As The Symphony Plays
By Clara Gray-Stallings
The bodies in the gutter watch her innocent feet
Glide ignorantly over this asphalt street.
She may feel strong, but she’s always alone--
And danger only looks for fragile, breakable bones.
The light of the day is tick-tocking like a clock,
A plague of shade spreads to the grey sidewalk,
Suddenly she’s pinned down, can’t scream, can’t shout--
There’s a crash of glass and the streetlight goes out.
But the pain goes on whether we know it or not;
After her bleeding and screaming is silenced with a gunshot
She’s stuffed in the gutter and left there to rot
But they say she disappeared…The killer wasn’t caught--
And the public doesn’t flinch when they see the news change,
They don’t think about the lives it deprived and deranged.
But YOU could be the next victim. It happens all the time,
As consistent as meter; reoccurring like a rhyme.
Murder shouldn’t ever be forgotten in a day;
We watch the scene change but the aftertaste stays.
Still, we’ll listen to the music with our sight in shades of grey,
And the shrieks are drowned out as the symphony plays.
The clarinets rise as the violin sings,
Memories of faces drown in resonating harp strings
Abstract bodies take the blows, the view is distilled
The blood is glistening like garnets and the audience is thrilled!
It shouldn’t be exciting, this unnecessary grief;
But the orchestra gracefully masks that belief.
The villain killing and escaping doesn’t penetrate the nerve,
Because the world is blindly hoping that they’ll get what they deserve.
Yet secretly, we want to see the blood and the gore,
And travel through that chained up, desensitizing door;
But if there’s one thing we ignore about the people we attack,
It’s that homicide is permanent—we can’t bring them back.
And mashed and mangled bodies aren’t as pretty as you think,
Even to the perpetrator rinsing guts down the sink.
It’s nothing that the isolated child has ever seen
On the echoing scars of a street that’s scrubbed clean.
Murder shouldn’t ever be forgotten in a day;
We watch the scene change but the aftertaste stays.
Still, we’ll listen to the music with our sight in shades of grey,
And the shrieks are drowned out as the symphony plays.
Clara Gray-Stallings
My piece of writing, directly relating urban violence, was mainly inspired by two sources. I based the overall message of this poem on an article called, “Teaching Our Kids to Kill” by Deborah Prothrow-Stith. This inspired the main message of my poem, As the Symphony Plays, because the author made some excellent points about media and the way it influences our feelings and thoughts about violence—making it look more fun and less painful than it really is. I also looked up various war, murder and violence-related photographs on Google Images to spur strong emotions that motivated me to create something strong, and made emotional lines easier to write. As well as disturbing me to the core, these images also made it easier for me to describe imagery and build on it (like saying the blood glistens like garnets). Although this particular step was quite depressing, it was still a necessary approach for me to take in order to come out with the best product.
I based this poem’s form loosely around the basic idea of The Raven, by Edgar Allan Poe. When I began writing, it was closer in form to Poe’s poem…and it started changing as I continued to revise. Though the format is not quite as exact, I can read it in a flowing way that demonstrates the clear meter, despite the varying syllables. One thing that did stick with me was the rhyme scheme. While keeping in mind that the pattern jumps from a-a-b-b to a-b-a-b in two specific spots, (stanzas 3 and 6), there are only two spots in the entire poem where the rhymes aren’t perfect. The good news is that the rest of them are! Toward the end of The Raven, the author says: Leave no black plume a token/ of that lie thy soul hath spoken/ which I think is an awesomely clean pair of rhymes. I can relate those to my first two lines: The bodies in the gutter watch her innocent feet/ glide ignorantly over this asphalt street/ because the rhyme scheme is clear and untarnished as well. This form inspiration challenged me while helping me to create quality writing.
I was originally going to turn this into a song, like my genocide project. However, the equipment that I used before decided to quit on me, and I would have to learn this new more complicated process on a different machine. Seeing as I had a very limited amount of time to pull this together (along with all my other projects), I wasn’t able to make the time to learn the new process--which is unfortunate, because I have already composed the music. So, I am performing it live for my exhibition. I chose this over kinetic text because I was inspired by a video we watched in class of Anis Modjgani performing “Rock Out.” He was going crazy while reciting his poem live and the audience was really into it as well. I felt very comfortable with this idea of performing live on exhibition, given my background in theatre. In addition, I think reciting poetry live is the purest and most fun way to do it; and it has been presented that way for many hundreds of years.
