On the printed copy of this poem, mark up the right margin with details about what you notice about your poem. What choices did the author make?
Ode to Family Photographs
by Gary Soto Mama was never good at pictures. This is a statue of a famous general who lost an arm, And this is me with my head cut off. This a trash can chained to a gate, This is my father with his eyes half-closed. This a photograph of my sister And a giraffe looking over her shoulder. This is our car's front bumper. This is a bird with a pretzel in its beak. This is my brother Pedro standing on one leg on a rock. With a smear of chocolate on his face. Mama sneezed when she looked Behind the camera: the snapshots are blurry, The angles dizzy as a spin on a merry-go-round. But we had fun when Mama picked up the camera. How can I tell? Each of us laughing hard. Can you see: I have candy in my mouth. In your emulation, think about ways you remember your family's past. Look back at old pictures that seem to have a story behind them and paint a picture of those memories using de Soto's style. The picture below makes me wonder why the whole family is very, very silly, but the man in the blue jacket looks angry :). |
Street Painting
Ann Turner I watched him a long time and this is how he did it: Stand in front of the wall like it’s a bad dream. Make faces. Jam your hat down. Pull it off. Pop your fingers—walk around the block and come back, start up like you surprised the wall’s still there. Then sigh. Take out your paints. Doodle around with them, stirring and humming. Dip a brush in, stare at it, take a rush forward and dab-dab-dab at the wall. Soon’s you know, you got faces and bodies and trees like they were locked up in that old brush and all you had to do was stare at it. to get a picture. In your emulation, consider something that is difficult for you to do--how do you tackle and overcome the problem? |