Picture Poem Assignment and Sample

Picture Poetry Assignment

For each of the following list at least FIVE in your journal:

List 1: What kinds of things might be happening or have happened to the people in your picture?

List 2: What sounds might the people in your picture be hearing?

List 3: What smells might the people in your picture be experiencing?

List 4: How are the people in your picture feeling?  What are their thoughts and emotions?

List 5: What does the picture make you wonder or think?  What does it make you feel?

List 6: What tastes might the people in your picture be experiencing?

List 7: Tell about the person’s life experiences?

List 8: What could the setting of your picture be (where are they)?

Now look at your brainstorming list and select only the BEST ideas from each question. Using the ideas that will best help your reader see the image in your picture, create the lines of your imagery poem.  

Your poem should be at least 20 lines long.  You will be graded on original ideas and form, so be sure to think past the obvious things that you see in your picture and be sure to vary the beginning of each line of the poem.

                                   

1. They were selling cheap plastic toys and now they’re counting their money; They stole some gum from a tienda and they are splitting it up, keeping a watch out for the cops; They are playing Hoyita behind the train station when they are supposed to be in school; They are chatting about their experiences of that day’s work shining shoes at the train station; They have to have 100 pesos to take back to the boys home at the end of the day and they are afraid to go home.

2. Sounds: taxi cabs honking their horns; shop ladies gossiping outside their tiendas; dirt crunching under their dusty jeans; the bus brakes screeching on the next street over; and angry Military Macaw screeches from the trees overhead.

3. Smells: shoe-shine polish, dust mixed with stale cerveza, diesel exhaust from taxi and bus fumes, clothes that have been worn for days, faint smell of a fruit juice stand selling jugos de mango, pina Blanca and tomate de arbol on the other side of the street.

4. they are feeling frustrated and tired from a long day of working the parks and streets with their shoe-shine kits, they are not dreaming about a new video game or a trip to Disneyworld – their day’s wages wouldn’t even come close to affording that and besides those things are far beyond anything they could even dream of; maybe they are not miserable, not depressed, just plotting the next thing to do – maybe misery and depression are also not in their realm of thinking; maybe they are thinking about the cool new toy that Victor got from his uncle’s tienda across from the parque.

5. It makes me wonder what waits for them when they go home at night.  What do their houses look like?  What do their parents do for a living?  What will they eat? Where do they sleep? Do they ever get to go to school?  Can they read and do math?  Do they feel sorry for themselves or is life good to them because they don’t know any better?  Why do I feel sorry for them?

6.  Tastes:  dust; his Tia’s papas rellenos she served as leftovers for breakfast this morning; imagining the taste of sweet caramelos they could buy with their shoeshine money; blank – nothing – hunger; blue raspberry bolos they got from the nice lady by the lake at the parque.

7. Victor gets up every morning, puts on his chompa, shoes and hat and grabs his shoeshine kit by the door.  His mother is already at the fruit market selling tomatoes and limes and 5 different kinds of bananas.  He grabs a big red one they call maqueno and heads out the door to the park to meet his buddies and find someone who needs some shiny shoes.  He only went to school before his dad started drinking and left them.  He doesn’t think too much about that.  He and Juan Carlos are involved in a game to see who can shine the most shoes on guys wearing hats today.  He has to win because the loser has to buy a bolo from the nice lady who works a cart by the lake at the park.

8. The boys are a couple of streets over from the main park in a little town in Peru; or Mexico; or Bolivia; or Ecuador.

FIRST DRAFT

Five boys are chatting

about that day’s work

shining shoes at the train station.

Taxi cabs honk their horns

shop ladies gossip outside their tiendas

dirt crunches under their dusty jeans

the bus brakes screech on the next street over

and an angry Military Macaw screeches from the trees overhead.

The smell of shoe-shine polish,

dust mixed with stale cerveza,

diesel exhaust and clothes that have been worn for days,

the faint smell of jugo de mango on the other side of the street

fill their noses.

A long day of working the parks and streets

with their shoe-shine kits

plotting the next thing to do

thinking about the cool new toy

Victor got from his uncle’s tienda

across from the parque.

It makes me wonder

what waits for them when they go home at night? 

What do their houses look like? 

What do their parents do for a living? 

What will they eat?

Where do they sleep?

Do they ever get to go to school? 

Can they read and do math? 

Do they feel sorry for themselves

or is life good to them

because they don’t know any better? 

Why do I feel sorry for them?

They taste dust,

Tia’s papas rellenos,

The imagined taste of sweet caramelos

they could buy with their shoeshine money

if they only had some.

They get up every morning,

put on their chompas, shoes and hat

and grab a banana and their shoeshine kits

by the door 

out the door to meet their buddies

and find someone who needs shiny shoes.

SECOND DRAFT

A taxi cab honks

and the faint sweet whiff

of jugo de mango settles

on the dust next to

the five shoe-shine boys

and their livelihood.

The diesel exhaust cannot

Drown out the taste

Of Tia Rosa’s empenadas

Even though it makes

Playing hoyita a little distracting.

They will never get 100 pesos.

Victor remembers

The maqueno he ate for breakfast

And his dad who hasn’t come home

Since before his last birthday.

He looks back to his shoe-shine kit

And his stomach sinks again

As he smells the dust mixed

With stale cerveza.

He blackens those images

Like he blackens shoes

And pulls his long sleeves

Even longer over his wrists.

The shop ladies gossip

Outside their tiendas and

The little boy knows that

They could be talking about

Anyone’s dad and anyone’s

Tia Rosa and anyone’s

Shoe shine kit.

The dirt crunches under his

Dusty jeans and

None of it matters

As long as there is

One more customer

At the end of the day

So that the angry Military Macaw

In the trees above him

Will screech at

Someone else and leave

Him in the relative peace

That comes from

One more pair of

Shiny shoes.