Poetics 4

Joe Brainard’s book was helpful as a model for both the format and topics I included in my “I Remember” poem. This poem allowed for personal reflection to be used as inspiration, which was more difficult for me to do than in the previous poems about strictly objects or single events. I learned that certain smells, and certain memories of objects are linked and can take you from one memory to the next. The relationship between these memories may not be apparent to the reader, but I think the success of the writer depends on how well the memories are arranged to allow the memories to flow easily on the page. The connections may be obvious, or not so obvious. I appreciate the idea that no memory is insignificant. This encouraged me to write in a stream of thought, where each memory was just as important as the last. I found it difficult to use Joe Brainard’s poem as a model as well because his book/poem is lengthy, but complete. I struggled with finding a place to close the poem for the sake of the assignment.

Poetics 5

The "I Remember" poem was both easy and difficult to write. Coming up with memories wasn't too difficult. Once I sat down and started to think about things of the past, memories just poured out. The complication of writing this poem was that I continued to censor my thoughts. I typed out memories and then decided I didn't want to share them. I considered writing about memories of my grandfather who passed away but, I didn't want to write an entire poem about that and share the sensitive memories. Another theme I considered was memories that involved alcohol and drunkeness. That seemed too silly. Also, I am not the type of person who shares my emotions and feelings. I tend to keep things to myself. The result of my personal censorship left me with a "remember" poem that was all over the place. There are memories linked to others and there also memories that are just completely random and lack a central theme. I thought that could be acceptable but, a lack of a central theme tended to be the general criticsm. Brainer's book didn't really help in my process of writing, it just provided an insight as to how detailed and how much are thoughts could vary.

I Remember

This was by far the most complex poem topic to deal with. Dealing with memories can be wonderful and nostalgic, but it can be painful and haunting. I experience the latter. Revisiting topics in one's past cannot always be public, at least until the writer is comfortable. I don't believe it is a mater of maturity, but of time. Remembering times in our lives that make us uncomfortable, or angry, and reflecting on that is what makes us grow into well rounded people. A poem may not be the best way to reflect or grow as a person for all, but for me, I think it may be a start.

Poetics 4

Reading Brainard book was a great springboard for writing the "I Remember" poem. I liked his scattered approach, simply following his memories. However, I need structure and organization when writing a piece. I need to be able to look back and know where I cam from, how I got there, and where I ended. I admired Brainard for his free-flow abilities, but I wanted to put my own spin/ style to the piece. Therefore, I wrote about one particular memory. One thing that I didn't like about Brainard book is that there was no rhythm to his writing. I wanted to have some kind of rhythm in my piece. After I chose the memory I wanted to write about, I realized that there was a particular part of that memory that keep resurfacing. I wrote a line on that reoccurring memory and used it as a refrain. I let it reoccur in the poem like it does in my mind. I also that in recalling the memory of that event, the thoughts didn't come to me in sequential order. Instead they came to me schizophrenically- just all over the place and out of nowhere. In my poem, however, I organized them in consecutive order. This, I feel, made it easier for the reader to follow.

The hardest thing in writing this piece was knowing that I was going to be sharing my memory with others. I enjoyed this writing exercise. I think I'll keep this up! :)

Poetics 4

The "I Remember" poem was the most introspective poem for me by far. It allowed me to explore the past as well as the connections past events triggered in my mind. It was interesting to see what my mind came up with. Though some of the topics I discussed were obvious memories of Christmas to me, others just came up as I thought from one event to the next. The connection between certain written items seemed to not exist and be random but they are in reality what memory connections produced. The previous poems did not have the same transfer of mind and memories to paper. The structure of this poem was also different and offered a more conversational style of writing as opposed to the other poems. The use of "I Remember" in many lines was difficult to cope with and still have an interesting piece of writing. However, it also offered an easy way to flow through the outpouring of memory that may have seemed disconnected at times. It was the constant. Another difficulty was using language that would keep the poem interesting. The repetition of "I Remember" and openness of ideas made this facet of the writing critical. Brainard's work contributed to this poem greatest in the formatting and comfort with writing ideas that may seem entirely disconnected. His work was a great example of how to comfortably represent your memories on paper. This was a new style I had no previous familiarity with before and enjoyed to learn and to write.

VEGAN THANKSGIVING AT TEMPLE

As faculty advisor for PAW (Promoters of Animal Welfare), Temple's student organization devoted to promoting animal welfare, I'd like to invite everyone in 2196 to PAW's 2009 Vegan Thanksgiving. Details below.

