Araaa Aquarian
Humanities
Lori Fisher
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Growth as a Poet
In the beginning of the making of my poem, I was not sure what my perspective was. The vague and abstract perspective that I had in the beginning was that before war, a soldier is proud to fight for their country but after war, the soldier is ruined emotionally. This abstract perspective stayed the same until I remembered a book that we read in class called All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. This book was based on the perspective and story of a soldier named Paul. Throughout the book, the reader feels Paul’s emotions, hears what Paul hears and see’s what Paul see’s. The book takes you through the experience of war through a soldier’s eyes. Remembering that book made me realize that I wanted to do the same thing but instead I wanted to take the reader through an experience of war that was based on my perspective of war. My perspective soon was formed and my perspective was and is: war ruins a person inside and there is no way to take those memories and feelings back. This perspective stayed the same throughout my first few drafts and also until my final draft was finished. However, the message I wanted to convey and my way of conveying that message changed as my first to last drafts were constructed.
In order to finalize my poem, many changes were made. These changes varied from simple word changes to complete line changes and finally to adding completely new stanzas. Here is an example in my first draft of a complete line change that I felt was needed. The original line read: “shadows who lurk in the trees”, in my final draft the line read: “ Ghosts of lost souls linger in the shadows”. I felt that this line needed to change because my original line did not strike the reader how I wanted it to. I feeling that I was trying to convey in this line was the feeling of fear, terror and a sort of loneliness because I feel that a soldier goes through these type of times in war and I wanted to clearly convey that feeling. By changing this line, it helped me shape the whole stanza into how I wanted it to be and into how I wanted this stanza to strike the reader.
Another change I made to my poem was when I added two stanzas that were not originally in my poem. Initially my poem started with a stanza about boys enlisting in the army and their thoughts about war, then had two stanzas about the feelings a soldier goes through while fighting in war and finally, I had two stanzas about the after effect that war has on a soldier. The change I made here was adding two stanzas about the actual battle that a soldier fights in war. In these stanzas I added similes and powerful lines about things like the sounds of gunshots to a scene where an enemy approaches the soldier and what that soldier goes through after killing his enemy. Making this change really added to the strength of my poem in a few different ways. For example, by using similes and imagery for these two new stanzas, it gave a better insight as to what my perspective on what goes on in war, really is. This change also gives such a stronger intellectual message to the reader and really makes the reader see what the soldier sees and feel what the soldier feels, which hugely contributed to the exact feeling that I wanted the reader to experience.
Last but not least, another important change that I made to my poem was the way I ended it. In my first draft, my poem ended with the stanza:
“At war with life
The life of the living dead
The life of a soldier”
In my final draft, the ending stanza to my poem read:
“He stands
Dead
At his feet
Life now a broken defibrillator fighting to bring him back,
But never succeeding
The only medicine is to
Let
The pain
Win”
This was a very important change because I feel that the original ending was a bland and the sentence structure did not contribute to the emotional message I wanted it to have on the reader. By changing the finishing stanza, it gave my poem a type of open-ended ending that really struck the reader in both an intellectual and emotional way. I line formatting also contributed to the certain message that I wanted the reader to grasp. It makes the message shine through much stronger because this sort of line structure focuses on the specific words that you want to make more powerful than others. I feel that that sort of like structure for my ending stanza really made it realize just how terrifying and unavoidable the scars of war can have on a soldier, which is the message and perspective that I was trying to convey with power in my finishing stanza.
Humanities
Lori Fisher
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Growth as a Poet
In the beginning of the making of my poem, I was not sure what my perspective was. The vague and abstract perspective that I had in the beginning was that before war, a soldier is proud to fight for their country but after war, the soldier is ruined emotionally. This abstract perspective stayed the same until I remembered a book that we read in class called All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. This book was based on the perspective and story of a soldier named Paul. Throughout the book, the reader feels Paul’s emotions, hears what Paul hears and see’s what Paul see’s. The book takes you through the experience of war through a soldier’s eyes. Remembering that book made me realize that I wanted to do the same thing but instead I wanted to take the reader through an experience of war that was based on my perspective of war. My perspective soon was formed and my perspective was and is: war ruins a person inside and there is no way to take those memories and feelings back. This perspective stayed the same throughout my first few drafts and also until my final draft was finished. However, the message I wanted to convey and my way of conveying that message changed as my first to last drafts were constructed.
In order to finalize my poem, many changes were made. These changes varied from simple word changes to complete line changes and finally to adding completely new stanzas. Here is an example in my first draft of a complete line change that I felt was needed. The original line read: “shadows who lurk in the trees”, in my final draft the line read: “ Ghosts of lost souls linger in the shadows”. I felt that this line needed to change because my original line did not strike the reader how I wanted it to. I feeling that I was trying to convey in this line was the feeling of fear, terror and a sort of loneliness because I feel that a soldier goes through these type of times in war and I wanted to clearly convey that feeling. By changing this line, it helped me shape the whole stanza into how I wanted it to be and into how I wanted this stanza to strike the reader.
Another change I made to my poem was when I added two stanzas that were not originally in my poem. Initially my poem started with a stanza about boys enlisting in the army and their thoughts about war, then had two stanzas about the feelings a soldier goes through while fighting in war and finally, I had two stanzas about the after effect that war has on a soldier. The change I made here was adding two stanzas about the actual battle that a soldier fights in war. In these stanzas I added similes and powerful lines about things like the sounds of gunshots to a scene where an enemy approaches the soldier and what that soldier goes through after killing his enemy. Making this change really added to the strength of my poem in a few different ways. For example, by using similes and imagery for these two new stanzas, it gave a better insight as to what my perspective on what goes on in war, really is. This change also gives such a stronger intellectual message to the reader and really makes the reader see what the soldier sees and feel what the soldier feels, which hugely contributed to the exact feeling that I wanted the reader to experience.
Last but not least, another important change that I made to my poem was the way I ended it. In my first draft, my poem ended with the stanza:
“At war with life
The life of the living dead
The life of a soldier”
In my final draft, the ending stanza to my poem read:
“He stands
Dead
At his feet
Life now a broken defibrillator fighting to bring him back,
But never succeeding
The only medicine is to
Let
The pain
Win”
This was a very important change because I feel that the original ending was a bland and the sentence structure did not contribute to the emotional message I wanted it to have on the reader. By changing the finishing stanza, it gave my poem a type of open-ended ending that really struck the reader in both an intellectual and emotional way. I line formatting also contributed to the certain message that I wanted the reader to grasp. It makes the message shine through much stronger because this sort of line structure focuses on the specific words that you want to make more powerful than others. I feel that that sort of like structure for my ending stanza really made it realize just how terrifying and unavoidable the scars of war can have on a soldier, which is the message and perspective that I was trying to convey with power in my finishing stanza.