Chapter 14: Poems and Pictures

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Welcome to this very special custom -tailored deep dive.

Glad to be here.

Yeah.

If you were listening to this, you are exactly in the right place because today,

well, we're doing something just a little bit different.

Consider this your own personal one -on -one tutoring session.

We are focusing exclusively on the core concepts of Chapter 14, that's poems and pictures, from a short guide to writing about literature, the 12th edition.

The 12th edition.

Exactly.

We have all the sources gathered right here, and our mission is to get you completely ready to tackle academic literary writing.

Okay, let's unpack this.

The core question we are looking at today is, how exactly do we take the visual language of paintings and photographs and turn them into the written language of a structured persuasive essay?

That framing gets right to the heart of the challenge, I think, but before we plunge into the specifics, let's establish how we're going to approach this for you today.

Yeah, lay out the ground rules.

Exactly.

We will walk through this chapter in the exact order it appears.

We'll break down how the foundational principles of close reading, whether you're reading a poem or looking at a photograph, how those lead directly to thesis formation.

And then we'll explore how that thesis supports a structured argument.

We're going to look really closely at sample student essays to see how a writer encounters visual and textual material,

finds the friction between them, and builds an original argument.

That's the progression, right?

It is.

Foundational principles support analytical reading.

Analytical reading supports thesis formation.

And that thesis is the absolute bedrock of your essay.

So let's start with a concept that often gets called the sister arts.

Ah, yes.

There is a fantastic quote from Leonardo da Vinci that sets this up perfectly.

He said,

painting is poetry which is seen and not heard, and poetry is painting which is heard but not seen.

It's a very romantic idea, isn't it?

It really is.

It presents this idea that artists are always trying to cross over into different mediums, that the arts are essentially speaking the same language.

It's a beautiful sentiment, but in practice, translating between those mediums is incredibly difficult.

Oh, totally.

And the painter, Edgar Degas, actually found that out the hard way, which is a funny contrast from the text.

Right.

His sonnets.

Yeah.

He tried his hand at writing sonnets, which, if you're not familiar, are these incredibly strict, rule -bound, 14 -line poems.

And Degas was just incredibly frustrated by the process.

He was a painter, not a poet.

Exactly.

So he complained to his friend, the poet, Stephane Mallarmé, saying that he had plenty of ideas, but he just couldn't manage to write good poems.

And Mallarmé replied, you don't write poems with ideas, you write them with words.

What's fascinating here is the underlying distinction between summary and analysis, which is usually the very first hurdle for any student learning to write academically.

Oh, absolutely.

It's the biggest trap.

Right.

Because Mallarmé is making a witty point about the medium of poetry being words, but we have to remember that poems absolutely do use ideas.

They have clear, arguable meanings.

When you're assigned to analyze a poem that was written about a painting,

your job is not just to summarize what both of them look like.

You can't just say, they both have stars.

No, exactly.

You can't just write, the painting shows a starry sky, and the poem also mentions a starry sky.

That is simple summary.

Right.

Analysis requires you to ask critical questions.

You must ask, how does the poem depart from the painting?

To what extent does it illustrate the painting and to what extent does it make a totally different statement?

Let's look at a major example to see how that actually works in an essay.

The Sexton poem.

Yeah.

And Sexton's poem, The Starry Night,

which was directly inspired by Vincent van Gogh's incredibly famous painting of the same name.

Just picture the van Gogh painting for a second.

Everyone knows it.

Yeah.

It's usually described as a glorious, almost comforting heaven.

It's so bright that the stars all have these glowing halos.

There's a church right in the lower center with its steeple rising above the hills, pointing straight up to the heavens.

It feels very religious, very awe -inspiring.

But then you read Sexton's poem.

She looks at that exact same sky and uses phrases like rushing beast of the night, sucked up by the great dragon.

And she repeats the line, how I want to die.

The contrast is jarring.

It really is.

And that contrast is exactly where a strong essay is born.

There is a masterclass in thesis development demonstrated by a sample student essay in the chapter from a writer named Tina Washington.

Let's break that down.

Yeah.

We need to look at how this student moves from basic visual observation to a strong analytical thesis.

The student first acknowledges the visual evidence of the painting, the heavenly comfort, the religious vision, the steeple pointing to God.

Which is the summary part.

Well, it's the necessary close reading of the image.

You have to start there.

Ah, okay.

But then she uses textual evidence from the poem to build an argument based on contrast.

Right, because she notes that Sexton's poem is definitely not about heavenly comfort.