Click here for a copy of the November PAW newsletter.

Hope to see some of you there.

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Join us on November 18th at 5:15 p.m., Student Center, Room 207, to celebrate PAW’s second annual celebration of Vegan Thanksgiving!

Every November, turkeys are slaughtered in increased quantities to feed America’s tradition of having the bird on the Thanksgiving feast table. Last year, PAW took a stand against the slaughter of holiday turkeys by hosting a Potluck Vegan Thanksgiving Celebration and adopting a turkey from Farm Sanctuary. This year, we will continue the tradition and invite everyone—you don’t have to be vegan or vegetarian to come! Last year, we had cornbread, pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce, homemade stuffing, mashed potatoes, and yes—tofurkey with gravy!

The celebration is a potluck and is only successful if everyone pitches it! We request that PAW members bring a vegan dish, a drink, plates, cups, etc. Those who are not members of PAW are not required to bring anything, but are always welcome!

Poetics 3

For my walk poem, I took a stroll through my old neighborhood. It's been a long time since I walked through the neighborhood from my friends house to mine, and its been even longer since I took the time to take in what's around me on such a familiar walk. I walked down the sidewalk with my Blackberry in hand. As I walked, I typed into my phone all that caught my attention. Whatever distracted my eyes or whatever sound I heard, I made a note of. I also included any type of feeling or memory that was triggered by the walk. After I reached my destination, I revised what I had taken note of. I tried my best to write the poem as I walked, however, anywhere I thought I needed a better selection of word choice or just better organization, I made the appropriate corrections. I really enjoyed writing the poem. At first I thought the poem would be difficult and I wasn't sure how to write it. However, after making the desicion to write the poem by walking through my old neighborhood, the poem and the style of writing it just came naturally.

A FEW DON'TS BY AN IMAGISTE

An “Image” is that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time. I use the term “complex” rather in the technical sense employed by the newer psychologists, such as Hart, though we might not agree absolutely in our application.

It is the presentation of such a “complex” instantaneously which gives that sense of sudden liberation; that sense of freedom from time limits and space limits; that sense of sudden growth, which we experience in the presence of the greatest works of art.

It is better to present one Image in a lifetime than to produce voluminous works.

All this, however, some may consider open to debate. The immediate necessity is to tabulate A LIST OF DON’TS for those beginning to write verses. But I can not put all of them into Mosaic negative.

To begin with, consider the three rules recorded by Mr. Flint, not as dogma—never consider anything as dogma—but as the result of long contemplation, which, even if it is some one else’s contemplation, may be worth consideration.

Pay no attention to the criticism of men who have never themselves written a notable work. Consider the discrepancies between the actual writing of the Greek poets and dramatists, and the theories of the Graeco-Roman grammarians, concocted to explain their metres.

Language

Use no superfluous word, no adjective, which does not reveal something.

Don’t use such an expression as “dim lands of peace.” It dulls the image. It mixes an abstraction with the concrete. It comes from the writer’s not realizing that the natural object is always the adequate symbol.

Go in fear of abstractions. Don’t retell in mediocre verse what has already been done in good prose. Don’t think any intelligent person is going to be deceived when you try to shirk all the difficulties of the unspeakably difficult art of good prose by chopping your composition into line lengths.

What the expert is tired of today the public will be tired of tomorrow.

Don’t imagine that the art of poetry is any simpler than the art of music, or that you can please the expert before you have spent at least as much effort on the art of verse as the average piano teacher spends on the art of music.

Be influenced by as many great artists as you can, but have the decency either to acknowledge the debt outright, or to try to conceal it.

Don’t allow “influence” to mean merely that you mop up the particular decorative vocabulary of some one or two poets whom you happen to admire. A Turkish war correspondent was recently caught red-handed babbling in his dispatches of “dove-gray” hills, or else it was “pearl-pale,” I can not remember.
Use either no ornament or good ornament.

Rhythm and Rhyme

Let the candidate fill his mind with the finest cadences he can discover, preferably in a foreign language so that the meaning of the words may be less likely to divert his attention from the movement; e.g., Saxon charms, Hebridean Folk Songs, the verse of Dante, and the lyrics of Shakespeare—if he can dissociate the vocabulary from the cadence. Let him dissect the lyrics of Goethe coldly into their component sound values, syllables long and short, stressed and unstressed, into vowels and consonants.

