, and the capitalization are there for emphasis of time as well as experience, if that makes sense.
    McCloud writes in his third chapter about the "gutter" -- the space between the panels in which nothing is shown but where "human imagination takes two separate images and forms them into a single idea," (McCloud, 66). The experience of nothingness next to strong words like "blood" and "OUT" is meant to convey how difficult it can be to communicate pain when a person is experiencing so much of it. He talks about the idea that the reader is as much of a participant in the work as the artist, and in those spaces left blank the reader can use his or her imagination. As he writes, "participation is a powerful force," (69).
    What I hope to achieve with this poem is a chronological experience of pain and rage, from its "conception" (pun intended) to the very end, in which the speaker finally comes to terms with their anger and experiences an urge to seek revenge. The color, spacing, and timing of the words are meant to emphasize the experience of this anger in a step-by-step process.

Samantha Estrella

Kady Oliker

Kady Oliker   

Graphic Poem Introduction

The poem I chose to write was inspired by Un Semon De Bonte.  I used about four images from the water section, and did the 30 second quick writes that we had originally done in class.  I wanted to evoke an emotion of darkness and mystery with the words that I chose.  Concrete and graphic poetry is all about creating a new genre of art.  Without the words, they would be just pictures and visa versa.  As R.P. Draper said, “…three-dimensional versions suggest that there are very interesting possibilities for development of concrete poetry by poets willing and able to learn from sculpture as well as from drawing and painting.”  I believe this quotation is key in understanding what concrete poetry really is: a compilation of a bunch of different genres and inspirations.

            I think that concrete poetry is a very special form of art.  Some would argue that you can split up the art and the words and still be able to portray the same message across to the reader.  As Victoria Pineda said and believed, “In concrete poetry, instead, different elements are taken from different systems and incorporated into new experience.”  Throughout here entire article, she agues that the reader just has to let go and accept this new art form.  We have so many preconceptions of what is thought to be the ‘right’ way to study a painting or read a poem, that if we try to do that here, we may not make any sense of what is being said. 

            I chose to do my poem in the shape of a mermaid because that is what I wanted the reader to think of as they read my poem.  Without the drawing, my poem can be interoperated in 100 different ways.  Some could think it’s about the ocean, or even just a morbid poem about naked women.  By adding the picture, I am able to manipulate what they think about when reading my poem.  I think having pictures along with the words really helps the reader out because some concrete poetry is so out there, that the words alone would make absolutely no sense.  I think the most fascinating thing about the graphic poem is that it can be read in many different ways.  Just like mine, the reader can start wherever they please and sort of go in any direction and get a new meaning each time.

Sanchez, Daisy

Eng 410

Prof. Barnstone

October 11, 2011

The Visual and The Written

Poetry always tries to give a visual image as the reader reads the poem but sometimes not even that can accomplish what the author wants. It is at this time in which graphic poems can do more than the average poem. With a graphic poem the author is able to not only play with diction but as well as how the poem should be formed.  It is here where the text and the visual come together to give more meaning to the poem, something like closure in comics, “… observing the parts but perceiving the whole…[is] closure,” (McCloud 63).

When writing my poem, I knew I wanted to write about losing someone and falling into this feeling of constant seeking but failing to never find what one searches. Textually, I feel like I have achieved this because at the end of each line, I purposely used a word that refers to some type of fall. Yet, the poem would not have the same meaning if I had not created an image, the actual form of the poem, to go along with it. The poem itself not only gets shorter as one reads but also gives off the feeling of falling down. The visual and what the poem says allows the reader to create the motion of falling, “…our mind fills in the intervening moments, creating the illusion of time and motion,” (McCloud 94). Without the visual, we simply have a sad poem and nothing more or less. Hence, when creating this poem I wanted the visual to help move the poem to have the feeling of sinking. I believe I did create that vibe by making the form of the poem a backwards staircase.

While reading the text, the reader feels as one reads each line they keep going down with no way of ever coming back. If this poem was written with a “normal” form, I do not think it would have the same effect as it does as a graphic poem. Not only is one seeing the poem falling but also we are able to hear its downfall. The image the text perceives ties well with the actual format of the poem, giving more meaning to the text.

Rachel See

Nick Dante "Black Rose, White Shadow"

Meagan "Me"

Adrianna Game "Pumps"

Adrianna Game

October 11, 2011

Senior Seminar

Graphic Poetry Project

“Pumps”

            In creating my poem, I drew upon concepts and ideas that were introduced in our assigned article, “Anthology of Concrete Poetry”. I was influenced by the Edward Lucie Smith’s quote, “Form determines meaning. Better still, form is meaning” (E.L.S. Notebooks). I focused on form in order to create life in my poem. I intentionally picked the form of something familiar and interesting to me, and relied on it to create the graphic aspect of my poem. The words that are presented in the graphic poem are identifiable to me, but the reader may only experience the poem’s effect when focusing on form. Focusing on the form of a poem was something somewhat challenging because generally speaking, we may be used to focusing on the textual aspect of a poem. The emphasis on form is what provokes creativity and the reader will be able to recognize how visual and text should compliment each other.

