“Snow-Image”

Jami Macarty created “Snow-Image” from “The Snow-Image: A Childish Miracle” in The Snow-Image, and Other Twice-Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1852). Please click here to read.

“Snow-Image” was made by highlighting two to fifteen words on each page of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story. Though I started the highlighting process from the story’s last page and moved backward to the story’s first page, I maintained the story’s given order of words as they appear on each page from start to finish within the poem. I left capitalizations and spellings of words as is. I removed two plurals and one -ed; I added an -ing and made a preposition from the letters of other words, one time each. When adding to or making words, I gave myself a constraint of order and placement. So, when I was looking to add an -ing, the three letters of the suffix had to occur in the order following the word to which the suffix was being added. If they did not, I had to come up with a different way or word. Finally, I let the story’s twenty-two pages dictate a formal element of the poem: the number of pages corresponds to the number of sections. The results: “Snow-Image!”

I had fun making this poem and am gratified by the process and the product. I have wanted to participate in a Heron Tree call for a while and hurrah I did it!