It is not necessary that a poem should rely on its music, but if it does rely on its music that music must be such as will delight the expert.

Let the neophyte know assonance and alliteration, rhyme immediate and delayed, simple and polyphonic, as a musician would expect to know harmony and counter-point and all the minutiae of his craft. No time is too great to give to these matters or to any one of them, even if the artist seldom have need of them.

Don’t imagine that a thing will “go” in verse just because it’s too dull to go in prose.

Don’t be “viewy”—leave that to the writers of pretty little philosophic essays. Don’t be descriptive; remember that the painter can describe a landscape much better than you can, and that he has to know a deal more about it.

When Shakespeare talks of the “Dawn in russet mantle clad” he presents something which the painter does not present. There is in this line of his nothing that one can call description; he presents.

Consider the way of the scientists rather than the way of an advertising agent for a new soap.

The scientist does not expect to be acclaimed as a great scientist until he has discovered something. He begins by learning what has been discovered already. He goes from that point onward. He does not bank on being a charming fellow personally. He does not expect his friends to applaud the results of his freshman class work. Freshmen in poetry are unfortunately not confined to a definite and recognizable class room. They are “all over the shop.” Is it any wonder “the public is indifferent to poetry?”

Don’t chop your stuff into separate iambs. Don’t make each line stop dead at the end, and then begin every next line with a heave. Let the beginning of the next line catch the rise of the rhythm wave, unless you want a definite longish pause.

In short, behave as a musician, a good musician, when dealing with that phase of your art which has exact parallels in music. The same laws govern, and you are bound by no others.

Naturally, your rhythmic structure should not destroy the shape of your words, or their natural sound, or their meaning. It is improbable that, at the start, you will be able to get a rhythm-structure strong enough to affect them very much, though you may fall a victim to all sorts of false stopping due to line ends and caesurae.

The musician can rely on pitch and the volume of the orchestra. You can not. The term harmony is misapplied to poetry; it refers to simultaneous sounds of different pitch. There is, however, in the best verse a sort of residue of sound which remains in the ear of the hearer and acts more or less as an organ-base. A rhyme must have in it some slight element of surprise if it is to give pleasure; it need not be bizarre or curious, but it must be well used if used at all.

Vide further Vildrac and Duhamel’s notes on rhyme in “Technique Poetique.”

That part of your poetry which strikes upon the imaginative eye of the reader will lose nothing by translation into a foreign tongue; that which appeals to the ear can reach only those who take it in the original.

Consider the definiteness of Dante’s presentation, as compared with Milton’s rhetoric. Read as much of Wordsworth as does not seem too unutterably dull.

If you want the gist of the matter go to Sappho, Catullus, Villon, Heine when he is in the vein, Gautier when he is not too frigid; or, if you have not the tongues, seek out the leisurely Chaucer. Good prose will do you no harm, and there is good discipline to be had by trying to write it.

Translation is likewise good training, if you find that your original matter “wobbles” when you try to rewrite it. The meaning of the poem to be translated can not “wobble.”

If you are using a symmetrical form, don’t put in what you want to say and then fill up the remaining vacuums with slush.

Don’t mess up the perception of one sense by trying to define it in terms of another. This is usually only the result of being too lazy to find the exact word. To this clause there are possibly exceptions.

The first three simple proscriptions* will throw out nine-tenths of all the bad poetry now accepted as standard and classic; and will prevent you from many a crime of production. “...Mais d’abord il faut etre un poete,” as MM. Duhamel and Vildrac have said at the end of their little book, “Notes sur la Technique Poetique”; but in an American one takes that at least for granted, otherwise why does one get born upon that august continent!

*Noted by Mr. Flint.

—Ezra Pound

TALKING THE WALK POEM

I've reposted below some of my favorite passages from your walk-poem poetics. The following passages are not simply talking about the walk (where I walked, what I saw) but identifying the relationship between walking and writing a walk poem: strategies of perception, including focusing on body movement; using a notebook; focusing not only on vision but also scent, sound, and so on; drawing on "found language" on shirts and signs.

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Instead of describing what was around me, I described movement by describing my pace.

I chose to use small sentences and the word "me" a lot in my poem because I wanted to leave room for thought because that is what I was doing on my walk and I was concentrating on how the world was around "me".

I took advice from the assignment sheet and brought a notebook with me. On the way I jotted down things that I saw, or phrases that popped into my head when I looked at something. This was incredibly helpful when I sat down because it gave me many different ideas that I could start with.

