reflection of poem performances

Paige Borowski

IB Lit and performance 

11/3/19

I found this project seemed very interesting. Each poem had a performance that wasn’t exactly what was on the page. Each group put their own twist on it and made a compelling performance. The two that I liked and felt fit this format was Mia’s group and Cole’s group. 

Mia’s group did the poem “I, Too.” It was interesting how they depicted the poem. In the video, they showed someone at the table and when Lauren and Mia came in, he was told to move to the kitchen. The voice of a fourth person comes in and starts reading the poem. It was very interesting to me to see that there was an outside person reading the poem but acting as the voice of the person sitting at the table told to move to the kitchen. The other video I chose to look at does the same thing.

It shows a person sitting on a stool struggling to read and getting frustrated. Amy then comes in to talk to the boy but doesn’t speak. It’s a third party that reads the poem and acts as the voice of the mother. Both of the adaptations were very similar in this way. I like this technique because it saves someone from trying to memorize lines and makes it so facial expressions and actions are better because that’s what the person has to focus on. It causes it to be more intense and cut deeper. 

Both of these performances put incredible emphasis on the emotions emitted from the poem. I think a lot of the emotion comes from the facial expressions and the actions used. I think the biggest impact came from the lack of words. I think the expression, “A picture is worth a thousand words” really fits this. It shows so much even with little to no words.