Poetry

Lacey Meek


Video only:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt5ez04kVaU
Presentation: 

 

















Artist Statement

Writing this poem has been a very strong learning process for me, partially because of the background knowledge we were taught and partially because before this project I’d had very little exposure to poetry. Throughout the school year, we have studied violence, peace and the truth of war. These projects not only informed us students about the facts and events surrounding world wars one and two and about Gandhi’s mission, but also built a strong base of knowledge to help us with our poetry. We were supposed to write poetry inspired by any of the subjects we had studied this year, and the subject that I chose to work with was the concept of no man’s land.  No man’s land intrigued me, because it’s the space of land where anything can happen in war.  At first, I was planning on writing a poem from both sides of that invisible line. However, I found myself feeling that even with all of the studying that we’ve done on the subject of war, there’s no real way you can understand war unless you’ve actually experienced it. This meant that I had nothing to write about on my subject so I just toyed around with lines, creating a very stereotypical poem about how bad war was and whatnot. That’s when I stumbled on the idea that I could actually use the concept of not understanding war in my poem. I took my weakness and actually turned it into the strongest part of my first draft and all subsequent drafts.

I knew from the beginning that if I wanted to be satisfied with my poem, it couldn’t rhyme. Since about first grade I’ve been through a painful series of trial-and-error processes that all involved rhyming poetry, and to be brutally honest, I believe that if I put my first grade work up against my seventh grade work, people would barely be able to tell the difference. In the end I decided to write a free verse poem, which isn’t as restrictive for me as a rhyme scheme is. My resolve was only strengthened when we watched “There’s a War Going on for Your Mind.” I really enjoyed the short and snappy sentences, and how it flowed. In this poem, they used a mixture of poetic devices like alliteration with: “Media mavens mount surgical strikes…” and then later changed the pattern of their poem with enjambment: “We are the insurgents.” Like them, I didn’t follow any specific pattern in my poem, because I liked the freedom. I did want my work to be easy for me to read out loud though so when I broke my poem into stanzas, I made each line short like in “There’s a War Going on For Your Mind.” I would be able to keep my place more easily and give a certain pace to readers of my poem.

Finally, I wanted to convey my poem in a way that emphasized the point I was trying to make. Then we watched Bryan Bauer’s poem and the kinetic text felt really powerful to me. He was able to speak the words to a quick and easy beat, and the way that that he lined up his text really added to the message, helping me understand the full meaning of his words as I read along. This is what I wanted for my own poem. At first I decided to simply make a kinetic text in Adobe After Effects, which would be both a learning experience for me and help me to communicate the poem. This didn’t feel like quite enough though, and involved unnecessary stress. After a couple of days I came up with a new plan, one that involved stop motion and allowed the audience to actually see the process of the words being written which would help build a more personal feel, and would allow for more illustrations, adding to the strength of the poem and serving as an explanation to confusing parts. The idea helped me be able to convey one of my own poems with power, which was exactly what I’d aimed for.

_________________________________________________________________________________

   This project was one of the most physically and emotionally challenging projects I've ever completed.  It was also one of the most rewarding.  Some of the challenges I faced included (but weren't limited to): an inability to translate the audio of my video to MP4 format; an inability to get my dad's computer to read new recordings once I realized the old ones weren't working; a project that took longer than the time we were allotted; and at the very end, the accidental deletion of all prior drafts and poetry from my USB when I had no back up.  However, I've never been prouder of my lack of procrastination, I'm pleased with the resulting video, I'm pleased with how the presentation overall went, and how comfortable I was up on the stage after our practices.  I would go as far as stating this is one of if not the best project I've completed at Animas.  First, we wrote poetry, and after multiple drafts, this was my end result: Words


   Then, we began our projects.  I decided quickly on what I wanted to create: a stop-motion kinetic text.  This meant that I'd need to start quickly though, so I dove into my project even in the first weekend, completing the first two or so stanzas of the kinetic text.  Every time I drew a letter, or part of a letter, I took another picture.  This process took over 1,300 photos.  It was tiring, and at one point involved a lot of caffeine, but finally I had all of the pictures taken.  Once I had those, I set them to Windows Live Movie Maker and added audio with about one slide shown every tenth of a second.  At the exhibition itself, I spoke along with the video.

