Colourful Reality

Colourful Reality

by Kristy Giacoman

Colourful Reality

It's All About Perception

Abstract

"A London Full of Colour" is a project that aims to portray a different reality of the daily life of London citizens. By picturing different scenarios in their reality comparing them to the reality that I choose for each one of them, the audience will be able to admire the beauty and uniqueness of the city from a different perspective. I have gone to international poetry competitions and taken painting and photography courses before arriving to college. This project will combine my favorite forms of expression through art and hopefully brighten the days of the viewers. The main message I wish to convey is that every single one of us chooses the reality they want to live in, meaning that the same place could be seen as a prison for our souls or a wonderland for our imagination. The goal of this Milestone, however, is to connect the emotions displayed in the pictures and the colors of the paintings in a creative way empathizing with the people walking by the site as a daily routine. Each one of the sets of paintings and pictures will be accompanied by a short story, poem or reflection.

Introduction

It is in the beauty of a great writing where a person's real emotions are free to be exposed. And what makes a great writing so great? I would say that the ability of a writer to appeal to the readers' emotions precisely. In writing there is no such thing as truth, each writer is free to create their own reality as dark or as colorful a they wish to do so. Though it is true that life experiences and situations shape a person's way of viewing life, each individual has the power to define his or her own reality and a way to do so is through literature. In this Milestone, the work of different poets is presented, as well as information about the writer's background and the path that lead to their accomplishments. The writers are chosen for their relevance as well as for the topics they cover in their poems, related to people's emotions, to symbolism, sociopolitical perspectives and to weather. Poetry has been a tool for many of these writers to use not only as a form of expression through art but also to raise awareness about their concerns. For the deliverable of this Milestone, a poem of each author presented in the background is chosen and interpreted by me. Poetry is for everyone and its power is beyond most people's imaginations, which is why, also as part of the deliverable, poems of my own will accompany each set of picture and painting done in the Milestones Colourless London and Adding Pigment that will encompass the same topics covered by the poets in the background.

Section 1: Background

Mathew Arnold

Mathew Arnold

"Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) was an English Victorian poet and literary and social critic, noted especially for his classical attacks on the contemporary tastes and manners of the “Barbarians” (the aristocracy), the “Philistines” (the commercial middle class), and the “Populace.”" He divided the society in these three categories and wrote about their realities from his perspective. Instead of referring to them as high, middle and low class, he called them "Barbarians", "Philistines" and "Populace". Also through his writings it is easy to get his idea of how society worked, specifically in the poems "West London" and "East London", where seeks to portray how the case of society relies in the working class, which, if we think about it, makes total sense. The working class is first of all where the great majority of people are situated, they are educated enough to actively participate in a roll of society contributing to the economy, and yet, are aware of the sociopolitical situation of their country because they are directly affected y it. They do not enjoy major privileges and they know that to get the bread to the tale they have to work for it, which they do. The high class instead, enjoy of all the privileges that come with being above everyone else and the lower class contribute very little to the economy and their voices are, if anything, barely heard."Arnold saw in the Philistines the key to the whole position; they were the most influential section of society; their strength was the nation’s strength, their crudeness its crudeness: the key was then to educate and humanize the Philistines."

Mathew began his career as a poet and it was not hard for him to excel as he started to publish. This maybe influenced by the fact that he was the son of a very respected image, for his father, Thomas Arnold, was the headmaster of a renown college in England. Also his success was propelled by the way he wrote for a higher cause than himself. He wanted to make people conscious through his writing, so he raised awareness through his poetry which expressed his ideals for society. "a poetry that would address the moral needs of his readers, to animate and ennoble them” He was a man of great character and strong moral values that he worked to promote to his readers. Also, by the way he critiqued society in his poetry, he is considered to have "established criticism as an art form" and been inspiring English critiques until present times. According to a biography written by Hamilton and titled "A gift imprisoned: the poetic life of Matthew Arnold", Mathew became such an important image to represent English poetry that he was elected to the Oxford chair of poetry and very proud of this accomplishment, he wrote to his mother: "some 200 more voted than ever before". This victory was only surpassed by the success of his first speech at Oxford, “On the Modern Element in Literature”, where according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, he gave a whole new definition to the word "modern": "being taken to mean not merely “contemporary”, but the spirit that, contemplating the vast and complex spectacle of life, craves for moral and intellectual “deliverance”". This claim is also supported by the biography written by Hamilton, where he elaborates more about how Mathew believed that poetry was the best way to positively influence people and teach them morals, or as Mathew said: "a faith which could be thought of as a thing of beauty".

