Carnival & shaped poetry.

I have already blogged about this project because I enjoyed it so much. It was not an actual poem that I used, but rather a quote that has always guided me.

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
--Henry David Thoreau.

I decided to take this quote and replicate it multiple times across the screen. Because the quote is very personal to me, I used a color scheme that represents what I like. The shapes that I chose for the project are shapes that I tend to be drawn to.

This piece of shaped poetry was an attempt of mine to create “Carnival” using computer technology as opposed to a typewriter. It obviously did not turn out too great, but it was my first shot, and now I would love to create something similar to “Carnival” using a typewriter. To me, McCaffery’s work looks like a map of sorts, and I would love to take that idea to create another piece of shaped poetry.

My understanding of shaped poetry changed because while creating “Foundations,” I realized that in every piece of work, every step taken to create the final product is meaningful. Deciding to move the piece of paper or a certain set of words means something to the creator. Every piece of the art symbolizes the relationship that the artist has to the words, and that in itself is an important idea to realize.