Illustrated Poetry

The inspiration came from the a Haiku poem: 

A world of grief and pain

Flowers bloom

Even then. 

It inspired me to look at Japanese illustration, both traditional and modern. I enjoyed playing around with a mix of traditional illustration (the face/the portrait of a woman, the fan, the fabric, and the text) combining them with modern elements (bold colours, pattern). While it's not my typical style it was still very fun to experiment with :)

Amy Siripunyo

Justice

That Justice is a blind goddess

Is a thing to which we black are wise:

Her bandage hides two festering sores

That once perhaps were eyes. 

– Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes (1901– 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He moved to NYC as a young man, where he made his career. One of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form called jazz poetry, Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance.

Debbie McKeever

New York Skyline

The stony spears of this army go black into the sky;

the clouds are split by spear-heads and the thin horizon is broken…

This phalanx is stone and iron moving with thunder against the sun.

A murmur of voices floats on the water; the ships swing on the tide

and with a long slow sigh the sea takes them on its breast.

The wind goes by heavy with rain sweeping to the city…

– Israel James Kapstein (June 1928)

Morgan McKeever

You can’t cancel Love

‘Wedding postponed’ we had to declare

With no other option, resigned to despair

The planning, the build up, the details in place

To have it all crumble; fall flat on its face

But nothing has ended; we still have forever

When this has blown over, we’ll all get together

With love in our hearts, and smiles on our faces

Coming together, from our different places

To celebrate more than the union of two,

But the joy of our freedom, once this is all through

Let’s never forget all the luck that we carry -

The wait will be worth it when we finally marry.

– Danielle (on Medium)

Madison McKeever

The Bassist

For this prompt, I wanted to write a visual poem. I created a shape, and used the form of the shape to inform my lines of poetry. This was an interesting exercise from both a poetics and artistic standpoint, as I had to make sure what I wanted to say fit within the shape I had created and also looked and felt like what I wanted the shape to convey.

Michelle Pereira