Poetry Project Reflection
To end the 2nd semester of sophomore year, I created this poetry project. The theme of the poem was required to relate to war, peace, or violence. I chose to write about violence and the way the media distorts our view of it (through desensitization and glorification). I learned what poetic devices are, and how to use them intentionally. The main ones that I added to my poem, As the Symphony Plays, were metaphors, similes, imagery, meter and rhyme scheme.
I described the specific everyday effects that desensitize people to violence, like really gory and thrilling movies and---most importantly—symphony music that either makes the violence look right and glorified, or that drowns out screams to give the illusion that the scene is really dramatic and sad while it is really muting the true sound of horror. I put this into a form that could be recited in an eerie poetic way, rapped with or without music, or sung to music. On the night of exhibition, I recited I live to the audience. I’m trying to recall whether it was eerie or rap-like, but I can’t really remember. I think it was somewhere in between. All I know is that I ran out of spit after the first two lines, but I was still told that did well.
I think that writing, language and performance really have a wide range of effects on the audience. First of all, I think that a live recitation performance is the easiest way to go off with a bang—but you have to be comfortable and confident on stage for that to work, and you need to make sure that your writing is strong. But either way, I think that this is the strongest way to go with the exception of recorded music.
Writing and language really define what makes any of these performances sound good. For instance, compare It shouldn’t be exciting, this unnecessary grief to I don’t get why we like this stuff. No matter which performance style we choose, the latter line will always sound stupid in any form of poetry. But if you have good quality writing, I will usually be stronger if it is recited live rather than in kinetic text. To have the strongest effect on your audience, the language should be fairly sophisticated yet understandable, and the writing should be piercing and beautiful; this is usually the case even when you are writing about something terrible and gross (like rape and murder and hidden dead bodies)
Genocide Project
Artist Statement:
Having accidentally lost my original artist statement the night of exhibition, I wrote a new, more brief one. I decided to study the Darfur genocide, a current and tragic event in Sudan. As a reflection of my learning about this Genocide, I decided to compose/write a song that shows the emotional aspect of the Darfur genocide, and my goal is that it will inspire people to help support organizations who are trying to put an end to it. This song is supposed to be written in the perspective of a teenage girl who has survived the genocide. I based the lyrics on a real interview with a 16-year-old who, after losing her parents, was raped during the genocide and had a baby that she didn't know what to do with. I tried to put her perspective in the chorus, while the verses are based off of other records of victims talking about losing their homes and families, surviving shots and stabs, walking through forests of bodies, and questioning the purpose of the genocide.(They say genocide is to exterminate/ so, Why is there torture? Why is there rape?) I was hoping for people to walk away from this exhibition with tears in their eyes, so let's see what you think! Please go to youtube.com and search Clara Gray-Stallings, or click on this link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLrBM0mh2es
Thanks!
