In today’s session with the poetry society, I had an interesting discussion about certain lines of the poem that were too symbolic for one to understand and I took their perspective of it. One of the most common feedback was; the parts that were too literal were too distracting and at points I used metaphors that seemed engaging. They further suggested I take a more personal approach with this one and try to live out the scenarios.
In a tutorial after the class, Alex and I dissected the poem and he suggested me a book called “Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud” to further understand the link between words and images.
The constant feedback that I had been getting is to allow to the words to do most of the work and let the images be independent and to just amplify the words. So I dialed back things a bit. For example the bit about;
Sons are the skin hanging off sun-soaked lips. They need to be snipped with teeth-
Intially I made the following;
The closeup shot of lips biting off skins was very duo-specific (where words and imagery are conveying the same message). There is no refuting that the imagery is uneasy to watch and a bit grotesque. The imagery also felt unnecessary as the words were enough and a bit symbolic approach would work out better. So, in the process of finding what could complement the poetry line, I research dried leaves and petals because I think those are the closest thing to having sun-soaked lips. And when we talk about the need to be snipped with teeth it could be represented by petals/leaves falling.
Hence my take was to show a glowing rose, with its petals drying up and falling off. Below is the result. I added a subtle fire glow in the background for continuity purpose.
Hence, I am quite satisfied with how it shaped up to be and I think this method is the right approach.
Arsalan Awais 