For his many apportions Mr. Arnold has been considered one of the most influential writers of his time and he is the only person to have two memorials in Westminster Abbey, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica. "A bust by Alfred Bruce-Joy" and "a mural tablet of Lepine limestone and green Westmorland slate with a motif of gilded flames, designed by Donald Buttress" can be seen in different sides of the Westminster Abbey according to its official website. The inscription in the tablet reads: "Remember Matthew Arnold 1822-1888 Poet and Critic. Let but the light appear and thy transfigured walls be touch'd with flame" and that quotation is taken from his poem to one of the Deans of Westminster. Being given the great honor of having two memorials in the abbey there is no way to deny his influence in English literature and the quality of his work. Mathew Arnold sets an example to all writers and invites them to believe in the power they have with their literature. In the same way, he invited us all to become aware of other people's situations and our roles in society.

Richard Aldington

Richard Aldington

Edward Godfree Aldington was born in a middle class family in Portsmouth, England, on 1892, however he grew up in a town called Dover at the Southeast end of the UK and since a very early age chose to be called Richard. What seems really interesting is the strength of his character, as, which kid would ever decide to change his or her own name? This detail helps us have a better idea of some traits of his personality. Now, about his life, as an adult he openly expressed he did not live the childhood he would have preferred. Through his poems people can have a very vivid picture of what the earliest days of his life were like, specially through his poem "Childhood", which setting is Dover. According to a biography written by Charles Doyle, "a great source of early dissatisfaction and insecurity for Aldington was his immediate environment". In a letter written to a friend later in his life, he said: "The photo of poor old Dover is indeed shocking. The Victorian houses, with all their drab squalor, still had some remote trace of humanity, but these skyscraping slave-pens, industrial ergastula, give one the creeps. It is the same everywhere, and reflects the age, which will do itself justice". By this description, Dover does not sound very different to what London once was as seen in the first Milestone of this project (Colourless London). A gray place that, from Richard's perspective, as shown in his poem "Childhood", was dull, dark, stinky and hateful. He felt helpless in that town as if he was trapped there and unable to grow. In fact in the same biography previously mentioned, Charles Doyle realizes a repeated metaphor in Aldington's writings, the first one appears in the poem "Childhood" and the second one appears in the book "Rejected Guest":

From "Childhood":
Somebody found my chrysalis
And shut it in a match-box.
My shrivelled wings were beaten,
Shed their colours in dusty scales
Before the box was opened
For the moth to fly.

From "Rejected Guest":
"A child, grubbing about in the garden, finds the chrysalis of a tiger moth. An old boot box is begged from the kitchen, a useless pile of unnecessary leaves is arranged for the treasure air-holes are punched. Every half-hour or so, the child into the box to the wonderful change it has been told about. Nothing happens, the box is forgotten, and then one day carelessly opened. The bright-winged creature lying dead."

With this visualization of himself and the town that saw him grow, it is not hard to identify the dark and depressing perspective of his works. The moth's metaphor however, was probably inspired by one of his hobbies as a child as stated in a biography written by Hernandez: "It was at Dover, also, that he began collecting butterflies; an occasional hobby that he would stay with for most of his life." After going through terrible childhood, his life did not become that much better, as when being an adult he had to go though very traumatic experiences and misfortunes such as having a stillborn child in his first marriage, a long and messy divorce and his participation in WWI. However, in spite of all these tragedies, he never topped writing. "The two and a half years that Aldington spent in active duty during WWI was to become perhaps the greatest single influence on his writing for the decades to follow." He used these events as a source of inspiration and did pretty well in his career for a while, until he caused controversy with one of his biographical books. As he wrote the biography of Lawrence of Arabia, who was admired by many, Aldington realized he was only a farce and when he published his book exposing all the lies, he got a lot of backs turned to him. "Aldington expected that he would be writing the biography of a hero, but in the process realized that the legend of the man was, in fact, legend indeed--and mostly of T.E. Lawrence's own making."