My only challenge when writing this poem was that it took a lot of effort to keep focused on writing about one . . . my many thoughts throughout the walk.

It was difficult for me to describe fall without using clichés of fall. I eventually closed my eyes, and this helped me focus only on sound, touch and hearing.

I carried a notebook with me on the walk, and jotted down the things I saw that either reminded me of her or the things that were in the “color of the day”- pink, of course.

I took several pictures that later helped me write the poem as well. A picture in particular of another team’s shirt, worn by a woman walking in front of me, had on it a list of all the words that were inspiring to me during the walk, including “bravery, heroism, and healing”.

I made note of signs along the route of the walk that gave statistics about the number of women suffering with breast cancer today and information on prevention.

Poetics 3

I decided to take a walk around an area of North Philly that I volunteer in. It was a rainy day, and I love the sound of rain. It was a short walk, about 8 blocks. It wasn't quite. It was just still. When I turned off of the main street onto smaller block in that neighborhood. I walked by a woman who was standing in the rain. She was so high it seemed like she didn't even know it was raining. She stood in front of an abandoned house swaying back and forth, in a trance-like state. So, I took note. Further down there was a memorial that I've seen time and time again. The police keep throwing the teddy bears and candles away, and people keep putting teddy bears, candles, t-shirts back on the same corner. I can respect that. Too bad the cops can't. If this is the community's outlet to remember someone, who are the cops to take it away? I turned onto this abandoned block. It's completely abandoned with the exception of one home. The houses are burnt out or falling down. One of the doors was blowing back and forth and squeaking on the hinges. I saw all kinds of household belongings in the rumble. There were also a significant amount of sneakers hanging from the wire, about fifteen pairs or all sizes. On to another block where suddenly sirens were blaring and red and blue lights were reflecting off of the rain. The police jumped out grabbing people, unnecessarily aggressive. Some people went into their houses to shut themselves away from the situation. Other came out, or hung out of windows. It was just a sad situation and the women were asking "What is this for? What did I do?" with no response from the police (of course). The cops sped away, and left the block in shock and silence.

I loved writing the poem. I think I'll do it more often. I was relaxing to go for a walk and quitely observe. I think it was different from the ekphrastic poem because it forced us to get out and be a part of a physical environment. The ekphrastic poem allowed us to look a a piece of art and create an environment with ideas and perceptions that could be controlled.

Poetics 3

I have walked very often in Korea because I did not have a car at that time. However, now I rarely walk. In America, I walk only for two cases. First, I walk at the campus, but I always busy at the school. Moreover, my backpack is so heavy that I am too tired to think, observe, or feel something while I am walking. Second, I take a walk with my dogs. The walking with a dog could be a good and fun subject for a walk poem if the owner could control the dog. My dogs are uncontrollable. One of the dogs always tries to run away. Another one only wants to stay on one spot. She keeps sitting down.
The walking was the most difficult part to write a walk poem. However, I got a chance to walk soon. One night, I was drinking some beer at a bar, and suddenly, I thought it could be a good time to walk. I thought I could feel some special things because I was drunk. I walked short distance, but I could get many things in my mind.
When I wrote the object poem and the ekpharastic poem, I focused only the object and the artwork. However, while I was walking, my focus was moving. I felt old weather. I saw the streetlights, and my shadow. I heard my footsteps and the voice of a stranger. Finally, I met a tree and the sky. I wrote all of them. Actually, my emotion was changing followed the things I felt, saw, or heard. Also, there were many worldly thoughts in my mind. However, I tried to tie up my mind with one emotion when I wrote the actual poem. I would like to write main feeling and thinking that I got while I was walking. If I wrote all of the feelings and thoughts, my poet could be a book.

poetic- walk poem

For my walk poem I walked through the cemetary that is across the street from my parents house. This was a very interesting experience because I always looked at it from across the street and thought about walking throught it. I enjoyed the walk poem more than any of the prior poems we have done in class. While I was walking through the cemetary the time seemed to just fly by. I began my walk around one and before I knew it the lady was asking if I would be down soon so she could lock the gates. I just walked up and down the rows and read the tombstones and sat with some of them. It was interesting to question about their lives. While doing the walk poem I felt like I was turning it into an object poem because I would begin to describe the tombstones, but when I realized I tried to break away from that.

