Hope Frihauf

Stephen Sellers
Humanities, Period 1&2
10 December 2014

Artist Statement
There is beauty found in war. That was my perspective in my art piece. I showed this through
symbols in my poem. One of the symbols was the tree swaying in the wind, representing a lone soldier
after the war. I also made a choice to write this poem from death's point of view, similar to The Book
Thief by Markus Zusak, but instead, this poem is about a soldier in Vietnam. My poem is about a
soldier being followed by death through his war experience, which is shown through the symbols inside
my poem.
I refined my piece by looking at separate aspects of the poem at a time. I started by looking at
the overall flow of the piece, then the rhyming, syllables, and last the punctuation and grammar. Each
little refinement gave me ideas on what I actually wanted to show people through my writing. Each
time I refined my piece, I got a new idea on how to make it even better. Finally, I looked at the overall
story in the poem to make sure it accurately portrayed what I was trying to say.
Throughout the process of creating my poem, I was inspired by The Book Thief by Markus
Zusak, Walking Alone by Sootekwa Williams (a veteran of Vietnam), and Concertina Wire by Kyle
Schlicher. Each of these pieces of writing portrays war in a way that opens up your thoughts. The Book
Thief, Walking Alone, and Concertina Wire use unique ideas that each portray a different idea of
war, which is why I used them as writing inspirations. I took little ideas from each of these, such as
writing it in the point of view of death and showing the beauty in war, to create a poem that would
show my perspective and make people think.