He suffered a lot from the critics after publishing this book even though it was later proven that he was right and for a writer with a bad reputation it is very hard to publish. Nevertheless, he did not give up and towards the end of his life things got a little bit better as in a visit to the USSR he said "Here, in the Soviet Union, for the first time in my life I have met with extraordinary warmth and attention. This is the happiest day of my life. I shall never forget it." Also, according to Doyle, after his death in 1962, "The Literary Gazette" published that "his work preserved the best tradition of British critical realism". With a life full of ups and downs, Aldington was one of the first English poets to discard the conventions of rhyme and meter but he discarded them for "a stricter and more difficult form which can hardly be called free verse because of the masterful control which regulates and balances every detail with the minutest precision". Also, after looking at a life so full of misfortunes, it is a little bit easier to understand the perspective of his writing.

Don Paterson

Don Paterson

Don Paterson was born in 1963 in Scotland but moved to London at the age of 16 to work as a jazz musician and joined a band. According to "The British Council", him joining the jazz-folk ensemble Lammas, was one of the most influential factors all through his career. "Paterson’s strong ear for rhythm and understanding of the ‘sense in sound’ are partly attributable to his background in music" Music is as much his passion as poetry is and even today he continues to play in Scotland as a professional musician. An astonishing fact about his life is that he taught himself the rules of rhyme and meter, and Egan his career as a self taught poet. He has a quite peculiar way of looking at his own profession, as in an interview with the journalist JP O'Malley, he asked Paterson if it was true he felt uncomfortable saying he was a poet, to what he answered; "I think that's true with most poets. I know only one or two who are comfortable with that. It's mainly because it's not a job of any kind. It's just something weirdly synaesthetic thing you do with words, and is probably symptomatic of a broader pathology. I think poetry is more of a diagnosis than a calling." It is sad to think that still in the 21st century it is hard to admit a profession. Don Paterson has a great imagination worthy of admiration and by reading the interview, he also seems like a very down to earth person, someone that enjoys what he does and thats it. He does not pretend to be anyone's hero or use his poems as a gateway to escape his personal problems. He writes as inspiration comes to him and keeps close attention to every single word he chooses as he said "Ted Hughes used to talk about this: he said he knew a poem was finished when every word was listening to every other word." Reading a poem that has had so much thought put into it makes us appreciate poetry as a complex art form.

His exemplary work has been widely acknowledged as he has received a great number of awards. According to "The Scottish Library", his collection "Nil Nil" won the Forward prize for best first collection, he was included on the list of 20 poets chosen for the Poetry Society’s ‘New Generation Poets’ promotion and became poetry editor at "Picador Macmillan". However, the awards don't end there, as stated in the official website of the Poetry Foundation: "God’s Gift to Women (1997) won both the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, and Landing Light (2003) won the Whitbread Poetry Award and an unprecedented second T.S. Eliot Prize. Christina Patterson, reviewing Landing Light for the Independent, praised Paterson as “one of the few poets writing today whose work combines postmodern playfulness with a sense of yearning for the transcendental.” Paterson’s poem “A Private Bottling” won the Arvon Foundation International Poetry Competition. He has won an Eric Gregory Award, three Book Awards from the Scottish Arts Council, and a Creative Scotland Award. The Poetry Society named Paterson one of the New Generation Poets and as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Fellow of the English Association. For his service to literature, he was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2008 and received the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2010." His work was so acknowledged that he won the T.S. Eliot Prize twice. A Life full of success that still continues and yet, he remains humble and dow to earth. Don Paterson’s poems are so admirable because of the great deal of work he puts into them, and how, despite he sticks to the verse rules, that does not restrain his creativity and imagination for the lines flow with perfect sense. The hardest thing about doing this, at least for me, is definitely finding the right words to fit the rules without changing the original course of the poem. However, he must master a huge vocabulary, as he keeps the same trajectory of the poem at the same time as he keeps the rhyme and meter right. As Ben Wilkinson summed up in the British Council’s Writers Directory: "a sharp, witty and distinctive poetic voice, Paterson’s formal dexterity and dedication to poetic tradition are combined with contemporary postmodernist elements, producing poems of cutting-edge relevance, but also of intense, MacNeiceian lyrical beauty."