It's almost violent.

Exactly.

The student points out that Sexton's world isn't ruled by a benevolent God at all.

Instead, it's ruled by an old unseen serpent.

A dragon.

Right.

The student takes that specific textual evidence to build a clear, structured argument.

Her thesis is that Sexton wasn't trying to just translate Van Gogh's awe into words, and she certainly wasn't trying to write something Van Gogh would approve of.

Definitely not.

Instead, Sexton used the painting as a point of departure for her own highly personal word picture about her desire for extinction.

She used the visual art to express her own anguish.

That's a great phrase, point of departure.

It is.

That is how you synthesize two works into a persuasive essay.

You don't look for how they are the same.

You find the point of departure.

So we've seen how a poet interprets a painter's choices.

But moving to the next section of the chapter, what happens when we look at the choices a photographer makes?

That's where people often get tripped up.

Yeah, because a lot of people assume photography is just capturing reality as it is, just pointing a lens and clicking.

But there is a quote from the photographer Minor White that completely challenges that.

He said, I don't take pictures, I make them.

I make them.

That single word change from take to make implies an enormous amount of intent.

It tells us that a photograph is a constructed piece of art, just like a painting or a poem.

It's basically the 19th and 20th century equivalent of staging a photo for Instagram.

Even a candid snapshot is constructed.

The photographer waits for a cloud to pass or tells someone to step out of the shadows or chooses a specific angle.

And this applies to everything up to highly purposeful documentary photography.

Like Dorothea Lange's work.

Right, her depression -era picture Migrant Mother.

That photo wasn't just a random snapshot.

It had a noble social purpose.

She was effectively persuading the nation that migrant workers desperately needed help.

The lighting, the framing, the expression pictures are carefully built to convey messages.

Just like a vigorously constructed sentence.

And to uncover those constructed messages, you need a systematic approach.

If you're sitting down to analyze a visual work, the chapter provides a very specific visual checklist you should apply directly to your close reading.

Let's go through that checklist for our listener.

Sure.

First, look at the relationship among the parts.

Do the figures share the space evenly or does one figure overpower another by taking up most of the space with a light?

Second, examine the lines.

Generally speaking, diagonal lines suggest instability.

Horizontal lines suggest stability.

Circular lines are often associated with motion and sometimes with the female body and fertility.

Wait, I have to ask about that.

When we look at diagonal lines suggesting instability or horizontal lines suggesting stability,

how much of that is the artist's conscious choice versus our own psychological projection?

Like, is a horizontal line really always meant to be stable?

That is a great distinction to make.

These are not rigid mathematical formulas.

You can't just look at a painting, count the horizontal lines, and declare it a stable image.

Right.

That would be ridiculous.

Instead, these concepts are prompts for your own critical thinking.

They give you a vocabulary to describe why an image feels a certain way.

That makes sense.

You also have to look at the landscape.

Are the humans dwarfed by nature or are they at ease?

If the viewpoint is low, do the figures stand out against the horizon and seem in touch with the heavens?

And what about light and color?

Does the light produce sharp theatrical contrasts, throwing some parts into deep dark shadows?

Or are there gentle unifications?

Is the color realistic or is it expressive?

It gives you a highly specific lens to view the art through.

If you're just staring at it, you have a job to do.

Exactly.

And once you've run through that checklist, you have to ask yourself two ultimate critical questions to formulate your argument.

Okay, what are they?

First, what is this doing?

This requires you to identify with the artist's specific choices.

Why is a figure placed here and not there?

Why are the shadows omitted?

Second, why do I have this response?

See, this feels like the hardest part for a lot of students.

Trusting that their own emotional reaction to a piece of art is actually a valid starting point for an academic paper.

It is absolutely valid, provided you follow it up with evidence.

If a landscape makes you feel unnerved or if you find a figure strangely pathetic or

Assume that your response is appropriate.

Trust your gut.

Yes.

But then follow that feeling backward to find the visual evidence that caused it.

Did you feel unnerved because of a jagged diagonal line in the background?

Did you feel soothed because of a gentle unification of light?

That feeling, backed by visual evidence, is the seed of your thesis.

Here's where it gets really interesting.

How do we take those individual observations and elevate them?

The answer usually lies in comparison.

Yes, comparison is key.

There's a brilliant quote from the writer Howard Nemirov here.

He says,

if you really want to see something, look at something else.

I love that quote.

It's so good.

We don't compare things just to make a boring list of similarities and differences.

We do it because our mind is energized by contrast.

