For my found poem, I used an article describing the correlation between animal abuse and domestic violence to create something that depicts the severity and closeness of the two. I put the numbers at the beginning and again in the fourth line to show the magnitude of the issue, and provide numbers for readers. The quantities are not directly associated with the subjects they represent, a choice made to express the known and unknown victims of violence without too much specificity. I didn’t use conjunctions everywhere they could have gone because I believe the words pack more of a punch standing alone. The spacing of the words and the way they do not form complete sentences in my poem is to encourage slower and more pronounced readings; this is something I was inspired to do by ZONG!
I chose to put this poem on a sunset silhouette. The red and orange hues represent heat and anger, powerful driving forces in violent behavior. Lastly, the spacing of the stanzas are to create a space in thought, preventing run-on ideas from bumping into one another. Though the theme of violence is prominent throughout, I believe spacing the stanzas provide separate thought processes to occur.
Hi Kaylee, I really like how you used a colored background with your poem. While reading, I felt that the orange and black made the poem over more dramatic and brought more intensity to the issue. I also like how began the poem with two different numbers because before reading the artist’s statement, I did not know what exactly they represented, which makes sense because we do not know any exact numbers of victims affected. I also really liked how you ended the poem with “abusers don’t understand love” because, throughout the poem, there are not any complete sentences, so to end with one phrase that could be a complete sentence is very powerful.