Harry Baker

Harry Baker

Poetry Slam Champion Harry Baker has gone on the represent the UK in Europe and won Haiku Deathmatches in the USA.

Section 2: Deliverable

West London

By Mathew Arnold

Crouch'd on the pavement close by Belgrave Square
A tramp I saw, ill, moody, and tongue-tied;
A babe was in her arms, and at her side
A girl; their clothes were rags, their feet were bare.
Some labouring men, whose work lay somewhere there,
Pass'd opposite; she touch'd her girl, who hied
Across, and begg'd and came back satisfied.
The rich she had let pass with frozen stare.
Thought I: Above her state this spirit towers;
She will not ask of aliens, but of friends,
Of sharers in a common human fate.
She turns from that cold succour, which attneds
The unknown little from the unknowing great,
And points us to a better time than ours.

Interpretation

The speaker of the poem sits in Belgrave Square and looks at a poor tramp loitering with her baby and young daughter, all dressed in rags. Then, as some men from the working class pass by, the tramp sends the little girl to beg and she successfully brings back some money. However, as rich men pass by they make no effort to beg. Then the speaker explains how he realizes that the tramp will only beg from the working class who will understand and sympathize with her situation and the rich are "aliens" that would show no empathy for her plight. In this short poem, Matthew Arnold criticizes society's lack of response to poverty. He lived in a period of modernization and was able to see the gap between social classes broaden as people became "aliens" for each other and all the empathic community that once existed was deteriorating. It is also important to note the way he writes his sentences emphasizing the social class as the subject in lines such as "A tramp I saw" and "The rich she had let pass" putting "The tramp" and "The rich" as subjects. In the same way, the title "West London" accentuates this idea for that is considered to be a very wealthy side of the city. He uses this fact to accentuate the fact that poverty remains present despite the wealth of high class neighborhoods like West London. Finally, by the end of the poem, he leaves the readers with his desire for a change and an attempt of a wake up call. As he refers to the poor girl as the "unknown little" and to the rich as the "unknowing great" he shows how unconscious people have become and how he hopes for a better future.

Childhood III

By Richard Aldington

I hate that town;
I hate the town I lived in when I was little;
I hate to think of it.
There were always clouds, smoke, rain
In that dingly little valley.
It rained; it always rained.
I think I never saw the sun until I was nine --
And then it was too late;
Everything's too late after the first seven years.

The long street we lived in
Was duller than a drain
And nearly as dingy.
There were the big College
And the pseudo-Gothic town-hall.
There were the sordid provincial shops --
The grocer's, and the shops for women,
The shop where I bought transfers,
And the piano and gramaphone shop
Where I used to stand
Staring at the huge shiny pianos and at the pictures
Of a white dog looking into a gramaphone.

How dull and greasy and grey and sordid it was!
On wet days -- it was always wet --
I used to kneel on a chair
And look at it from the window.

The dirty yellow trams
Dragged noisily along
With a clatter of wheels and bells
And a humming of wires overhead.
They threw up the filthy rain-water from the hollow lines
And then the water ran back
Full of brownish foam bubbles.

There was nothing else to see --
It was all so dull --
Except a few grey legs under shiny black umbrellas
Running along the grey shiny pavements;
Sometimes there was a waggon
Whose horses made a strange loud hollow sound
With their hoofs
Through the silent rain.