Comparing two things forces us to see the original subject much more clearly.

It forces you to notice things you would otherwise completely pass over.

To demonstrate this, let's walk through the chapter's fascinating photographic example.

It's William Notman's 1885 photograph titled Fauxes in 76, Friends in 85.

This is a photo featuring Buffalo Bill and the Sioux chief Sitting Bull.

Buffalo Bill was incredibly famous for his Wild West shows, and Sitting Bull, who had famously defeated Custer at Little Winghorn, actually appeared in Buffalo Bill's show in 1885.

This photo was used to publicize that specific tour.

When you apply that visual checklist we just talked about and look closely at the details, the contrast between the two men is striking.

It really is.

Let's look at Buffalo Bill first.

He is wearing these fancy, shiny boots, a mammoth belt buckle, and a highly decorated jacket.

He's striking this incredibly theatrical pose.

His right hand is dramatically placed on his heart, his head is tilted back, and he's gazing off into the future.

He takes up a lot of space.

He does.

He is literally surrounding Sitting Bull.

His left leg is planted in front of Sitting Bull, and his shoulder is behind him.

Bill even has his hand resting on top of his gun.

Now hold that image of Buffalo Bill in your mind and apply Nemrov's advice.

Look at something else.

Consider the contrast with Sitting Bull.

Sitting Bull just stands there.

He's looking downward.

He isn't striking a pose at all.

You get the distinct feeling he's just going along with what is expected of him for the photo shoot.

And the background really seals the deal.

If you look closely at the edges, you realize the great outdoors behind them is totally fake.

It is a painted backdrop, and they are standing on what is clearly a fake grass mat on a studio floor.

It's completely constructed.

But wait, I have to play devil's advocate here for a second.

If Buffalo Bill is literally stepping in front of a Sitting Bull, putting his hand on his gun, and taking up all the physical space and attention in the frame, doesn't that make him the dominant, powerful one in the photo?

How does a student argue otherwise?

That is exactly the kind of critical pushback a writer needs to employ.

You are identifying the obvious visual hierarchy.

But an evaluative thesis goes beyond the obvious.

You don't just list the boots and the backdrop.

You evaluate what those visual choices actually achieve.

The visual evidence suggests Buffalo Bill is putting immense effort into looking powerful.

He is essentially all showbiz, while Sitting Bull simply exists and retains his dignity.

A sample student paragraph on this photo executes this argument perfectly.

The student acknowledges your point that Buffalo Bill is the dominant figure in the composition.

But the student's thesis is that Buffalo Bill's aggressive theatrical efforts to appear great actually backfire.

They try too hard.

Exactly.

Those efforts make him appear small and faintly ridiculous next to Sitting Bull's quiet inwardness.

That completely flips the initial impression of the photo.

It does, and that is exactly how you use specific visual evidence, like a theatrical pose or a fake grass mat, to formulate a structured, persuasive academic argument.

You aren't just saying what is there.

You are arguing what it means.

Which brings us to the final and probably most complex layer of this analytical process, bringing a poem back into the mix and synthesizing it with the photograph.

This is where it all comes together.

Let's look at E .E.

Cummings's poem, Buffalo Bills.

It was written around 1917, the year Buffalo Bill died and published a few years later.

The language in this poem is incredibly distinct.

Cummings is known for that.

Yeah.

It starts by calling him defunct rather than dead.

It mentions his water -smooth silver stallion.

It talks about how we could break clay pigeons rapidly.

And the way Cummings writes it on the page is striking.

He writes, one, two, three, four, five, pigeons, just like that.

And those words are all mashed together with no spaces between them.

Right on the page.

And the poem ends by asking a question.

How do you like your blue -eyed boy, Mr.

Death?

This raises an important question and it models a vital academic skill,

arguing with oneself.

Arguing with oneself.

Yeah.

Critical thinking requires you to look at the same piece of evidence from multiple angles before settling on a thesis.

So looking at the poem, is Cummings satirizing Buffalo Bill here or is he praising him?

Well, addressing Mr.

Death feels almost familiar.

Maybe even mocking.

And why use the word defunct instead of dead?

Exactly.

Defunct sounds clinical, like a broken machine or a bankrupt business.

It strips away all the romance of the Wild West.

Precisely.

You have to weigh those seemingly cynical word choices against the obvious admiration in a phrase like water -smooth silver stallion.

It's a contradiction.

It is.

To see how to navigate this, we can look at a final sample student essay by a writer named Sebastian Welch.

