Satisfied
Here is a link to watch my poem in kinetic text form
Within the world everyone is diverse,
Wanting this or that to keep our desires
Satisfied; Do you think it is a curse
From which desires feed the immortal fires?
Our wishes come true for unseen prices,
We destroy the resources that we acquire,
Just because what we have never suffices.
Look around you, do you see the world conspire…
About you? Who are we to believe that nothing
Is going on; Open our eyes to see:
We are too scared to be enquiring
About how the cruel world won’t take mercy,
Never taking the time to consider,
The world needs to be reconsidered.
Here is a link to watch my poem in kinetic text form
Leah Starr Poetry Form Analyses
When I wrote this poem I was thinking of the Galton Interbieng Peace writing that I had read in class. It had talked about how in order to have peace you had to let go of all your wants and desires. Everyone is different I think in one way or another. This would make peace not attainable when everyone wants something different. People sometimes seem to be in their own little worlds and don’t look at everything around them. They don’t question the bigger pictures, only the little things that concern them right then and there. I got this idea from Brave New World. The people there had the same problem. They had no clue that there could be more to life if they only looked outside their own worlds. I thought that would be a concept that was new and interesting, for I wanted it to be different than other poems. I really portray it well in my first two lines, “Within the world everyone is diverse, Wanting this or that to keep our desires Satisfied.” These lines are talking about that very idea, that no one wants the same thing. Not even the same desires.
Ever since I was young I have loved Shakespeare sonnets. In Elementary and Middle School, Our teacher would make my class memorize sonnets and ponder what they meant. Then we would ponder over what we thought they meant based on how the lines would be formed and the words within it. Many people say Shakespeare is really hard to understand. I find that if you have been exposed to the kind of language and taken the time to care, it is fairly easy once you understand one poem, because they are all written in the same kind of form. They even have the same kind of devises. The same meter, rhyme scheme and enjambment. An example I took these devises from would be the first four lines of Sonnet 116. “Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove” So I also used meter, rhyme scheme and enjambment. Just like this poem. Though I did not make it old language, I’ll leave that to Shakespeare.
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove” So I also used meter, rhyme scheme and enjambment. Just like this poem. Though I did not make it old language, I’ll leave that to Shakespeare.
In class Lori had shown us a former student’s kinetic text that went with her poem “The Truth”. I really liked how all the words flowed through out the screen to create pictures about what she was talking about. Part of the reason I like this way of performance is I get stage fright and don’t really want to be up in front of a bunch of people. This is the best way for me not to have to get up on stage and freeze. Besides I’m an artist in the making and love the challenge of learning a new way to express art. I want to have words that create pictures such as the gun that shot bullet words or the steps that lead up to the truth. But my pictures are based off of my poem, creating my own master piece.
Poetry Project Reflection
The newest humanities project was about poetry.We first started learning about what was good poetry and what wasn't and what was not. Then we learned different poetic devises that people use within their poem. These could be anywhere from meter (the syllables in each line) to enjambent (Where a line or stanza is broken). These devises are what set a poems mood or beat when saying it. Other things we learned were forms that a poem took, such as a sonnet or haiku; these usually had a certain rhyme scheme that you follow and a certain line requirement.
We were given as assighnment to write a poem and either speak it, with or without an art piece or put it into kinetic text. Kinetic text is where you work in After Effects with the word effects and presets. This is hwere you make words form images or come onto the screen in artistic ways. The can swirl and twirl or disapear. They can even be written backwards or sideways for special effects. We first learned about poetry it'self and then began to find styles we liked. We would take parts from this poem or that, and then look at a style of wording, maybe making it old language or just big words.
During this project I learned that poetry is for those who are born to write. Those who have natural talent can create artwork with merely words. They can make their message very powerful, but I also learned that poetry doesn't have a certain form it has to be in. I learned this when I saw everyone perform their poems. Those who spoke with their voice could really get their audiences attention with dramatic pauses or diffrent volumes in their voice. Poems could be rapped and still be poetic, poems could be spoken with a lot of emotion to sound as if you merely speaking or even yelling at the audience. Yet every poem sounded poetic and amazing.
When writting your poem, poetic devises are what create your mood and setting. When you can mix the perfect balance of description and message together you can keep your poem shor and powerful. If you go into too much detail it can begin to drag on. If you go into too much message people can get confused. Your language can affect how your audience reacts to you poetry. Writing poetry telling the audience they have this problem or that, can make them defensive. If you incorporate yourself also, they don't get as defensive.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Guatemala Genocide Project
Guatemala Genocide Project
Guatemala Genocide from a Children’s Perspective
Guatemala was once the heart of a Mayan civilization, until the 16th century when the Spanish conquered them. They then became enslaved in their own home land and had no say about anything that was once their home. At the end of the 19th century Guatemala came under the rule of a dictator who put his country on the economic map by encouraging land owners to buy and run coffee plantations. Through these people were making a lot of money the Mayans rarely saw any of it. In 1944 the current dictator was overthrown. The one that took his place tried to help Mayans more, which the United States did not like for they were big investors in the coffee grown there. By 1962 the policies that had been placed caused a 35 year civil war. The Guatemalan government, using the Guatemalan Army and its counter-insurgency force began to suppress the Mayan Indians. The military attacked around 626 villages, slaughtering the people within them. I chose this genocide because in intrigued me. It was Spanish against Mayan Indians who were the natives there. There was no white man taking over another inferior race or anything like that in other genocides. This was more based on money and greediness.While researching this genocide I came across a witness’s story about how he experienced the genpcide and what had happened too many of the Mayan people during the time. He said he was merely a boy then, and from a child’s perspective when reading it, I knew it would have been harder on them. In the article “ Interviews: Witness to Massacre,” a boy who survives describes a moment where he saw young children up to five years old being slaughtered: “ The children were the easiest
This graphic novel was a project that took a lot of my time and abilities. I had to plan how much space a frame needed to portray the scene properly and then figure out how to put the script had written into it. The script was the first step once I figured out which genocide I was doing. This took me a week to perfect before I even wanted to start drawing frames and figuring out what to draw. This took me even longer to finish just because I’m a perfectionist and have to do all my art work with absolute grace and aww. The drawings were done in colored pencil and portrayed a lot of detail through out each scene. I used every thing I had learned from my last graphic novel in this one. I wanted it to be better than the last. I had to get critiques a lot and most of the time people were telling me that my work was amazing even though I thought it wasn’t and that it what pushed me even more to have an amazing project.