And there was a grey museum
Full of dead birds and dead insects and dead animals
And a few relics of the Romans -- dead also.
There was a sea-front,
A long asphalt walk with a bleak road beside it,
Three piers, a row of houses,
And a salt dirty smell from the little harbour.

I was like a moth --
Like one of those grey Emperor moths
Which flutter through the vines at Capri.
And that damned little town was my match-box,
Against whose sides I beat and beat
Until my wings were torn and faded, and dingy
As that damned little town.

Interpretation

In this poem, from which only the third part is displayed in this page, Richard Aldington narrates the depressing and traumatizing period of his childhood and describes Dover, the town where he spent it. This is a very honest, crude and personal poem. His bitter and miserable childhood contrasts with the way any person would ever imagine what should be such a joyful and enjoyable part of anyone's life. In this third part of the poem, he talks specifically about Dover and its rainy weather, however, since the first lines he reveals his perspective about it. He complains about the rain, the smoke and the clouds that, according to him, seemed to always surround the valley. Everything the expresses in the poem is in a negative way. He says that when he was finally able to see the sun, it was already too late, meaning maybe that not only he meant "the sun" as a literal meaning but also in a way in which, if you ever live through bad experiences for long enough it is hard to recognize when something good happens, as you get used to constant tragedy and that is all you expect. After this he goes more personal and talks about the street he lived in which he compares to a drain.

Rain

By Don Paterson

I love all films that start with rain:
rain, braiding a windowpane
or darkening a hung-out dress
or streaming down her upturned face;

one long thundering downpour
right through the empty script and score
before the act, before the blame,
before the lens pulls through the frame

to where the woman sits alone
beside a silent telephone
or the dress lies ruined on the grass
or the girl walks off the overpass,

and all things flow out from that source
along their fatal watercourse.
However bad or overlong
such a film can do no wrong,

so when his native twang shows through
or when the boom dips into view
or when her speech starts to betray
its adaptation from the play,

I think to when we opened cold
on a rain-dark gutter, running gold
with the neon of a drugstore sign,
and I’d read into its blazing line:

forget the ink, the milk, the blood—
all was washed clean with the flood
we rose up from the falling waters
the fallen rain’s own sons and daughters

and none of this, none of this matters.

Paper People

By Harry Baker

I like people.
I’d like some paper people.
They’d be purple paper people. Maybe pop-up purple paper people.
Proper pop-up purple paper people.
“How do you prop up pop-up purple paper people?”
I hear you cry. Well I …
I’d probably prop up proper pop-up purple paper people
With a proper pop-up purple people paperclip,
But I’d pre-prepare appropriate adhesives as alternatives,
A cheeky pack of Blu Tack just in case the paper slipped.

Because I could build a pop-up metropolis.
But I wouldn’t wanna deal with all the paper people politics.
Paper politicians with their paper-thin policies,
Broken promises without appropriate apologies.

There’d be a little paper me. And a little paper you.
And we could watch paper TV and it would all be pay-per-view.
We’d see the poppy paper rappers rap about their paper package
Or watch paper people carriers get stuck in paper traffic on the A4. Paper.

There’d be a paper princess Kate but we’d all stare at paper Pippa,
And then we’d all live in fear of killer Jack the Paper-Ripper,
Because the paper propaganda propagates the people’s prejudices,
Papers printing pictures of the photogenic terrorists.

A little paper me. And a little paper you.
And in a pop-up population people’s problems pop up too.
There’d be a pompous paper parliament who remained out of touch,
And who ignored the people’s protests about all the paper cuts,
Then the peaceful paper protests would get blown to paper pieces,
By the confetti cannons manned by pre-emptive police.

And yes there’d still be paper money, so there’d still be paper greed,
And the paper piggy bankers pocketing more than they need,
Purchasing the potpourri to pepper their paper properties,
Others live in poverty and ain’t acknowledged properly.
A proper poor economy where so many are proper poor,
But while their needs are ignored the money goes to big wars.

