Working with Your Own Graphics

Week Four - Graphics

How to portray your poem through poetic migration

Today was based purely on building your final A3 piece poster for your poem and your personal take on poetic migration. this task excited me in particular, because I love making things with background stories and unraveling tales that can come across ambiguous. For me, the poem '754' by Emily Dickinson can be interpreted in many ways.

Own Work - Poetic Migration Poster

My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun -

In Corners - till a Day

The Owner passed - identified -

And carried Me away -

And now We roam in Sovereign Woods -

And now We hunt the Doe -

And every time I speak for Him -

The Mountains straight reply -

And do I smile, such cordial light

Upon the Valley glow -

It is as a Vesuvian face

Had let its pleasure through -

And when at Night - Our good Day done -

I guard My Master's Head -

'Tis better than the Eider-Duck's

Deep Pillow - to have shared -

To foe of His - I'm deadly foe -

None stir the second time -

On whom I lay a Yellow Eye -

Or an emphatic Thumb -

Though I than He - may longer live

He longer must - than I -

For I have but the power to kill,

Without--the power to die--

Happy or sad, a celebration or even a cry for help, the poem can be interpreted in so many ways. In my poster I stared the base in the sunset in the woods, a helpless doe laying on the grass and to finish a pistol leaving a gun flowing though the whole poster and missing the doe, taking the opposite direction. I did this because I also wanted to portray an ambiguous message with the pistol direction bending; it also represents the idea of poetic migration through-out the movement. Following the direction of the bullet is the first few line of the poem, intended to leave the viewing in confusion of the juxtaposition. I chose to hand draw the whole image because I felt like it added the element of story telling, fiction.

Own Work - Original and Enlarged Posters