Veteran's History Project

   For this project, we were to study about the Vietnam War.  Then in groups, we interviewed veterans, both from and not from Vietnam to learn more about their experiences in war.  We will mail them to the Veterans History Project with the Library of Congress!  http://www.loc.gov/vets/  The purpose of this project is to help preserve the war stories of Veterans to enlighten future generations about their experiences.  It was a really amazing experience and if you have time and know a  veteran I would highly suggest submitting their story as well.

   Project Reflection:

  

   This interview was a real shock to me, mostly because of our veteran, Bernard, and his views on war.  In all honesty, when we were setting up on the day of the interview, all I could think about was how my group and I were going to be sitting in the room with him, listening to a bunch of anti-war stories.  He’d tell us about how horrible war was and how we should never go into war because of its scarring effects.  But Bernard started talking about his patriotic duty to his country, and how he felt that we shouldn’t have left Vietnam like we did, because we promised them our help.  He made it clear that he wasn’t as heavily involved in field work and fighting as many others, and that it may have had something to do with his perspectives, but said that he would do it again if that’s what needed to be done.  This was a very startling and new thought to me, a veteran actually being ok with going back to war.  Through these words I spent the next several days really considering how I’ve been socialized to be anti-war and how my views might not be as original as I would have expected.  It truly opened me up to a new perspective on war that I needed in order to view war fairly.

   The most interesting thing that I learned in the veteran interview is about Bernard’s views on anti-war protesters.  He of how he felt that they probably ended the war sooner.  He didn’t like it though, how we left them when we said we would help them.  He thought that we should have carried out our promise, being America.  Although we may have had difficulties with support towards the latter part of the war, we should have finished what we had started.

   The interview can be used in several ways.  It can be used as a documentation, to be preserved for future generations.  It can also be used as an argument for a specific side or point of view in a debate in the merits of war.  As a historian though, I can analyze it and study his points so that I can better understand them.  If I can better understand then I can develop my own thoughts and perceptions more fully.  This leads to more questions and more answers which will potentially lead to more growth.  Questions open a door to answers and ideas that we would have never even considered before and allow us to grow personally in many ways.

   I believe that the most valuable parts of the project were the interview itself and the group work involved.  The interview was very valuable because this way others can understand what he felt, and maybe they’ll feel the epiphany that I felt when I heard what he had to say about war.  It makes you think and challenges your beliefs, for better or worse which helps strengthen your perspective overall, whether supporting one that you already had or challenging that belief so that you can find facts to support what you believe.  The group work was also very valuable though.  The others in my team, Kaylee and Cameron tease each other often so I believe that there was growth there.  Also, no matter that the circumstances, working with others is a valuable skill that always needs working on and I believe it definitely helped myself as well.

   Gulf of Tonkin Writing:
  

   While it is a publically accepted truth that the August 2^nd attack on the U.S.S. Maddox was unprovoked, there are still many gaps that this explanation fails to fill: things like the reason why we went to war and why a country would attack one so much larger than itself without reason.  I believe that these gaps can be filled though if we look at it from a different perspective: that we did provoke the attack through covert militarized operations.

   One of the most widely spread convictions about the Gulf of Tonkin incident is that the U.S.S. Maddox was legally resting in those waters when a Vietnamese vessel sailed out and fired torpedoes at them.  Days later, it was also claimed that the U.S.S. Turner Joy was also attacked.  “Whereas naval units of the Communist regime in Vietnam, in violation of the principles of the UN and of international law, have deliberately and repeatedly attacked US naval vessels lawfully present in international waters…” (Document 1)  These are the words of Congress on August 7, 1964, just five days after the first attack.  These are the words that they used to allow President Johnson to increase our involvement with Vietnam.  They announced this to the public and so the public had no choice but to believe them or form their own speculations that may never be proven or disproven.  Similarly, this was announced by President Johnson: “We have learned at a terrible and brutal cost that retreat does not bring safety and weakness does not bring peace… Nor would surrender in Vietnam bring peace, because we learned from Hitler at Munich that success only feeds the appetite of aggression.  This then, my fellow Americans, is why we are in Viet-Nam.” (Document 5)  These are very good reasons, supported by the attacks on the gulf.  However, reading closer, it is found that the date reads July 28, 1965, almost an entire year after the attacks.  People were wondering why we had gone to war and it took them this long to get out a speech about why we were going to war.  Yet if the attacks really were unprovoked, then they shouldn’t have had to make these announcements, or rally support from the people.  Only if they didn’t want to spread the story much or there was untruth to it would they still need this explanation.