            If I was to eliminate the graphic aspect of poem and rely solely on the textual aspect, my poem might appear to be very dull and perhaps pointless. The visual aspect of my poem is what brings it to life. When R.P. Draper discusses how concrete poetry can be achieved, he advises, “Taking advantage of the extra impact which can be given to words by visual lay out” (Draper 329). This is essential to understanding the purpose of my poem. If the words were presented in a text format, they would appear to be only words. However, the adaptation to an image is what enhances the effect. When the reader sees the image of the high heel, they will understand why those specific words that create the image were chosen and the relationship they have with the visual layout. I chose to take advantage of the lay out and manipulate the words inside so that the graphic form would be achieved. The lay out is what helps transform the text and gives it its meaning.  Draper influenced my graphic poem with his concept of connecting “verbal artefacts” with space.

My favorite example of how I manipulated form and text in my poem can be found in the heel of the pump. The reader may notice that all the words associated in the poem are all pleasant descriptions; things that make the pump attractive. However, in the skinniest part of the image, the word “painful” is presented. Female readers may identify with this aspect of the poem because the heel or this part of the graphic poem is what sometimes causes pain to women when they are wearing them. This part of the form is the only part where there is a negative association. It was my intention to play with this space in the poem and make it somewhat different from the rest of the elements. Although it presents the idea that pumps are painful, the poem concludes, “Yet classy, dazzling, sophisticated, and absolutely beautiful”. These pleasant adjectives take up more space in my graphic poem and have a greater emphasis. I related this to my own experience; even though high heels are “painful” to wear, women will still sacrifice because of all of the other lovely aspects that are associated to their image.

Apollonia Galvan “By Any Means Necessary”

Apollonia Galvan

10/10/11

ENGL 410 – Graphic Novels Seminar

Prof. Barnstone

Graphic Poetry Project – Introduction

An Introduction to the graphic illustration of “By Any Means Necessary”

            To start off, in attempting this graphic poem project, I came to the decision to create an illustration of my own poem written nearly a year ago entitled “By Any Means Necessary.” I found this poem warranted an intriguing graphic visual and textual layout, despite my amateur and frankly, unskillful drawing style. Visually, I knew I wanted to capture the setting of the poem: an empty, isolated asphalt road that functions as the resting place of a dead dog. Hence, my goal was to place the reader at the scene without them really being there, initially allowing their mind to adjust to the poem’s environment. On this aspect of the work, I wanted to appeal to the reader’s optical faculty based on how McCloud defines how “all of us perceive the world as a whole through the experience of our senses” (McCloud, 62). The reader or witness is drawn into a work on the rudimentary level of sight, thus the reason for my formulation of this simple and direct graphic. With regards to the textual syntax of the poem, I had the desire to incorporate movement to the words. I felt that the physical motion and design of the words would make the viewers’ eyes dance and allow the sound of the words to manifest in the reader’s mind. For example, the visual look of the words, “hissing” and “whooshing” in the poem essentially mirror the vocal pronunciation of those terms, not to mention, adds to the poem’s eerie atmospheric quality. Furthermore, it allows the individual to have fun with the sounds of the poetic words as well makes them an active participant in the reading. Also, the layout of the text represents the literal action that is occurring at that point in the poem, case in point, the circular nature of the sentence; “Everyone hoarded around the scene like cattle.” The arrangement of some of the text fundamentally is there to draw a picture for the reader and additionally precipitates them to crank their neck sideways in order to read, keeping the participatory role alive. In collaboration with the piece’s textual positioning, the concept I wanted to include and play with was metaphorical and symbolic. The instance of this play with symbolism is found non-coincidentally in the middle of the illustration or the road. The text localized in the section consisting of the road is meant to be the dog. That is to say, nearly every reference to the dog, characterized by “it” or by the verbs describing the dog’s condition, are present in the road and are meant to represent not only its last resting place or grave, but the permanency of this memento mori for the characters in the poem as well as the reader. Not only is the dog imprinted in the first page of the illustration embodied by those words, but in the final page of the poem containing the last line: “It never left,” shows the lingering nature of the dog’s corpse represented by the orange tinged words. It leaves the reader with a sense of endurance and the infinite (the endless road and the duration of the spectators’ traumatizing experience) along with the finite (death/mortality). Therefore, the image and text placement is meant to evoke this concept of death and endlessness to the reader or at least allow them the ability to analyze and discern the image’s reason for being laid out this way. Once again, like McCloud asserts, my intention is to capture the individual’s “phenomenon of observing the parts but perceiving the whole in the form of closure” (McCloud, 63). That is to say that my work is an effort to test the reader’s examination of the poem’s fragmentary arrangement and its visual aspect and ultimately reach some form of understanding or closure of the poem’s message and themes. Lastly, the process from text to image causes the poem to be read in a variety of ways, either vertically down a column, side by side of each column or straight down the middle of the road which holds the poem’s most powerful message of infinity and permanency. In other words, the poem can be read based on the reader’s mood or his or her desired directional preference creating a unique meaning each time.