I loved this project and it was one of my best projects so far. This is a project that I will remember a long time. I really like the quality of the pictures, I kept a really good color scheme throughout the whole entire novel or greens, browns and oranges. I love to draw and someday would like to be more professional with drawing and maybe sell some pieces. The only thing I didn’t like about this project was how time consuming it was and a few spelling mistakes when Photo Shopping that would be the only thing I would change.
Leah Starr
Help Britain Fight the Huns Join Our Pride
The people of Britain are fighting together as one to rise against their enemy, the Huns. Within this piece I used the technique transfer by showing this well known figure on the poster, defending Britain. The lion was often a powerful symbol portraying Britain making it look like this strong power. Another technique is fear, using the Gorilla to do this. He is supposed to make the people of Britain fear his arrival and fight back before he gets there. A pride of lions can take down an enemy quick if they are strong in numbers. In the poster the gorilla represents Germany as it approaches Britain. It looks enraged and is getting ready to attach Britain. Britain seeing this attack has risen up and is going go to fight back, but not without the help of their community. The title of the poster “Help Britain Fight the Huns, Join Our pride” is supposed to make Britain’s people come and help them for they are fighting a formidable foe.
This poster is made to show Germany attacking Britain in world war one. Though Britain had a strong and powerful enemy they had very few ground soldiers, so they needed to recruit more to help them fight. They had the largest empire yet not many ground soldiers. The Empire was large enough that the sun never set there. It was always shinning on a piece of it, because of all the pieces of land they owned. Though Britain had this huge empire, Germany had a strong military and was holding its own in the war. They had planes and u-boats that could sneak attack then disappear. They were brutal in their fighting styles. In the poster I tried to make it look older to match the time period. They didn’t have photo shop so they could only make a poster out of what they could draw. So I tried my best to do the same and draw most of the poster but not all of it.
I think propaganda has an effect on people whether they know it or not. Even if they don’t take the time to really study it, it still affects them on a subconscious level. One could merely glance at poster wanting you to buy something and just pass by it. Though later they could still easily remember it and be able to talk about it, because that image of the poster is still in their mind. Propaganda can be negative or positive depending on what it is and who is seeing it. A propaganda piece that wants teenagers to look a certain way may not be seen as a good thing by someone who is older and doesn’t wear the same things teenagers do and they may see it as a nuisance when it pops up on their TV or in a magazine they are reading, but even then it is still affecting the person by making them have a thought about it. It seems a little unfair to me that I can constantly be affected by it whether I like it or not. I may not think or do what it wants me to but yet I’m still being subject to it by merely hearing it or glancing at it, because our minds will naturally save at least a little bit of it for an amount of time. It seems as if one can never really not be affected by propaganda in one way or another.
Propaganda Project Reflection
1. I knew that propaganda was all around us but I didn’t think I would make my own when I went to school. Our teacher had said that we would be studying it, but I didn’t see that comming. We were given the assignment to create a propaganda piece from World war one. We first studied about world war one and then how propaganda played into in to it. We were then told to choose a country and create one based off of it. I chose Britain because of the animal that symbolized them, which was the lion. I then began to draw my poster and scan it into photo shop and create it. I then wrote an analysis on the poster and how it was historically correct. I also wrote about my thoughts on propaganda in it also.
2. My first drafts of the analyses were horrible. My analysis was a few sentences and my poster was stick figures. I had three drafts of my poster the last turn out to be good. I went from stick figure to drawings. Drawing all of the lions and the gorilla were time consuming. It took me an hour per lion I would say plus the gorilla which was about 20 minutes. I went through a couple of drafts with which lions I put in it, I eventully took the best three lions and placed them in the poster to balance everything out. The gorilla I was going to take from the internet but then I finally just drew him too. To look back a few days my poster was the hardest of this project.
3. I liked my poster a lot but my gorilla turn out bad. I didn’t like him too much. His head doesn’t match the body that well, but other than that the project was fun. I got to use my artistic side and also draw big cats which are one of my favorite animals. I liked that I got to do that. It not often that in school you get to do one of your favorite things in school.
4. I think that I took a lot more from this project than I went into it with. I learned about weapons that the people in world war one used such as U-boats, and zeppelins. The casualties the soldiers had in world war one and how the war had started by all these things that probably could have been stopped. I also learned a lot about propaganda. How they make them with certain techniques to make you think or act a certain way. Using fear, and hope and anger against someone or making them think something is cool because other people are doing it.
5. If I was able to do this piece over again I would have drawn more background a little different. I would of add things like grass and trees and tried to make it so the lions and the gorilla were blended in with the back ground better to wear they didn’t look like someone just stuck them on there. I would also have cleaned up the drawings more so they didn’t have slivers of white everywhere. I also think I would have used my time a little more effiecent too, and got a lot more of the work done at home so I wasn’t so pressed up against the wall to get it done.