   We rushed immediately into war following those attacks without thinking and needed a reason once we had.  An unprovoked attack would be a very good reason.  However, people continued to wonder.  Shortly after the attack, Elie Able, an NBC-TV journalist, held an interview with Secretary of State Dean Rusk.  This was Dean’s answer when asked what explanation he could find for the unprovoked attack: “Answer (Dean Rusk): Well I haven’t been able, quite frankly, to come to a fully satisfactory explanation… it’s very difficult to enter into each other’s minds across that great ideological gulf.  I can’t come up with a rational explanation of it.”  (Document 2)  He states himself that there would be absolutely no satisfactory answer for an unprovoked attack on the Maddox.  There is no reason why one country should attack another without reason, let alone a smaller country attacking a superpower country that was much larger than itself.  Most governments would view that course of action as near suicide for them unless the felt that they had very strong countries backing them up.  Even still though, there was no reason that the public official could find or was willing to admit for them to attack.

   “LBJ: There have been some covert operations in that area that we have been carrying on- blowing up some bridges and things of that kind, roads and so forth.  So I imagine they wanted to put a stop to it.  So they... fired and we responded immediately with five-inch [artillery shells] from the destroyer and with planes overhead…What happened was we’ve been playing around up there and they came out, gave us a warning, and we knocked the h*** out of them.”  (Document 3)  These are the words of President Johnson as he talked to Robert Anderson (a former Secretary of the Treasury), the day after the attack and a day before the White House began publically announcing that the attack was, in fact, unprovoked.  If nothing else convinces, this does.   This is very separate from that story and is all the more convincing when the speaker and the time that these words were spoken are taken into consideration.  This is the story that fills in the gaps.  If it was announced publically that the retaliation the US took against Vietnam was over-the-top, there would be no support for a war movement.  Although later reasons for war were found, like stopping the communist spread to other countries, these were the first words spoken about the incident, and must bear further speculation, by both historians and the public itself now that we’ve had time to look back and reflect upon that war.

Truth of War Project

What is the truth of war for a soldier?  This is the question that we have been studying in Humanities for the past couple of weeks.  Recently, we had an exhibition where we created projects that reflected our views on this question after reading books All Quiet on the Western Front, and Slaughterhouse Five by Erich Maria Remarque and Kurt Vonnegut.  For my project, I created a box, nicknamed in my head as Pandora's box, because it's supposed to be an interactive poem.  On each face I painted a picture that corresponded with a stanza of poem that I had written.  Here it is:

   Beast Named War

Lacey Meek

   These

   Are the eyes of the Beast:

   Bronze stars and gleaming metals,

   Resting in a velvet case.

   Mommy stands at attention,

   Her family looking on proudly.

   She has been swallowed and spat back

   By the Beast,

   Outwardly calm and peaceful.  No one can see

   That the scars are inside, not out.

   This

   Is the Beast’s beauty:

   The darkness of the night.

   The door swings open

   And light falls upon a gilded carousel.

   A tall, lean man slips in

   Through the door

   And falls to his knees

   By the bed of his little girl.

   She is grown now,

   Different than when he left

   For the war.  Yet she is still the same,

   Ever and always

   His little girl.

   The Beast’s roar

   Is echoed off of city walls,

   Men and women proclaiming their freedom

   To the world.

   The manacles they break

   Are invisible to mortal eyes,

   Yet are heavy as lead upon their hearts.

   They shed this iron,

   And the chains fall off

   Into the dust

   To rot.

