Thursday 25 September 2014
Today we got set our second assignment which is the fiction adaptation unit. For this unit, we have to choose one of five poems and adapt it to how we see fit, creating a story to the poem, and filming a short film as well. We also have to write a 2-2.5k word essay answering one of the essay questions below.
Here are the five poems that we have to choose from
POEMS for Fiction Adaptation Project 2014
Anthem for a Doomed Youth – by Wilfred Owen (1917)
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells; Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, –
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all? Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall; Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds, And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
The Death Bed – by Siegfried Sassoon (1916)
He drowsed and was aware of silence heaped Round him, unshaken as the steadfast walls; Aqueous like floating rays of amber light, Soaring and quivering in the wings of sleep. Silence and safety; and his mortal shore Lipped by the inward, moonless waves of death.
Someone was holding water to his mouth. He swallowed, unresisting; moaned and dropped Through crimson gloom to darkness; and forgot The opiate throb and ache that was his wound. Water-calm, sliding green above the weir. Water-a sky-lit alley for his boat, Bird- voiced, and bordered with reflected flowers And shaken hues of summer; drifting down, He dipped contented oars, and sighed, and slept.
Night, with a gust of wind, was in the ward, Blowing the curtain to a glimmering curve. Night. He was blind; he could not see the stars Glinting among the wraiths of wandering cloud; Queer blots of colour, purple, scarlet, green, Flickered and faded in his drowning eyes.
Rain-he could hear it rustling through the dark; Fragrance and passionless music woven as one; Warm rain on drooping roses; pattering showers That soak the woods; not the harsh rain that sweeps Behind the thunder, but a trickling
peace, Gently and slowly washing life away.
He stirred, shifting his body; then the pain Leapt like a prowling beast, and gripped and tore His groping dreams with grinding claws and fangs. But someone was beside him; soon he lay Shuddering because that evil thing had passed. And death, who’d stepped toward him, paused and stared.
He drowsed and was aware of silence heaped Round him, unshaken as the steadfast walls; Aqueous like floating rays of amber light, Soaring and quivering in the wings of sleep. Silence and safety; and his mortal shore Lipped by the inward, moonless waves of death.
Someone was holding water to his mouth. He swallowed, unresisting; moaned and dropped Through crimson gloom to darkness; and forgot The opiate throb and ache that was his wound. Water-calm, sliding green above the weir. Water-a sky-lit alley for his boat, Bird- voiced, and bordered with reflected flowers And shaken hues of summer; drifting down, He dipped contented oars, and sighed, and slept.
Night, with a gust of wind, was in the ward, Blowing the curtain to a glimmering curve. Night. He was blind; he could not see the stars Glinting among the wraiths of wandering cloud; Queer blots of colour, purple, scarlet, green, Flickered and faded in his drowning eyes.
Rain-he could hear it rustling through the dark; Fragrance and passionless music woven as one; Warm rain on drooping roses; pattering showers That soak the woods; not the harsh rain that sweeps Behind the thunder, but a trickling
peace, Gently and slowly washing life away.
He stirred, shifting his body; then the pain Leapt like a prowling beast, and gripped and tore His groping dreams with grinding claws and fangs. But someone was beside him; soon he lay Shuddering because that evil thing had passed. And death, who’d stepped toward him, paused and stared.
Light many lamps and gather round his bed. Lend him your eyes, warm blood,
and will to live. Speak to him; rouse him; you may save him yet. He’s young; he
hated War; how should he die When cruel old campaigners win safe through?
But death replied: ‘I choose him.’ So he went, And there was silence in the summer night; Silence and safety; and the veils of sleep. Then, far away, the thudding of the guns.
But death replied: ‘I choose him.’ So he went, And there was silence in the summer night; Silence and safety; and the veils of sleep. Then, far away, the thudding of the guns.
The Cenotaph – By Charlotte Mew (1919)
Not yet will those measureless fields be green again Where only yesterday the wild sweet blood of wonderful youth was shed;
There is a grave whose earth must hold too long, too deep a stain, Though for ever over it we may speak as proudly as we may tread.
But here, where the watchers by lonely hearths from the thrust of an inward sword have more slowly bled,
We shall build the Cenotaph: Victory, winged, with Peace, winged too, at the column’s head.
And over the stairway, at the foot—oh! here, leave desolate, passionate hands to spread.
Violets, roses, and laurel, with the small, sweet, tinkling country things Speaking so wistfully of other Springs,
From the little gardens of little places where son or sweet- heart was born and bred.
In splendid sleep, with a thousand brothers
To lovers—to mothers
Here, too, lies he:
Under the purple, the green, the red,
It is all young life: it must break some women’s hearts to see
Such a brave, gay coverlet to such a bed!