Origami armies unfold plans for paper planes
And we remain imprisoned in our own paper chains,
But the greater shame is that it always seems to stay the same,
What changes is who’s in power choosing how to lay the blame,
They’re naming names, forgetting these are names of people,
Because in the end it all comes down to people.

I like people.
‘Cause even when the situation’s dire,
It is only ever people who are able to inspire,
And on paper, it’s hard to see how we all cope.
But in the bottom of Pandora’s box there’s still hope,
And I still hope ’cause I believe in people.

People like my grandparents.
Who every single day since I was born, have taken time out of their morning to pray for me.
That’s 7892 days straight of someone checking I’m okay, and that’s amazing.
People like my aunt who puts on plays with prisoners.
People who are capable of genuine forgiveness.
People like the persecuted Palestinians.

People who go out of their way to make your life better, and expect nothing in return.
You see, people have potential to be powerful.
Just because the people in power tend to pretend to be victims
We don’t need to succumb to that system.
And a paper population is no different.
There’s a little paper me. And a little paper you.
And in a pop-up population people’s problems pop up too,
But even if the whole world fell apart then we’d still make it through.
Because we’re people.

My Own Reality in London

In this section I present poems of my own writing, to complement to the pictures taken and paintings made for the previous milestones of the protect "A London Full of Colour". I had the chance to visit London once again during the summer of 2017 as part of an Academic program of my university Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). During this experience I visited Museums, Palaces, Concerts, Plays and interacted with a great amount of all types of people. As part of the program, however, I had to keep a personal Travel Journal, narrating my day to day in this magnificent "World City". Throughout the program I not only stretched my intellectual capacities by doing independent studies, but I also explored new areas of my personality through art and developed a better sense of understanding of my own reality, acknowledging that my perception of it differs from that of others. Being here also made me more aware of my surroundings and of myself, as unfortunately, we lived together with London a great deal of tragedies in a very short period of time. As I learned more about the history of this place and the way it continues to grow despite the opposing circumstances, I was more and more motivated to leave (in some way) a piece of me to contribute to the beauty of this city. Just like the artists presented through this project, I leave here my own perception of London, which may not be that relevant to many, but it shows that each person has the capacity to create a reality for themselves and turn it into the life they wish to live.

Conclusion

Through the development of this milestone it was possible to understand the reasons why each author chose a specific style and portrayed their own version of reality as well as their concerns with respect to it. Tracing the poets' literary developments through their lives provided a solid background that helped understand the peculiar nature of their greatest accomplishments and even the perspective from where they chose to write. Though it is true that weather conditions may influence a person's behavior and way of being and viewing life, (as seen in the previous Milestones linked to this one) a person's life experiences are the main sculptors of his or her perception of reality, which at the same time, will define his or her actions. At the beginning of the Milestone, we can see how Mathew Arnold's experiences guided him to become one of the most influential writers in the United Kingdom. He was often seen as a humanist more than just a social critic and exemplifies how shaped his character and and worked very hard to follow his passions and develop his talent raising awareness for a cause better than his own benefit. The section of Richard Aldington however, helps us understand why he gave a depressing scent to his writing and leaves us wondering if the negativity shown in his work was the effect or the cause of his tragedies. Later we see Don Paterson that uses poetry as his most perfect way of expression, taking careful attention to the rhyme and meter and giving poetry a new perspective. Finally, the contemporary poet and international poetry slam champion Harry Baker decides to express through poetry things that he knows about such as love, maths and (in some way) people. Doing so in the most creative way playing with the sounds and pronunciations of words.

All of the poets, besides being British have in common their strength of character when it came to poetry, as well as their love for it and their effort to (in their very own and individual ways) improve it. By the end of this Milestone, after interpreting the selected works of the authors presented in the background, I leave my own sets of poems that show the feelings I identified myself with while living in the City of London for nearly two months. I present my own work as well as the renown poets' work not only to fulfill my academic requirements, but to display my own version of reality in London and let the readers discover the wonders and calamities from which I was inspired to photograph, paint and write what I see as a London full of colour.