Plath Shadow Box
May. 27th, 2003 04:51 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
kittykatofdoom.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
craftgrrlHi everyone I'm new here at livejournal but I've been browsing this community for a while (and the FAQs have been SO helpful :))
So other than being new, I have a question, or rather just a general dillema...
In my school, for the standard 11th grade english class there is one term project at the end of each semester - a term paper based on a work/works of your own choosing in the winter and then the infamous June Project. The June project consists of "creatively opening up to the class" the work that we wrote about for our term paper...this includes music, acting, art, sewing, etc. Since I did Sylvia Plath's Aerial poems for my term paper, and I've always admired how well she uses very strong images that tie into a theme and a metaphor in a sort of narrative in her poetry, and since I'm a pretty crafty-type person, I decided to do a shadow box illustrating those images and such in her poem "The Night Dances". I have a lot of ideas for how it would look pretty but I want to make sure that I really open up the poem and make it accesible somehow so it's not just a random bs pretty thing that sort of relates to the work. I get 10 minutes to explain it to the class and i can give them hand-outs with basic info like the poem and a mini bio and stuff. Here's the poem:
A simle fell in the grass.
Irretrievable!
And how will your night dances
Lose themselves. In mathematics!
Such pure leaves and spirals -
Surely they travel
The world forever, I shall not entirely
Sit emptied of beauties, the gift
Of your small breath, the drenched grass
Smell of your sleep, lilies, lilies.
Their flesh bears no relation.
Cold folds of ego, the calla,
And the tiger, embellishing itself -
Spots, and a spread of hot petals.
The comets.
Have such a space to cross,
Such coldness, forgetfulness.
So your gestures flake off -
Warm and human, then their pink light
Bleeding and peeling
Through the black amnesias of heaven.
Why am I given
These lamps these planets
Falling like blessing, like flakes
Six-sided, white
On my eyes, my lips, my hair
Touching and melting.
Nowhere.
I want to show how the enjambment adds meaning to the poem and how the more cosmic metaphor/images translates into a more tangible, human message....any ideas?
So other than being new, I have a question, or rather just a general dillema...
In my school, for the standard 11th grade english class there is one term project at the end of each semester - a term paper based on a work/works of your own choosing in the winter and then the infamous June Project. The June project consists of "creatively opening up to the class" the work that we wrote about for our term paper...this includes music, acting, art, sewing, etc. Since I did Sylvia Plath's Aerial poems for my term paper, and I've always admired how well she uses very strong images that tie into a theme and a metaphor in a sort of narrative in her poetry, and since I'm a pretty crafty-type person, I decided to do a shadow box illustrating those images and such in her poem "The Night Dances". I have a lot of ideas for how it would look pretty but I want to make sure that I really open up the poem and make it accesible somehow so it's not just a random bs pretty thing that sort of relates to the work. I get 10 minutes to explain it to the class and i can give them hand-outs with basic info like the poem and a mini bio and stuff. Here's the poem:
A simle fell in the grass.
Irretrievable!
And how will your night dances
Lose themselves. In mathematics!
Such pure leaves and spirals -
Surely they travel
The world forever, I shall not entirely
Sit emptied of beauties, the gift
Of your small breath, the drenched grass
Smell of your sleep, lilies, lilies.
Their flesh bears no relation.
Cold folds of ego, the calla,
And the tiger, embellishing itself -
Spots, and a spread of hot petals.
The comets.
Have such a space to cross,
Such coldness, forgetfulness.
So your gestures flake off -
Warm and human, then their pink light
Bleeding and peeling
Through the black amnesias of heaven.
Why am I given
These lamps these planets
Falling like blessing, like flakes
Six-sided, white
On my eyes, my lips, my hair
Touching and melting.
Nowhere.
I want to show how the enjambment adds meaning to the poem and how the more cosmic metaphor/images translates into a more tangible, human message....any ideas?
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