This essay shows exactly how to write a synthesis essay that connects the not -man photograph we just talked about with this E .E.

Cummings poem.

Two totally different sources.

Right.

It's a brilliant example of taking two totally different mediums and weaving them into one cohesive argument.

How does the student manage to connect a studio photograph with a poem full of mashed up words?

I mean, where is the overlap?

The student structures the synthesis by finding the thematic bridge between the visual and the textual.

First, the student acknowledges the argument we just made about the photograph, that Buffalo Bill looks like a theatrical show -off in his fancy clothes.

Right.

But the student introduces a new perspective, arguing that this is perfectly fine because Buffalo Bill is quite literally in show business.

We shouldn't expect quiet modesty from an entertainer.

Fair point.

But the real genius of the student's essay comes from how they handle the textual evidence of the poem to support this defense of Buffalo Bill.

They focus on those squished together words.

One, two, four, five pigeons just like that.

Yes.

The student uses that unique spatial formatting on the page as direct textual evidence.

That's so smart.

The student argues that running the words together without spaces isn't just a stylistic quirk.

It indicates the clay pigeons were tossed into the air in rapid succession.

Bill didn't have time to take careful, slow aim.

Because he was so fast.

Right.

The formatting of the words proves that he was so extraordinarily skilled he could hit moving targets instantly.

The student uses this close reading to prove that underneath the showbiz hype and the fake grass mats, Buffalo Bill had genuine, undeniable skill.

So he actually earned the right to wear the flashy boots and strike the theatrical pose because he could back it up with his talent.

Exactly.

And the student's conclusion synthesizes both the photo and the poem to deliver a powerful final insight.

The essay concludes that when the poem asks how Mr.

Death likes his blue -eyed boy, the answer must be that Mr.

Death likes him very much.

Why?

Because Mr.

Death, who is the ultimate taker of lives, cannot hope for anyone more adepted his craft than the sharpshooter Buffalo Bill.

Oh, that is such a satisfying conclusion.

Isn't it?

The student didn't just summarize Cummings and Notman.

The student created an entirely new understanding of Buffalo Bill's legacy by crashing those two sources together.

And as you prepare to write your own papers, remember that this is the ultimate goal of academic literary writing.

It's about taking multiple sources, reading them closely, and pulling out highly specific evidence that evidence could be the spacing of a single word on a page, the clinical tone of the word defunct, or the placement of a leg in a studio photograph.

You take those disparate details, analyze what the creator was doing, and synthesize them into a completely original insight.

So what does this all mean for you and your writing?

Let's wrap this up.

Sure.

The key takeaway here is that whether you are analyzing a classical painting, a staged photograph, or an unconventionally formatted poem,

the underlying process is exactly the same.

First, you have to trust your initial responses.

If something feels off, or beautiful, or faintly ridiculous, lean into that feeling.

Trust your gut.

Exactly.

Second, look incredibly closely at how the creator constructed the piece.

Use the visual checklist.

Ask why the artist made those specific intentional choices.

Third, use comparison to highlight hidden details.

Remember Nemirov's advice.

Look at something else to see your subject more clearly.

And finally, rely on highly specific textual or visual evidence to build a logical, persuasive argument.

You are never just reporting what is there, you are interpreting why it matters.

If we connect this to the bigger picture, think about the journey of interpretation we just discussed today.

Anne Sexton looked at a painting by Van Gogh and created a poem that completely recontextualized it.

A student looked at a photograph of Buffalo Bill and a poem by E .E.

Cummings and synthesized a totally new understanding of an American icon.

This raises a provocative thought for our modern era.

Every example we discuss relied on human intentionality.

A painter choosing a color, a photographer staging a pose, a poet mashing words together on a typewriter.

But what happens now, when artificial intelligence can generate highly detailed images from text prompts in mere seconds, we are literally turning words into pictures and pictures into words without a human hand making deliberate emotional choices behind the lens or the brush.

That's wild to think about.

How will that change the way we read the language of a picture?

When the friction and intent of the human artist are removed, what new critical questions will we have to ask to find our thesis?

That is an incredible paradigm shift to think about.

If analyzing art requires us to question the creator's choices, what do we do when the creator is an algorithm?

Exactly.

It just proves that critical reading and synthesis are more vital now than ever before.

Well, thank you so much for joining us for this deep dive into the mechanics of analysis and argument.

On behalf of the last minute lecture team, we want to say a warm thank you for listening and we wish you the absolute best of luck on your writing journey.

You have the tools, you have the checklist, now go make your own arguments.