Ashes By: Clara Gray-Stallings
My ebony skin is being revealed by the sun/I’ve been on my feet all night getting ready to run/Already been burned, lived through the bullets of a gun/And the knots I tied for life have all been undone/Look at what you did, now the world’s unglued /And you’re treating me like the crushed bug on your shoe/But bugs have six legs; I have two/And someday I’ll stand up on these legs level to you/Chorus: The world that we want is so far away/And my memories haunt every step that I take/Please tell me this is just a dream/People never turned into killing machines/I’m gonna wake up or so I’d like to think /But deep down I know it’s really happening/Take me back to the town that you burned to the ground/With my family in it—now I’ll never hear the sound/Of my little sister laughing with a friend that she found/She’s with my parents who are scattered on the ground/All the people I knew turned into ashes and chunks/And I’m not brave enough to clean them up/If I want to cross the street I’ll swim through bodies and blood/That wouldn’t be there if the world had love/Chorus/Mom, Dad, why’d you have to leave?/I’m alone with a baby and I’m only fifteen/Give me a sign that you’re here like I need /I won’t let your ashes blow away with the breeze/They call the blacks people in the USA/I pray that’ll happen in Sudan someday/They say genocide is to exterminate/So why is there torture? Why is there rape?/Answer this: Tell me what kind of coward /Kills kids who can be so easily overpowered/I wouldn’t call you human with your soul so sour/Do you know the pain your victims felt their last hour?/You don’t even know mine, and I’m still alive/But I think I’m doing worse than the people who died /‘cause I’m in misery, trying to find a place to hide/And the opportunity for justice hasn’t arrived/See this little baby that I have to feed?/He’s a product of a painful memory /I’m raising a creature that’s half Janjaweed*/He stole my childhood and he’s too young to see/Chorus
Genocide Project Reflection:
Like my artist statement, I have not been able to locate my reflection. But, I feel that this project was the most interesting one I have done all year. I liked the loose structure of the project plan, because that allowed me to create the kind of art that I wanted, while my classmates created what they wanted. The most influencial part of this genocide project to me was the process of putting the context of the genocide stories into the music as I composed it. I grew a great deal as a writer, and I now have a better taste of how to effectively write music about current situations that change people on a global scale. If I could change one thing about this project, it would be the amount of time I had to do it. If I could have spent another week on the recording, I could have added so much more detail and depth to the composition and harmonization.
Genocide Project Reflection:
Like my artist statement, I have not been able to locate my reflection. But, I feel that this project was the most interesting one I have done all year. I liked the loose structure of the project plan, because that allowed me to create the kind of art that I wanted, while my classmates created what they wanted. The most influencial part of this genocide project to me was the process of putting the context of the genocide stories into the music as I composed it. I grew a great deal as a writer, and I now have a better taste of how to effectively write music about current situations that change people on a global scale. If I could change one thing about this project, it would be the amount of time I had to do it. If I could have spent another week on the recording, I could have added so much more detail and depth to the composition and harmonization.
Propaganda Project
The Lion Wins
In a battle between a Lion and a mouse, who’s going to win? By the end of the fight, the mouse is going to be a pool of mush, right? The overall effect that I want this poster to have on the viewer is the strength and power of Great Britain. I want Britain to seem fierce like a lion, and I want all the Central Powers to look like dead meat. I am achieving this partially with an image of a strong looking lion (which is a symbol that represents Great Britain). The lion has a strong jaw line that looks as if it can crunch the bones of any country into dust. It also has one blazing blue eye that, from what my critiquing peers said, looks intelligent and wise as if it had seen war before. As for the other eye, you can clearly see that the British flag is in place of the iris. The use of the British flag on my poster is a technique called flag-waving. That particular technique is supposed to pull people into doing what the propaganda wants by using the symbol of some sort of group of people; which is, in this case, a country. The lion’s fangs are also fairly obvious, and that is supposed to give the viewer a sense of intimidation. Another way I achieved the overall effect was with my slogan, “Are you the lion, or the prey?” This uses a technique called glittering generalities by giving Great Britain the name of something beautifully powerful like a lion. It also uses name-calling by using the word “prey,” because this belittles the enemy and makes them look like an easy kill. The text beneath the lion says, “Fight for Britain!” This is obviously using direct order because it is telling the viewer exactly what to do.
In World War One, Britain was on the side of the Allies, and it was fighting against the central powers. They were trying to recruit as many people as possible in order to outnumber the army of the Central Powers. This poster fits the historical context of Britain and WWI in a few different ways. First of all, the lion was a commonly used symbol of Great Britain in the time of WWI, making the symbolic lion on my poster fits in just fine to that era. And the drawing style is supposed to be similar to the simplistic style that many artists used to draw propaganda at that time, so my poster should have an early 1900s appearance. I also think that propaganda slogans were not overly complex back then. Nowadays, people try to make some of the propaganda more complicated, with the intention of making people stop and think. During WWI however, propagandists were trying harder to let the message sink in unconsciously (at least that’s my theory), and they would achieve that with a shorter, simpler message. I think my slogan is also a shorter, simpler, message, making it fit right in with that time period.