Poetics 3

Poetics 3 - Brian Boyle

For my walk poem, I walked from my house on 17^th and Arlington to Temple’s Tech Center on 12^th and Montgomery. I have walked this route many times and that was part of the reason why I chose it. I wanted to find something deeper in the same walk I take everyday. I wanted to take notice of the things that I usually pass by without another thought.

I took advice from the assignment sheet and brought a notebook with me. On the way I jotted down things that I saw, or phrases that popped into my head when I looked at something. This was incredibly helpful when I sat down because it gave me many different ideas that I could start with. I settled on a pair of shoes that hung from the telephone wires. The more I thought about the shoes however, the more I realized that they weren’t just some inanimate objects. The shoes had history. They were on a pair of feet once that went places, and did things, only to reach their final resting place on the telephone wires.

This was very different from writing an ekphrastic poem because it is left up to the writer to create an original piece of art. The walk poem was more comparable to an object poem. Instead of focusing on just one object however, I took notice and focused on many objects and wove them all into a single story. It was a lot of fun and allows the writer to exercise a great deal of creative freedom.

I would absolutely recommend that a younger poet try his or her hand at a walk poem. It helps you to take notice and truly appreciate your surroundings while exercising your creativity.

Obelisk

Freckled sidewalks

beneath the shoes

that hang from wires.

They knew feet once.

Feet that leapt over left over puddles

as the half moon rippled in its reflection.

And oh the light!

Not by day but by night.

Like mini suns,

iridescent fluorescents

left no shadows,

no place unexplored.

Still the feet searched on…

Outside perpetual day and into the night

until the rain wrinkled their toes.

Where the streets were all one way,

the cats malnourished, strays,

and everything was in its right place.

Here, there was no stopping anytime,

no left turn,

no right way.

So the feet walked back.

Back through the junkyard of lights,

over the left over puddles,

and up the one way street.

Shoeless now the feet grew cold, colder, coldest.

And as the feet walked away,

the shoes told stories of past battles won and lost.

Urban obelisk.

Walk Poem Poetics

I chose to write my walk poem after taking a run, which turned into a walk, through the canal path in Manayunk. I've ran that path a million times but something about that fall day enlightened me. That sounds so cliché but I never really took the time before to slow down and take in all my surroundings like I did that day. It was the perfect fall day in my opinion. The air was crisp and cool. The trees had finally started to change to bright colors of orange and red and some began to fall. The path is very secluded at the end farthest from the city and I was alone for a while. As I walked towards the city more people are on the path and it sort of woke me up a little because now I was not only looking at my quiet surroundings but the people doing athletic activities around me, like biking and running. The final leg of my walk was off the path and on to Main Street to walk to my house. This is when the world got loud again and I saw city life in action. I chose to use small sentences and the word "me" a lot in my poem because I wanted to leave room for thought because that is what I was doing on my walk and I was concentrating on how the world was around "me".

Poetics 3

When thinking about the content of my walk poem, I thought of writing about a walk in the rain. There was rain in the forecast so this was going to be able to be possible. Walking to class with a friend on the day before it was scheduled to rain, my friend turned and told me that I was walking really slow. Later that day while walking, I realized that everyone around me was passing me along the way. This gave me the idea to write a walking poem while walking at my normal speed. My speed was such a contrast to those around me that I thought it would be good content for my poem. I thought of the saying "slowly going nowhere" and wanted it to be the focus of my poem because as walking. Even though I was physically walking, it seemed as if I was getting nowhere with everyone passing by. The process was a lot different for me for this poem because before I was physically looking at something and describing it, or using it as inspiration for my poem. With the walking poem, I wasn't describing anything physical. Instead of describing what was around me, I described movement by describing my pace. I really enjoyed this poem because I wrote about me personally instead of something in front of me.

Poetics 3

Poetics 3
This assignment was very interesting to say the least. So far, although I am not completely thrilled with the outcome of my first draft of my walk poem, I most enjoyed experiencing the process of the “walk” poem over all the other assignments thus far. I know that every single time I go for a walk, especially by myself, thoughts race through my head. I always think about my surroundings, contemplate how I am feeling and what is going on in my life. I especially enjoy walking at dusk. For my walk poem, I just recently got a puppy. This is the first dog that is all my own and my own responsibility and I thought that for my walk poem nothing would be better than taking Bear for his very first walk. Because dusk is my favorite time, I choose a gorgeous, serene night and enjoyed strolling around my neighborhood with my new pup. At first, all I could focus on was Bear’s well-being, but after some time I just let him lead the way. As multiple cars passed, I thought it was very special that everyone on the outside had no idea what a special moment this was and that this was Bear and I’s very first walk together. I was most inspired by the ignorance of my surroundings. Although it was clear that I was a girl walking a dog, no one truly knew how I felt and I was able to express that in my walk poem. My only challenge when writing this poem was that it took a lot of effort to keep focused on writing about one mf my many thoughts throughout the walk.

