David Shapiro’s poem stood out to me when presented in class because of the poem 's sentimental dedication to a friend and the malleability it could have for an imitation. My first thought was that I could change “And so the snow fell” into its natural contrast of “And so the fire ignited," but I figured many of my classmates would have the same idea, so I decided to do a more abstract take on the poem. This led me to the notion that imitating the poem would be much easier and much more effective if it was personally relatable. Fear defines who we are. And for the world, one of the greatest fears shared between many individuals, including myself, is the fear of public speaking. This is why I chose anxiety as my topic. Due to the nature of the
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Portraying the true extent of one’s emotions is harder than it appears, especially when one is limited to just a few words to accomplish the goal. This was a challenge I personally faced when formulating my imitation because a poem has to say so much by saying so little compared to a short story, which can go more in depth with details and descriptions. My first draft of the poem very closely resembled Shapiro’s piece in structure and the decision to start each line with “and." After some encouragement to format my poems as I please, I began to mold my poem with the use of and lack of words to create tension in my poem that would similarly provoke anxiety. The first idea that came to mind involved keeping the English word “anxiety” in the first stanza and then translating the other “anxiety’s” into different languages to articulate the universal fear of public speaking or other shared fears across the world. After doing so, I realized this was not my goal. My goal was meant to be expressed on a more personal level. This is my reasoning behind creating a poem in first person …show more content…
I enjoyed Shapiro’s personal color in the line that states “And covered up one red orange sexual flower," so I decided to add my own personal color of “…my face Bulldawg red” to make it more a piece of my own. Even though I could have strayed greatly from the original poem, I decided it was best to at least keep the couplet structure intact so that my poem still had the appearance of an imitation. One notable contrast happens to be the mood created from the poems. Shapiro 's eulogy-like poem accomplishes a calmness throughout, just like one would expect in death, while "Enslaved" forces the reader to be engulfed by the fight-or-flight instinct produced by fear and anxiety. In order to produce the fight-or-flight instinct, I had to discover a new way of visualizing the progression of this abstract anxiety. My inspiration to achieve such inclinations came from the idea to portray a battle with anxiety as the victor. The advancement in the piece could not have occurred if I had relied solely on one verb like Shapiro 's consistent use of "covered." The use of multiple verbs like "tickles," "clenches," and "enslaves" adds a variety to the poem that is not prevalent in the first line of each couplet in Shapiro 's poem. His poem gives a hint of predictability as a strength but mine keeps the reader guessing on what
Portraying the true extent of one’s emotions is harder than it appears, especially when one is limited to just a few words to accomplish the goal. This was a challenge I personally faced when formulating my imitation because a poem has to say so much by saying so little compared to a short story, which can go more in depth with details and descriptions. My first draft of the poem very closely resembled Shapiro’s piece in structure and the decision to start each line with “and." After some encouragement to format my poems as I please, I began to mold my poem with the use of and lack of words to create tension in my poem that would similarly provoke anxiety. The first idea that came to mind involved keeping the English word “anxiety” in the first stanza and then translating the other “anxiety’s” into different languages to articulate the universal fear of public speaking or other shared fears across the world. After doing so, I realized this was not my goal. My goal was meant to be expressed on a more personal level. This is my reasoning behind creating a poem in first person …show more content…
I enjoyed Shapiro’s personal color in the line that states “And covered up one red orange sexual flower," so I decided to add my own personal color of “…my face Bulldawg red” to make it more a piece of my own. Even though I could have strayed greatly from the original poem, I decided it was best to at least keep the couplet structure intact so that my poem still had the appearance of an imitation. One notable contrast happens to be the mood created from the poems. Shapiro 's eulogy-like poem accomplishes a calmness throughout, just like one would expect in death, while "Enslaved" forces the reader to be engulfed by the fight-or-flight instinct produced by fear and anxiety. In order to produce the fight-or-flight instinct, I had to discover a new way of visualizing the progression of this abstract anxiety. My inspiration to achieve such inclinations came from the idea to portray a battle with anxiety as the victor. The advancement in the piece could not have occurred if I had relied solely on one verb like Shapiro 's consistent use of "covered." The use of multiple verbs like "tickles," "clenches," and "enslaves" adds a variety to the poem that is not prevalent in the first line of each couplet in Shapiro 's poem. His poem gives a hint of predictability as a strength but mine keeps the reader guessing on what