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Poetry Complement: Recommendations
Jan. 5th, 2012 07:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alee_grrlI volunteered to provide the community with a few recommendations of poetry complements that work particularly well. I'm also going to provide a few that are just plain fun. So without further ado, here are my recommendations.
Jacob Lawrence's Hiroshima Series: This is one of the most powerful and effective poetry complements I have ever seen. Jacab Lawrence did this incredible, intense and provocative series of woodblock in response to Robert Penn Warren's poem "New Dawn." My undergrad's museum exhibited this series while I was a student and it was incredibly powerful. Sadly I cannot find all of the poem "New Dawn" online, but the link I provided does include page 1 of the poem as well as all 8 of the prints.
William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience: It wasn't until I took a college course entitled "Multimedia and Literature" that I learned that these two books were not meant to be read as text only. In their original incarnations they were done as beautiful, strange, and surreal prints with image and text being part of the same work. Later publications simply republished the text. The text is rich and compelling, but the combined effect of the text and art is far richer. It adds a layer of understanding and emotion to the entire experience.
Lady of Shallot: This website explores in detail the many ways that artists and illustrators have complemented Tennyson's poem. I was familiar with the most famous of the Pre-Raphalite paintings, but had not realized just how many works had been inspired by Tennyson's words.
Terry Moore's Strangers In Paradise: This is an interesting twist where poetry was used to complete a larger work. Strangers In Paradise is an lovingly told epic of three friends and the love triangle they end up in. Part crime-novel, part love-story and largely the story of friendship, this graphic novel is one of my all time favorite reads. Throughout the series, Moore uses poetry in various ways to complete the expressive impact of the work. Many of the poems are haunting and compelling in and of themselves. This website shows the poems and the illustrations accompanying them. If you get the chance I recommend reading the whole work.
Now for a few purely fun recommendations:
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot with illustrations by Edward Gorety: This is just pure fun, especially if you like cats. You can read a good portion of the book online at this link. It's wickedly entertaining.
Shel Silverstein: Because I think we all need a little bit of whimsy and magic in our lives. Shel's fun combination of art and poetry has never failed to delight me, and the two elements are so integral to his work that I just cannot imagine one without the other.
Lastly, I would like to recommend this clip from Disney's Alice in Wonderland (the cartoon version). It's a well-done example of a video complement as the animation adds to the effect of the poem rather than detracts.
That wraps up my recommendation post. I hope that you enjoy these. I would love to hear people's thoughts on these, and if you think of any other good examples post them in a comment. I'm always interested in finding more multimedia narratives.
Jacob Lawrence's Hiroshima Series: This is one of the most powerful and effective poetry complements I have ever seen. Jacab Lawrence did this incredible, intense and provocative series of woodblock in response to Robert Penn Warren's poem "New Dawn." My undergrad's museum exhibited this series while I was a student and it was incredibly powerful. Sadly I cannot find all of the poem "New Dawn" online, but the link I provided does include page 1 of the poem as well as all 8 of the prints.
William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience: It wasn't until I took a college course entitled "Multimedia and Literature" that I learned that these two books were not meant to be read as text only. In their original incarnations they were done as beautiful, strange, and surreal prints with image and text being part of the same work. Later publications simply republished the text. The text is rich and compelling, but the combined effect of the text and art is far richer. It adds a layer of understanding and emotion to the entire experience.
Lady of Shallot: This website explores in detail the many ways that artists and illustrators have complemented Tennyson's poem. I was familiar with the most famous of the Pre-Raphalite paintings, but had not realized just how many works had been inspired by Tennyson's words.
Terry Moore's Strangers In Paradise: This is an interesting twist where poetry was used to complete a larger work. Strangers In Paradise is an lovingly told epic of three friends and the love triangle they end up in. Part crime-novel, part love-story and largely the story of friendship, this graphic novel is one of my all time favorite reads. Throughout the series, Moore uses poetry in various ways to complete the expressive impact of the work. Many of the poems are haunting and compelling in and of themselves. This website shows the poems and the illustrations accompanying them. If you get the chance I recommend reading the whole work.
Now for a few purely fun recommendations:
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot with illustrations by Edward Gorety: This is just pure fun, especially if you like cats. You can read a good portion of the book online at this link. It's wickedly entertaining.
Shel Silverstein: Because I think we all need a little bit of whimsy and magic in our lives. Shel's fun combination of art and poetry has never failed to delight me, and the two elements are so integral to his work that I just cannot imagine one without the other.
Lastly, I would like to recommend this clip from Disney's Alice in Wonderland (the cartoon version). It's a well-done example of a video complement as the animation adds to the effect of the poem rather than detracts.
That wraps up my recommendation post. I hope that you enjoy these. I would love to hear people's thoughts on these, and if you think of any other good examples post them in a comment. I'm always interested in finding more multimedia narratives.