Poetics 3

Since fall is my favorite season I chose to walk around my hometown, Jenkintown. I knew that I would see more trees, and overall get a better view of fall, than if I were to walk around North Philadelphia. While I was walking around Jenkintown I carried a notebook with me and wrote down colors I saw, things I smelled and heard, and familiar places that reminded me of my childhood. Although Jenkintown is only 25 minutes outside of Philadelphia, it had a completely different smell, that’s what I noticed most, the smell. It was difficult for me to describe fall without using clichés of fall. I eventually closed my eyes, and this helped me focus only on sound, touch and hearing. By doing this process it let me create my own phrases and get rid of any clichés. I enjoyed writing this poem more than the previous poems, because I am passionate about Jenkintown and the season of fall.

Poetics 3

For my walk poem, I walked around the city of Philadelphia. I walked from my home in center city to west Philadelphia and then home again. When in west Philadelphia, I came across two rappers who were battling "so to speak." From the look of things, it appeared that the two were freestyling as well as incorporating itty bitty little tid bits of written components. By the end of their verbal display of wits, tongues and cheeks, and poli/philosophical debates, not only had the crowd that had gathered spoken, but the rappers had too; it was a draw. They were both up to par. They shook hands, reciprocated respect for one-an-other, and then parted ways. It was clear that although these two rappers (R.A.P.= Rhythm And Poetry) were, in fact two different people with different eyes that spawned different view points, that they were both two pees in a pod upon the same page. Their preliminary arguing that had entertained us all, was UTTERLY ("pun intended") irrelevant to the peace that they had acquired with one another that had preceded that tussle.

For many of my other poems, not only in this poetry class, I have taken a more mysterious and riddle-esque approach. This one was more narrative and clear, I believe, contrasted with many of my other pieces. Daniel and I had spoken about this "mystery style" in the past, and he had told me (and i agreed) that, although the "style" is useful, it is always nice to push one's comfort zones, boundaries, and to try new things. Thus, this walk poem, my most recent piece, was a bit different from my poems of the past. One could say that it is still a bit "out there" perhaps, however that "out there-ness" is also rooted in a more concrete narrative that I had perceived during my walk out there in west Philly. However, and I will barely mention this a all and with brevity, it is my belief as of now that often times people can be a bit black and white when it comes to issues of "deep/pretentious/artsy-fartsy vs. not." (?)

Poetics 3

The walk poem I wrote is named after Ellyn, a close family member who passed away this September after a brief battle with breast cancer and after losing her husband 7 weeks prior. After she was diagnosed in May, we made a team called the “Sole Mates” in her honor, but we had the honor of walking last weekend in her memory. The poem was written during the American Cancer Society’s Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk in Pennsauken, NJ. I walked with the many friends that joined my team as well as my mother and father. My mother has been breast cancer survivor since 2007. We fundraised over $2,000 to donate the day of the walk by selling homemade goodies, crafts, bracelets and other “pink ribbon” items. The day of the walk was a beautiful autumn day, which was Ellyn’s favorite time of year. I carried a notebook with me on the walk, and jotted down the things I saw that either reminded me of her or the things that were in the “color of the day”- pink, of course. I was astonished to see all things pink that the men, women, and children who participated in the walk found to wear. My team had made team t-shirts and had pink boas amongst other pink things. I took several pictures that later helped me write the poem as well. A picture in particular of another team’s shirt, worn by a woman walking in front of me, had on it a list of all the words that were inspiring to me during the walk, including “bravery, heroism, and healing”. Another team shirt had a picture of Rosie the Riveter decked out in all pink ribbons and as I looked at the shirt as the person wearing it posed for a team picture, they shouted, “We can do it”. I made note of signs along the route of the walk that gave statistics about the number of women suffering with breast cancer today and information on prevention. The walk poem was easier to write than both the object and ekphrastic poems as personal feelings were allowed to make their way into the poem. Establishing a subject for the poem was easy as well, as the “walk” took place shortly before this poem was due.