   The coat of the Beast

   Is golden and glorious,

   Inspiring and beautiful

   When admired form a distance.

   One by one

   Brave soldiers dare to step forward

   To inspect it closer,

   And many are swallowed whole.

   Those that are cunning

   Or foolhardy

   May live to inspect the Beast closely.

   What is it that they find?

Break in the Poem

Poem Break

Underneath the luxurious coat,

   The skin is broken.

   It is raw and torn,

   Each wound a violent

   And gruesome

   Story left untold.  This scar

   Is a veteran killing himself,

   Straight and clean

   As though drawn with a knife.

   It is not completely healed,

   The widow’s acid tears

   Continuing to reopen the wound.

   Only she

   Keeps his memory alive.

   

      Another soldier

   Holds a book to his breast,

   Searching for questions that no mortal can answer.

   He searches for forgiveness

   Because he can find none for himself.

   These emotions are the Beast’s razor claws,

   The spirits slaughtered by his hands

   Haunting him.

   Yet the words of this book

   Bind the wounds of the claws.

   The words: Holy Bible

   Are printed in dusky gold

   Upon its cover.

   Others find less graceful methods

   To staunch the emotions.

   The scars of soldiering

   Are threatening to consume

   That same outwardly calm woman.

   Memories of splintered bones

   Of jagged stumps

   Occupy her mind,

   Unraveling her into a chaotic abyss

   Of dreams.

   She’ll try to drink the scars away,

   Praying fervently

   That intoxication can hide her insanity.

   Together,

   The soldiers rise up to face the Beast,

   Each one torn,

   Killed,

   Or falling to insanity.

   They push on

   Even though it is hopeless,

   A Sisyphean task.

   Someone

   Must bear the burden,

   To rest is to die.  It is a never-ending flow

   Of soldiers,

   Of men,

   Of women,

   Pursuing relentlessly

   Through the night.  They march

   Until the Beast named War

   Is destroyed.



Essay Final Draft:

Facets of the Darkest Dream

Lacey Meek 10/24/11

      War is glorious, war brings honor.  These are only facets of the truth of war, grains of sand on a sunny beach.  War is bitter, it is cruel.  It transforms you and strips you of the person you once were.  If, through that process, you become a better person, a hero even, then that is the good of war.  War becomes your life; scars that you earn are proudly displayed upon your skin and soul for the rest of eternity, branding you as one of war’s own.  The scars are marks of the life or death choices that you have been forced to make, and this is nothing that anyone who hasn’t experienced war can easily understand.  Civilians suffer from an in infectious disease that spreads like wildfire: our own ignorance.  Until we no longer view every death as a statistic, until we heal our emotional detachment with war, we will never be able to escape this ailment.  What we need to understand is that war, like anything, is three-dimensional, and has many different faces that must be recognized.  If we can’t expand on our views, it will kill masses.  We have only a matter of time.

War is a chasm, a dark void and endless cavern that rests between the civilian and the soldier, how they react and feel about bad events.  That is one way that war is viewed, as a break between the civilian and the soldier.  In All Quiet on the Western Front, written by German war veteran Erich Maria Remarque, the main character, Paul, shows this break very clearly: “I will never tell her, she can make mincemeat out of me first.  I pity her, but she strikes me as stupid all the same.  Why doesn’t she stop worrying? Kemmerich will stay dead whether she knows about it or not.  When a man has seen so many dead he cannot understand any longer why there should be so much anguish over an individual.  So I say rather impatiently: ‘He died immediately.  He felt absolutely nothing at all.  His face was quite calm.’” (Page 181)  The separation between Paul and Kemmerich’s mother is very evident in this paragraph.  While Kemmerich’s mother is wondering how this could have possibly happened to her son, Paul doesn’t feel much pain at all.  In war, pain and dying are very common and he can no longer see the reason for so much distress over the death of one man.  Similarly, if a random passerby had overheard the news, they wouldn’t care.  It would be a sad thing, yes.  It’s lamentable, even.  However, he didn’t know the man so there would be no reason to get worked up.  This desensitization to death is a recurring theme in everyday life and is unlikely to change soon.  We don’t truly understand the depths and cruelties that lie within war.

