“Line as Language”

Jennifer Hernandez created “Line as Language” from Line & Form by Walter Crane (1900). Please click here to read.

About the poem and the process of composing it, Jennifer Hernandez writes:

My found poem is sourced from Line & Form by Walter Crane. I chose Chapter II – The Language of Line – as what seemed to me a perfect starting point in a text for artists waiting to be transformed into the art of poetry. First, I printed several pages of text from the chosen chapter. Next, I skimmed through the text, circling words and phrases that caught my attention. These words and phrases I typed into a document, which I then divided into initial stanzas. I knew that I had too much text, so I let the words rest for a period of time before returning to them. With fresh eyes, I was able to move the initial stanzas around, choosing the strongest lines and eliminating the rest. Finally, I reworked the line and stanza breaks to arrive at the finished poem.

Also by Jennifer Hernandez at Heron Tree: “Inductance” and “Of Medicines appropriated to the heart.”