Catherine D. Yates
Short poem practicing the principles for identifying an object, based on art historian Jules Prown’s method as a practice for community scrapbook writing and composition
- Description: analysis of content
- Deduction: sensory, intellectual and emotional engagement and
- Speculation: theories + hypothesis, a program of research
Identifying an object based on Prown’s steps of description, deduction and speculation sets up a basic path for direct learning, both through senses and your intellect, allowing for distinctions to be made between realms. In this case, reckoning with the consciousness of paper, ink, and photography without captions creates a malleable, fluid-like gaze, reflections of projections.
Describe the object as something which transcends your knowledge, as if it were magical, it held powers you felt within yourself or powers you want to have.
Ex: Inscripted, solid, ornate, language of Gods written by men, crafted, bejeweled by women, out of the door, reference and referential, distal, collegiate, sub, beneath
Deduce that the object is useful, very, very ordinary, and designed for tasks, like a fork is for eating cakes or a road is constructed for travelling up a mountain.
Ex: The work of many hands, the fruits of mostly inside voices, temperature gauge of deep cave, memory meter or a key to a paradoxical side of the fence
Speculate that your object is part of a larger story. Place your object into a vast theory, or hypothesis for what this object can accomplish. How can this object solve a human quest?
Ex: This is a message for how to unwind duality, to break down concepts, make them into poetry, a story that heals most hurts and gives balm to many doubts
Now, collect your descriptions, deductions and speculations into a poem/ short prose using
ALT Shift 5 or any method which works for your writing style
Ex Inscripted, solid, ornate, language of Gods written by men, crafted, bejeweled by women, out the door, reference and referential, distal,collegiate, sub, beneath
The work of many hands, the fruits of mostly inside voices, temperature gauge of deep cave, memory meter or a key to a paradoxical side of the fence
This is a message for how to unwind duality, to break down concepts, make them into poetry, a story that heals most hurts and gives balm to many doubts
In your preferred style of writing, combine the different elements into a piece of short prose based on Jules Prown’s identification strategies.
Narrative and Descriptive Writing Using Your Senses in Anton Chekov’s Short Story “Gooseberries”
“Nature seemed gentle and melancholy, Ivan Ivanich and Bourkin were filled with love for the fields and thought how grand and beautiful the country was.”13 In this passage Chekov writes about his characters’ relationship to the outdoors. Reflect on how nature seems to you. Write sentences to describe what the outdoors means to you in Chekov’s style.
‘'It is a long time since I bathed," said Aliokhin shyly, as he soaped himself again, and the water round him became dark blue, like ink.’14 Here Chekov writes about taking a restorative bath. Write about an ordinary daily activity that you found special and moving.
Practice using Chekov’s precise style to appreciate your own relationships with your life.