I think that the influences of propaganda on the way people see the world is a pretty general question to ask. Since propaganda can be created for any purpose in the world, there isn’t only one way it influences people or only one way to look at it. But generally, I think that all propaganda has a powerful influence on the way most people in the world behave and act. Since most propaganda is not made to support a truly good and/or peaceful cause, I think the world would be a much nicer, cleaner, more thoughtful place if it didn’t exist. Propaganda takes advantage of people all the time, whether it’s to make people buy things, or to obsess about the way they look, or to support warfare, or to behave a certain way. I think propaganda makes people perceive the world as something it is not (for instance: propagandists covering up the horrors of war). Most people, back then and especially today, are not aware of all the problems that the people in power are trying to cover up. That said, most people don’t know that they could make the world a better place if they stop letting propagandists herd them around like cattle.
Propaganda Reflection
This project came out of the current topic we’re studying in class, World War One. We had been looking at WWI propaganda, and the assignment was to make our own piece of propaganda that would fit into the historical context of WWI. We had to choose a country, a message, symbols, and the techniques we were going to use. Lori gave us a sheet with some symbols that represented (and still may represent) different countries. Since I was planning on hand-drawing my poster, I wanted to draw something I would have fun with. So, I chose the symbol, a lion, first. Then I made that piece of propaganda represent the country that the lion was for: Britain. Everything I did in this poster was built off the lion, which was the center of the poster. I eventually made a British flag in one of the lion’s eyes. I also chose the slogan to get people on the side of Britain. The slogan was, “Are you the lion, or the prey?” Then I analyzed the slogan from there to figure out what techniques it used. Then, I added “FIGHT FOR BRITAIN!”
My first draft was just a basic sketch of the lion and the slogan. The second draft was pretty much the same, but it was cleaner and had color, and looked more lion-like (seeing as I had paid more attention to what lions looked like and was using a picture as a reference). But, I made my primary revisions between the second and final draft. By hand, I added the British flag in one of the lion’s eyes and left the other one normal, that way it represented Britain, and looked intelligent at the same time. After doing that, I scanned it and put it on Photoshop to clean it up. On Photoshop, I brightened the entire image to make the lion look more like fire, and then I outlined all the dark areas with black because the scanner had faded the color and made it lighter. I also outlined the bright red “FIGHT FOR BRITAIN” in black to make it stand out. As a final touch, I added sparkles in the lion’s eyes using the feathered paint brush tool.
How do I feel about the final product? Overall, I think it’s pretty good. I could have done better with the shading and used more contrast, but the contrast on the final product was okay. I’m really glad I drew the original poster by hand though, because Photoshop is really hard for me to use. I don’t think it likes me very much. It has a mind of its own, it’s full of itself, and it’s sassy. Every time I click on something, it says, “Ding, ding!” Translated, “Clara, you fail at using computers and I’m too cool and classy to let me use me. Ha, ha!” I least I was able to manipulate it a little though. ANYWAY, my favorite part of this project was drawing the eyes; especially the one with the flag in it. It took a lot of focus to make the detail clean and precise, and I was holding my breath the whole time. But, it was worth it! It turned out really nicely. The thing I enjoyed most about the propaganda project was being able to apply my artistic ability to my school work. There is something much more satisfying about drawing than there is in copying and pasting images onto Photoshop.
One very important lesson I learned was to suck up to Photoshop. You have to pretend like it’s your best friend, and you literally have to get down on your knees and beg it to let you use it. If you’re nice enough, it might pity your weak humanly skills and cut you some slack. I also learned to stay away from your cat when you’re drawing, because chances are, it will paw at your pencil and mess you up. But the most important lesson I learned was how to influence people through propaganda and to make effective advertisements. In addition, I learned how to draw a lion by looking at a photo.
If I could make one more revision in this piece, I would definitely darken certain areas and lighten others. I had no idea that the scanner would mute all the contrast in the poster, so I didn’t exaggerate the contrast more than it would have been in real life. I would also smudge some of the pencil to make the texture smoother, particularly on the lion’s nose. But, there aren’t a lot of revisions I would make, which is giving me the feeling that I did a pretty good job.
