Pick two to write about. For one of them, tell me about one where the poem didnt have enough visual description for you to agree it was based on the inspirational picture. Did it connect in other ways, perhaps? For the other, tell me about one where the poet did a good job using visual language to help you see the painting. Be specificmention the exact words and phrases that made you (1) chose to say it was or was not good at evoking the visual inspiration, and (2) believe the description was more emotional than visual. This is a challenging assignment, but you wont need to write several pages. Try to get 150-200 words for each poem. : Look at Vincent Van Gogh painting The Starry Night (1889) : That does not keep me from having a terrible need of shall i say the wordreligion. Then I go out at night to paint the starts. -Vincent van Gogh in a letter to his brother The town does not exist except where one black-haired tree slips up like
a drowned woman into the hot sky. the town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars Oh starry night! This is how I want to die. It moves. they are all alive. Even the moon bulges in its oragne irons to push children, like a god, from its eye. The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars. Oh starry night! This is how I want to die: into that rushing beast of the night, sucked up by that great dragon, to split from my life with no flag, no belly, no cry. : Look at Marcel Duchamp painting Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 (1912) : Nude Descending a staircase Toe upon tow, a snowing flesh, A gold of lemon, root and ring, She sifts in sunlight down the stairs With nothing on. Nor on her mind. We spy beneath the banister A constant thresh of thigh on thigh Her Lips imprint the swinging air That parts to let her parts go by. One-woman waterfall, she wears Her slow descent like a long cape And pausing, on the final stair Collects her motions into shape.