Formatting Ashbery text..

1. What was your theory in transforming the poem? Explain how the readings from the class connect to your decisions. How have you transformed the poem? How is it changed from the original?

I chose the poem "It Must Be Sophisticated" solely based on the title. It reminded me of Audrey Hepburn, so I decided that I would have to transform this poem.

After opening the link to this poem, I saw what was a normal-looking poem (if there is such a thing). There was simply too much text to write, and I'm not sure that writing it out by hand would be the most sophisticated look. I decided that sophisticated would be my goal for transforming the poem. This led me to changing the poem into a simple story.

I made each line of text fill the whole row, just like a story. I broke up the text where I thought it should be broken up, not necessarily by stanza (I'm not sure if stanza is the proper term). I ended up making what I thought was a complete thought into one paragraph as if it were a story. After reading what I had transformed, the words truly did seem like a story, as well. This helped in my modifying of the paragraphs.

I left it with a simple title to flush left of the page because it looked just how I envisioned it: sophisticated. It didn't need colors or bold text in random places because to me, sophisticated means classy, simple and polished.

I simply polished up the poem so that it lived up to its name. I feel that my decision to make the poem look this way came from the books and articles that we have read about how text is an important part of the representation of words. The placement and the look of the words made this poem feel sophisticated. If I were to put the text in the "Curlz" font and center the text on the page, I do not feel that the reader would come away with the same feeling, which is a definite example of how important font is in the representation of text.