It’s a rare moment when the end of a syllabus excites rather than terrifies me, but as soon as I saw our final assignment for my Intermediate Poetry Writing class, I was already jotting down ideas in the margins.
The assignment? A multi-media work that combines art and poetry.
Three Weeks Out
Our first step toward constructing our final projects was to choose (and later defend, in class) the greatest piece of art ever made. We had to decide what the pinnacle of artistry was, the greatest work to grace the public, the single-most sublime piece manifested by mankind. Obviously, this is a tall order to fill.
My friends in the class all went back and forth on the struggles of choosing the best work of art in human history. “Art is subjective and this assignment is impossible,” “I’m stressed about getting called out for bringing this in,” “The old greats are obviously the best but I don’t want to deal with the Mona Lisa,” on and on we voiced our deep-seated doubts about a question that’s plagued humans for decades: what is art?
Despite my love for impressionists like Van Gogh and Monet, the musical mastermind Debussy and the revolutionary Frank Lloyd Wright, I cast my preconceived notions of the mankind’s best piece of art and went with the work I thought was the best, subjectivity and all. I keep a print of it in my room and often kicked my legs up onto the wall in Lincoln Tower to stare at it for a moment of silence in the never-ending commotion of college.
Nighthawks, 1942 by Edward Hopper
Nighthawks made me think. Nighthawks made me stare, wonder, guess at what was hidden underneath the diner counter and behind the shadowy storefronts. I’ve never seen it in person, but I first saw Hopper’s work in person at the Columbus Museum of Art: Morning Sun was on display, vaguely familiar, but I only made the connection after soaking it all in. The colors, the plain look in the woman’s face, the light, brushstrokes visible, yet the shapes defined and strong. His distinctive style led me to Nighthawks, and in the gift shop, I bought a poster and hung it next to my print of Monet’s Woman with a Parasol – Madame Monet and Her Son (my true first love). It’s traveled with me to college and back home again ever since.
Morning Sun, 1952 by Edward Hopper
Woman with a Parasol – Madame Monet and Her Son, 1875 by Claude Monet
Two Weeks Out
After choosing and defending Nighthawks as the pinnacle of art, we then had to choose the best poem of all time. Personally, my decision was easy. As shameful as it is, I’m bad at remembering poems unless they really make an impact on me, so I didn’t have a large library to work with, like art. I quickly decided on a poem I’d read in eleventh grade for an Honors English class: “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot. I analyzed the poem for class through an existential lens, and absolutely fell in love with it. Poems are like puzzles: non of it makes a shred of sense until you slow down and digest it, line by line, word by word. And then, it’s revealed. Everything. The meaning, the message, the way all the images and metaphors work together to construct this single, beautiful revelation about the world. Prufrock represented everything I love in poetry: fantastic imagery, precise specificity, incredibly creative similes and metaphors, a visible-enough narrative, a secret message, societal commentary interwoven with personal struggle; the most clever, calculated nuances of poetry were taking center stage, and I loved it. And while I don’t use rhyme in my own poems, the rhyme scheme in Prufrock just sounds so right.
One Week Out
Surprisingly enough, we didn’t have to write our own poem for the final project, but instead, as I’m certain it’s become clear now, we needed to combine our chosen works into one, singular piece by teasing out themes important aspects of each, and only using the ones that would work well together.
Per usual, I thought big at first: a short film with powdered color and music in slow-motion, but considering I had other classes and no experience in making short films, I went with an easier artistic pursuit I’d always thought about but never done: photography. Combining my skills from two years of 4-H sewing projects with a touch of natural artistic vision, I came up with a series of seven photos that mesh one of the most famous lines of Prufrock with the illuminated, yet lonely feel of Nighthawks. The following is the finished product.
I was surprisingly pleased with the final product. My roommate was extremely helpful in modeling for me, and my suitemate was insanely kind for letting me use her nice Nikon camera. We walked across the Olentangy River at about 5:00 to Cup O’ Joe and took advantage of the natural light as best we could, my finger never off the capture button. I had no idea what I was doing. The flash randomly turned on and off, the focus shifted to odd places, and I had to ignore the people around casting questioning glances our way. That was actually the hardest part for me. I’m quite self-conscious about these kinds of things, but in true college-kid fashion, the project was due the next morning. I had to suck it up and act confident.
The shirt I embroidered myself, spending hours to make each letter bold. The lettering is a little uneven in places, and I didn’t even finish it, but i actually liked the look and concept of a needle still attached to the thread. It ended up bringing everything together, because suddenly, I had this tension in the photos. Maybe she wants to disturb the universe, but she’s looking sad, cold, and isolated. The act of sewing, the act of making each letter bold and clear, showed that she’s working on it, like I am, like we all are. We’re all just working on it, and I think that’s important for someone like me: an artistic with a bad perfectionist complex. Bad combination, sure, but I’m working on it.
This project was the first time I’d ever done something outside my main medium of writing and showcased it to a jury, and I received lots of positive responses. Everyone was surprised that I’d never done photography before, but I had never handled a nice camera, never edited photos outside of phone apps, and never considered positioning and lighting seriously. All I knew was what I liked in a photo, and I went with it.
The project taught me a lot of about loosening up and going with gut instinct, something I stray from too often with my aforementioned perfectionist complex, but every now and then I notice the glossy photo prints of these pictures on my roommate’s wall and can’t help a little egotistic grin. Yes, I did that, I made that, and people like it. I trusted my gut. I took a risk. And it’s a good feeling to land on your feet.
As the new housing lottery treated me kindly, and I’m all set to live in Blackburn House with my roommate next year, I still wonder why everyone considers the towers the worst of the worst when it comes to residence halls. Sure, Lincoln is suite-style living and your rooms are an awkward wedge-shape, and living in a quad can’t be ideal (I’m in a double, which arguably gives you the most space anywhere on campus—when I went home for the first time, I brought back more stuff), we had a great view of the entire campus from our 22nd floor window. Weekday evenings in the fall were spent getting a preview of the marching band’s next halftime show. The RPAC is minutes away, the Shoe just as close, and when it’s -10 and midnight, bundled-up soccer enthusiasts still take to the field. Also, AC.
Living here means having Target, Barnes & Noble, AMC, and Cup o’ Joe just across the river, and if Target isn’t enough of an incentive, I’m not sure what else is. The fire drills are rough, and traveling to classes through the RPAC wind tunnel and up one of the only hills on campus isn’t necessarily fun, but I’ve met such great friends and have amazing memories of late nights in the common room studying, watching Law & Order SVU, talking current events, and the monthly unveiling of birthday gifts that the twelve of us managed to scrape together for each and every suitemate. Overall, I loved my Lincoln experience. I honestly couldn’t imagine living elsewhere my first year.
Small note: if you get room 2253, make sure you look up when you turn the lights out. Someone before me stuck a hundred tiny glow stars on the ceiling, and it’s an amazing sight when the lights first turn off. I didn’t tell housing about them, so they should be there for you too.
