Erin O’Sullivan
My found poem focuses on the victim of the Brock Turner case and the horrible, recurring issue of rape culture in society. Brock Turner, was a white student who attended Stanford University and raped an unconscious woman, Chanel Miller, behind a dumpster on campus. He was sentenced to six months in jail and was released after only three months. The outcome of this case enrages me and illustrates the idea of white privilege. Brock Turner did not fully face the consequences due to being a white, wealthy male. I decided to focus my found poem on the victim’s statement that she read out in trial.
While creating my found poem, I took what I found to be the most important parts of the victim’s statement and arranged it in interesting ways to make the reader understand the poem I created. I used different techniques such as leaving spaces, capitalizing and changing the color of certain words to red. By capitalizing words, I felt that I was able to truly emphasize the importance of them. I turned certain words red that I felt were negative and illustrated the damage that was done to Chanel Miller. Another technique I used was leaving spaces after parts that I felt were powerful. This helps the readers pause and really understand the importance of these words. Something else that I felt was necessary was listing everything that Chanel Miller lost after she was sexually assaulted. While writing this poem, I was not only angry at Brock Turner, but I also felt extremely sorry for Chanel Miller. It is so sad to see the pain that Chanel Miller faced. After creating my own found poem, I have come to appreciate and understand M. NourBeSe Philip’s style of poetry more. It looks like a simple type of poem, but I realized that I takes a lot of time, effort and creativity to create these poems. The different techniques Philip’s uses in her poems are extremely powerful and I give her a lot of credit in being able to create an entire book full of these poems. I feel that after making my own found poem, I can understand this type of writing more. Philip’s purposely goes against the norm and creates these very powerful poems.
Erin, wow. This is incredible. I can feel your anger through this poem. This case will forever haunt women across the country. I remember hearing about this and being disgusting that he only served three months in prison when he deserves to, (mind my wording please), rot slowly.
I, too, give Philip credit on how she does these poems. They’re pretty hard to do! And time consuming. But, I really liked how you made some of your words red, emphasizing the damage that had been done on Miller, that was very creative and I thought that worked very well. By capitalizing and bolding certain words, you were most definately able to emphasize their importance. Overall, this was a very powerful poem!
Erin, I liked your use of spacing and coloring words red. I can definitely feel how these parts create emphasis and dramatic effect on the negative part of these words. I also based my poem on a tragic event. Reading your poem told a story. I felt the anger of the first person and i had anger while reading it. I liked how you capitalized all the YOU’s to put emphasis that Brock Turner did this to Chanel Miller. I also like how you wrote in the poem that he took her name and created it into “intoxicated unconscious women” as she is now a victim. Great job!