The Scholar: Parker Brown

The Project: I’m Living Now: A collection of political poems by Parker Brown

The Essential Question: It is an attempt to express my understanding of the political state of the U.S. and how I, as someone who wishes to fight against it, fit into that picture. This project includes various types of political poetry and allusions all to create my own an act of protest. It is an attempt to reveal the truth about our country and an attempt to use my voice for good. The reason I use the word attempt is because part of the collection is to show how inactive I am. Maybe I am trying but maybe I am not, that is for the audience to decide. Am I a protester?

Surprising Discovery: I love to visually manipulate the page and figuring out new ways to do that was supper interesting. I enjoyed making my black out poem into its own art piece with how it looked. On the flip side it was also super interesting to make a collage of photos into a poem. The intersection of visuals and poetry was super engaging.

Biggest Challenge: Formatting the analysis sections were difficult because I wanted them to be their own sort of poem/ visual. It was important for me to include an analysis section as I wanted to be clear on the sources I used but I also needed to not overly explain as to allow the pieces to live on their own.

Tips for future scholars: Write, write, write. Get it all down as quick as you can and then for the second half of the trimester edit, and have it viewed on as many eyes as possible. You can write the whole time in your room alone, but it will not turn out the best it can be if editing is not given the same weight as writing.