By, Sophie Santos
The blind dog bites, nipping the backs of dirty heels
Children play in the tall grass while dinner simmers slow.
The fears we held in small hands
Grew to be colossal, like elephants beneath whisker trees.
I forgot to fear friends instead of feverish foes
& indulged in the security of hiding behind the trees
Behind the tall grass and briars with pointed fingers.
With my father’s words, his arms, secure like the
The cold embrace of dawning winter. His dreams swept
under a rug of moss, damp and coarse.
Words gave the leaves breath and killed the lies tangled
into my infantile dreams. I hid from the monsters between
gaps of sediment and soil as my father smiled and praised the dog.
It was simple and constant, the sun would always rise and
Slip between due drops on serrated blades of grass, like the prayers
I cherished like the oblong pebble found neath the river.
To help me dismay the secrets, the endless
field of tall grass where there, my father held the
dog blind, gasping, and spitting at the base of whisker trees.
Cape Cod Evening, 1939 by Edward Hopper
I chose to take inspiration from Chen Chen’s “Song of The Nights Gift” and his poetic style. I closed this image because it reminded me of some of the works that we have seen throughout the semester so far. I also saw this painting a few times in Cape Cod this summer so I also drew inspiration from my experience there. The tone of my poem is not necessarily dark or light, I decided to tread into the liminal space of the ordinary evening. I also drew some thematic elements from one of our recent readings Bullet in the Brain By Tobias Wolff to inspire my poem. I think that the image that I chose Cape Cod Evening, 1939 by Edward Hopper is a painting that you can almost walk into. The feeling of the art allowed me to easily write a poem that helped viewers immerse themselves further into the work, so I chose to hone in on elaborating on the senses surrounding the painting. I chose to break my poem in an unpredictable way so that I could retain to lyrical banter of my poem.
I love the way you write poetry! It seems as if you are a professional. While reading your poem, I could imagine the painting without even seeing it. I love the mention of the kids playing while dinner is cooking. It gives it a very warm and welcoming feeling.
Wow! You are a great writer! I love the painting you chose and agree that it does invite you into the scene in a way. I agree that the tone of both the poem and painting are neither dark nor light, and instead are somewhere in between. The contrast between some of the language suggests a darker message like “hiding from monsters” and “fear friends” while also incorporating lighter depictions of children playing in the grass and the morning sun rising. I love the way you used these things to depict a complicated story from a somewhat simple piece. Well done!!
You have a very clever and talented way at expressing imagery. This poem was very well crafted because you invite a lot of imagery and realization to the piece. Using the abundance of word choices it provides me to really encapture what the portrait is without even needing to see it. Doing this is very hard but you do a great job at showing this for us. It almost feels like this could be a short story more than a poem because of all that imagery you provide. I like where you broke up your stanzas, and the utilization of end stops at the end of each stanza. It helped provide consistency and repetition that gives me time to really take in what each portion is really referring to. Great job!