   War is an atrocity; it magnifies the blackest of nightmares and then forces soldiers to undergo that horror.  The soldier can only react in one of three ways: survive, be killed, or go insane: “…There is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre.  Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again.  Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds.  And what do the birds say?  All there is to say about a massacre, things like poo-tee-weet?” (Vonnegut, 19) This was written in Slaughterhouse Five, and has a shard of ringing truth: there is nothing civil or cohesive that can truly be said about a massacre.  Nothing that is any more effective than the chirping of birds or swaying of grass.  These natural sounds are the only things that you will be able to hear after such an atrocity.  No one is supposed to be able to speak, they should all be dead.  We mustn’t continue this senseless murder.  In All Quiet on the Western Front, this is supported: “We see men living with their skulls blown open; we see soldiers run with their two feet cut off, they stagger on their splintered stumps into the next shell-hole; a lance-corporal crawls a mile and a half on his hands dragging his smashed knee after him; another goes to the dressing station and over his clasped hands bulge his intestines; we see men without mouths, without jaws, without faces; we find one man who has held the artery of his arm in his teeth for two hours in order not to bleed to death.”  (Remarque, page 134.)  This is a description of nightmares, not one that is easily imagined.  It is cruel, and many could not survive in this scenario.  The graphic scene painted in this paragraph cannot be assumed as unusual because of the author’s status as a war veteran.  This is the kind of horror that we’ve been desensitized to, what we distance ourselves from seeing with unmanned drones and long-range missiles.  Again though, this is only one facet of war.  War is also perceived as a cage that few can walk from unharmed.

   Once you have slipped into the depths of war, there is no escape.  You never heal, and must carry the scars boldly throughout the rest of your life, if that extends beyond the end of the war.  You have tumbled into the black yawning chasm that is a battle.  Surrounding you are the rusty exoskeletons of cars; a building blasted into rubble; a man calling for help that you cannot give for the rain of bullets that spray in between you.  A child huddles in the corner, tear-streaked face caked with mud and filth, looking at you with eyes that can never broadcast the full extent of your betrayal of them.  This is the cage of war, and you must carry the memory of that child with you forever, imprinted in the insides of your eyelids among a thousand other memories.  This is shown in Slaughterhouse Five, the scarring memories that linger with the main character Billy: “Billy thought hard about the effect the quartet had had on him, and then found an association with an experience he had had long ago.  He did not travel in time to the experience.  He remembered it shimmeringly- as follows… the guards drew together instinctively, rolled their eyes.  They experimented with one expression, then another, said nothing, though their mouths were often open.  They looked like a silent film of a barbershop quartet.  ‘So long forever,’ they might have been singing, old fellows and pals; so long forever, old sweethearts and pals.’”  (Vonnegut, 177-178.) The reaction that Billy experienced was directly related to the moments that he experienced after the firebombing in Dresden, and the memories still evoked a strong reaction in him.  The song made him shake and grow pale, sickly.  He couldn’t escape it despite the years that spanned between that moment and his memory.  No one around him understood it, or what had happened to Billy, and he knew that there was no point in explaining it to them because of that same yawning chasm.  These inner scars came from the worst imaginable slaughter and discord.  War is often a hideous and violent beast.  However this is not always the case, and from this viewpoint the good truths of war are often overlooked.

  Despite the dark shadows, war, like anything else, has good points and moments that attempt to balance out the bad: “These are wonderfully care-free hours.  Over us is the blue sky.  On the horizon float the yellow, sunlit observation balloons, and the many little white clouds of the anti-aircraft shells… Around us stretches the flowery meadow.  The grasses sway their tall spears; the white butterflies flutter around and float on the soft warm wind of the late summer.  We read newspapers and letters and smoke.  We take off our caps and lay them down beside us.  The wind plays with our hair; it plays with our words and thoughts.  The three boxes stand in the midst of the glowing, red field poppies.”  (Remarque, 9) This is a caption from All Quiet on the Western Front, describing a lazy day in camp.  Moments of peace like this are few and far between for soldiers.  They won’t be taken for granted or as a privilege like the weekends are for most students.  Doesn’t the amplified gratitude and relaxation shown by the soldiers then make these moments more beautiful?  This is just another facet, simply a smaller one that is often overshadowed by views that war is only cruel or that war is completely unavoidable.  The good of war isn’t just shown in these moments either: it is in the freedom of a nation, the joy of a child when her father comes home, and in the maturity shown by a soldier when he’s more appreciative of the smaller joys of life.

