Final Draft
3:00am
It’s only the singer, writer extraordinaire
That sits on the front porch
With your dog and your Earl Grey tea.
Your facade speaks confidently of
Love, your passion, and the world.
At 3:00am
When your bright blue eyes finally soften,
Your sheepish smile is uncovered,
And your giddy laugh mixes with mine,
I see the hidden you.
Your weary rambling turns into sweet music,
And you tease, but never say no
When I ask for “just one more song,”
Even after the encore.
You say you can’t tame your wild life,
But I long for you to settle down.
I hope that soon you find who you are
At 3:00am.
Reflection: Writing
I found it challenging from the beginning of this assignment to write with the intention of changing my words later. I very naturally tend to edit and rewrite as I go, so to write the first words that came to mind and step away from my work after one draft completely went against my habits. I was guided through this assignment largely by a dedication to break away from that and force myself to try this new technique. As I approached the following drafts, I reread my poem from the previous day, and pinpointed the changes I wished to make before jumping in. The first few drafts focused mainly on flow as I moved lines, stanzas, and line breaks. The remaining drafts focused on the details of word choice, line additions and line subtractions. What I found to be most interesting was how I changed some lines in early drafts all to change them back to what they originally were in the final draft. In this way, the process itself was a lot of trial and error for me. It also opened my eyes to the value of truly creating a “rough” draft. By the time I typed out my final draft (and continued to make changes), I found that having multiple versions of the same poem was helpful for me to narrow down which lines I liked best. Looking back, I plan to implement this strategy in some form to my future poetry assignments.
Reflection: Bookmaking
I decorated my book mainly with its content in mind. Since my piece was about a specific person, I made choices that I felt best reflected the individual and my message. Since this person and I share a connection to music, I wanted to incorporate music notes. Since this person feels distant from their true self, as evident in my poem, I felt that collaging old map paper best represented that. I used dark background colors that reminded me of this person. I added a heart to symbolize the close connection I have with this person. I stenciled “3:00” on the back to highlight the title I have since chosen for this piece. I used colored pens to make each draft distinct from the others. I highlighted words that I felt stood out in each draft and made them unique. When initially given this assignment, I was excited because I have personal experience with creating mixed media artwork. I enjoy translating words or feelings into a visual, wordless form. I think it creates a whole new experience for the audience and makes me as a writer feel closer to my own work. It is my hope that someone viewing my artist book may recognize the connections I made between the book itself and the poem it holds. Although a personal piece about a specific individual, I hope a viewer may feel as though they have met this person in a small way.
Artist Book