  The life of a soldier changes them irrevocably, and it is often then that the best pieces and fragments of war come out in them.  This is also shown in All Quiet on the Western Front, as Paul comments on how the person he is now contrasts from the person he used to be: “thus momentarily we have the two things a soldier needs for contentment: good food and rest.  That’s not much when one comes to think of it.  A few years ago we would have despised ourselves terribly.  But now we are almost happy.  It is all a matter of habit- even on the front-line.” (Remarque, 138)  For at least for a moment, Paul and his companions are happy, far more contented with this small thing than they would’ve been before.  They have matured from the boys that they used to be and are now far more easily contented with the privileges that they are subjected to.  Similar to the breaks from fighting, an ample supply and variety of food is rare for these soldiers, making them happier for what they gain.  They appreciate simple and happy things such as friendship far more than they would have before.  Though some may have had little to do with each other outside of the war, they are far beyond petty dislike and intolerance.  War has become Paul’s life, his friends are his new family, and they keep each other safe as best as they can even after the war is finished.  Even if this means only carrying the memory of a fallen friend with them, they still care for each other.  This is one of the strongest beauties of war.

   Both of these stories, All Quiet on the Western Front and Slaughterhouse Five, have been written by war veterans, giving unique perspectives on insanity inspired by war and on the experiences of warfare in both WW1 and WW2.  It can be safely assumed that there is at least a grain of truth to each of these stories and even that grain is a change from what we believe war to be.  With the addition modern warfare into the fray, we distance the soldiers as well.  By distancing the soldiers, we burn the final bridge over the chasm.  People who are more likely to cry at the death of a horse in a movie than a human have been dangerously desensitized, and this is true of most people.  With urban warfare, there is more accidental targeting of civilians who have done nothing wrong, simply stood in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Warfare needs to evolve again before a disaster strikes.

War is an alien world to ours, foreign and strange.  Only in experiencing the fight can we understand what it is that we subject our soldiers to.  Thousands killed are civilians, and millions killed are innocents, sent into the war at the whim of their government, not their own wills.  To truly end this wanton killing is to have every single person in the world understand the truth of war fully and completely as a plural: truths.  As of yet, unfortunately, this is impossible to accomplish.  War therefore needs to evolve.  In a better world, pain would be felt for every death and there would be true recognition of every soldier’s contribution to their country.  For now though, with everything as it is, this remains modern warfare’s cruelest and deadliest truth: the ever-widening separation of a man from the bloodshed inflicted by his hand.

Works Cited:

Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse Five. New York: Random House Inc., 1991.

Remarque, Erich M. All Quiet on the Western Front. Random House, 1929.

Project Reflection

Our exhibition is tonight!  We're wrapping up our work as I write this.  So, this is the reflection for my project, I'll post about the exhibition tonight or tomorrow!

Project Reflection

Lacey Meek

10/30/11

What is the truth of war for a soldier?  This is the question that we focused on throughout the course of this project.  To find the answer, we read the books All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque, and Slaughterhouse Five, by Kurt Vonnegut, both of these men were war veterans.  The first book we read, All Quiet on the Western Front, was about World War One.  The second, Slaughterhouse-Five, was about World War Two.  We contrasted these wars and the psychological effects that the changes between these wars may have had on the soldiers.  For instance, how did long-range weaponry and modern warfare affect the soldiers both physically and mentally as they were introduced in urban warfare?  We decided that through the secrecy and lessened coordination that modern warfare provided, with buildings to hide in and civilians strewn among the soldiers, tension was probably heightened.  The soldiers couldn’t always see who was shooting at them.  Through this question and ones similar to it, we investigated these two wars.  Once we were done studying about both of the World Wars, we were instructed to create projects reflecting our views of the truth of war for soldiers, all of our new knowledge aiding us in this process.  I don’t believe that there is one singular truth of war, so I created a cube that could portray some of the facets of the creature that we call war.  There are both good and bad views painted on this cube, and it corresponds to a poem that I wrote along with it.  This is what I believe the truth of war is: That war isn’t just one thing, but many, and only on closer inspection can we begin to see some of the overshadowed facets of war.

   I believe that the Habit of Heart and Mind that I used most in this project was perspective.  This is because I incorporate different views on the different panels of the cube.  The first picture is of the metals and glory that are often associated with war when war is viewed in an optimistic light.  Next is the beauty of a father coming home to his daughter after fighting in the war.  The third view that I use is the freedom that comes when a war is won, freeing a people from oppression.  Fourth is the detachment that civilians have from war, how the pain of it is hidden from them.  Then I turn to the details of the pain that war inflicts, portraying a soldier who has killed himself.   I move to a man who feels lost and guilty for the lives that he has taken, searching for forgiveness in the words of the Bible.  A woman in the next panel has cracked, and feels like she is slipping into insanity, so she drinks away that realization.  Finally, I speak of the soldiers and their relentless pursuit of the Beast what we call War.  In this, each time you turn the cube or open a panel, you see a new view of how war has affected someone.  This is how I used perspective in the project, and why perspective is the Habit of Heart and Mind that I used most.

   I made a couple of large revisions to my essay throughout the course of this project.  The first was to this revision stated by Lori: “This is a beautifully written introduction, but I’m unclear right now as to what your thesis is.  I think you need to sum up your argument in a really focused sentence here at the end of your paragraph, so that the reader has a better idea of where you’re headed.”  This problem appeared in several other areas too; I was so caught up in crafting sentences, making them as beautiful as I could, that I sometimes forgot to state what the point of those sentences were.  This made them more confusing to readers and therefore was actually hurtful to the statement that I was trying to make.  The other major problem I had was that my paragraphs didn’t always tie into each other very well or to the introduction at all.  This wasn’t helpful to my essay either because I wasn’t explaining my thought process, meaning that my readers would still be left in the dark, which wasn’t something that I wanted to happen.  So I took two paragraphs at a time and made sure that they related to each other and to the thesis so that my essay didn’t leave readers in confusion.

   If I had another week to work on my project and essay, I would go over my essay again and rewrite each paragraph to edit and make it more refined.  Then, I would to go my poem and make it more reader-friendly, or aesthetically pleasing because the main thing that I wanted turn a project that people usually take the time  to read and turn it into something that they could interact with.  Finally, if I had another week I would want to paint some protective layer over my box’s panels and make it fit together better than it currently does.  This would my project stronger and more refined, which would be good because I wish to make my project as refined as it can possibly be.  The extra week would most likely enable me to do that or to add onto my project without having to rush to add details.

The Truth of War

What is the Truth of War for a soldier?  Is it that war is violent?  That war is cold and cruel?  That war turns you into a stronger person?  This is what we have been studying for the past couple of months in Humanities.  We first read All Quiet on the Western Front, written by German war veteran Erich Maria Remarque.  This book is about World War One, and follows the experiences of Paul, a young soldier fighting in the war.  Then, we turned to World War Two and Slaughterhouse Five, written by Kurt Vonnegut.  Neither of these books could be specified as strictly anti-war novels which inspired my project, a box.  Yes, it is more elaborate than it seems, painted with pictures corresponding to a poem that I have written: Beast Called War.  We will be having an exhibition tomorrow night on the projects, where I will post pictures and the poem, explaining more about my views and how the project represents them.  See you then!

Welcome!

Welcome!  This is the blog page for my Humanities projects throughout the year.  What is Humanities though?  Humanities class is like Sociology, History, and English combined into one class.  We learn about current and past events and their effects on people, and study them through projects, essays, and seminars.  This enables us to retain the knowledge we gain and allows us to better explain what we've learned to others.  I really enjoy Humanities class, and I hope that I can share some of our content with you throughout the year!