Only, when all is done and said,
God is not mocked and neither are the dead
For this will stand in our Market-place—
Who’ll sell, who’ll buy (Will you or I Lie each to each with the better grace)? While looking into every busy whore’s and huckster’s face
As they drive their bargains, is the Face
Of God: and some young, piteous, murdered face.
Not yet will those measureless fields be green again Where only yesterday the wild sweet blood of wonderful youth was shed;
There is a grave whose earth must hold too long, too deep a stain, Though for ever over it we may speak as proudly as we may tread.
But here, where the watchers by lonely hearths from the thrust of an inward sword have more slowly bled,
We shall build the Cenotaph: Victory, winged, with Peace, winged too, at the column’s head.
And over the stairway, at the foot—oh! here, leave desolate, passionate hands to spread.
Violets, roses, and laurel, with the small, sweet, tinkling country things Speaking so wistfully of other Springs,
From the little gardens of little places where son or sweet- heart was born and bred.
In splendid sleep, with a thousand brothers
To lovers—to mothers
Here, too, lies he:
Under the purple, the green, the red,
It is all young life: it must break some women’s hearts to see
Such a brave, gay coverlet to such a bed!
Only, when all is done and said,
God is not mocked and neither are the dead
For this will stand in our Market-place—
Who’ll sell, who’ll buy (Will you or I Lie each to each with the better grace)? While looking into every busy whore’s and huckster’s face
As they drive their bargains, is the Face
Of God: and some young, piteous, murdered face.
Recalling War – By Robert Graves (1938)
Entrance and exit wounds are silvered clean, The track aches only when the rain reminds. The one-legged man forgets his leg of wood, The one-armed man his jointed wooden arm. The blinded man sees with his ears and hands As much or more than once with both his eyes. Their war was fought these 20 years ago And now assumes the nature-look of time, As when the morning traveller turns and views His wild night-stumbling carved into a hill.
What, then, was war? No mere discord of flags But an infection of the common sky That sagged ominously upon the earth Even when the season was the airiest May. Down pressed the sky, and we, oppressed, thrust out Boastful tongue, clenched fist and valiant yard. Natural infirmities were out of mode, For Death was young again; patron alone Of healthy dying, premature fate-spasm.
Fear made fine bed-fellows. Sick with delight At life's discovered
transitoriness, Our youth became all-flesh and waived the mind. Never was such antiqueness of romance, Such tasty honey oozing from the heart. And old importances came swimming back - Wine, meat, log-fires, a roof over the head, A weapon at the thigh, surgeons at call. Even there was a use again for God - A word of rage in lack of meat, wine, fire, In ache of wounds beyond all surgeoning.
War was return of earth to ugly earth, War was foundering of
sublimities, Extinction of each happy art and faith By which the world has still kept head in air, Protesting logic or protesting love, Until the unendurable moment struck - The inward scream, the duty to run mad.
And we recall the merry ways of guns - Nibbling the walls of factory and
church Like a child, piecrust; felling groves of trees Like a child, dandelions with a switch. Machine-guns rattle toy-like from a hill, Down in a row the brave tin- soldiers fall: A sight to be recalled in elder days When learnedly the future we devote To yet more boastful visions of despair.
Entrance and exit wounds are silvered clean, The track aches only when the rain reminds. The one-legged man forgets his leg of wood, The one-armed man his jointed wooden arm. The blinded man sees with his ears and hands As much or more than once with both his eyes. Their war was fought these 20 years ago And now assumes the nature-look of time, As when the morning traveller turns and views His wild night-stumbling carved into a hill.
What, then, was war? No mere discord of flags But an infection of the common sky That sagged ominously upon the earth Even when the season was the airiest May. Down pressed the sky, and we, oppressed, thrust out Boastful tongue, clenched fist and valiant yard. Natural infirmities were out of mode, For Death was young again; patron alone Of healthy dying, premature fate-spasm.
Fear made fine bed-fellows. Sick with delight At life's discovered
transitoriness, Our youth became all-flesh and waived the mind. Never was such antiqueness of romance, Such tasty honey oozing from the heart. And old importances came swimming back - Wine, meat, log-fires, a roof over the head, A weapon at the thigh, surgeons at call. Even there was a use again for God - A word of rage in lack of meat, wine, fire, In ache of wounds beyond all surgeoning.
War was return of earth to ugly earth, War was foundering of
sublimities, Extinction of each happy art and faith By which the world has still kept head in air, Protesting logic or protesting love, Until the unendurable moment struck - The inward scream, the duty to run mad.
And we recall the merry ways of guns - Nibbling the walls of factory and
church Like a child, piecrust; felling groves of trees Like a child, dandelions with a switch. Machine-guns rattle toy-like from a hill, Down in a row the brave tin- soldiers fall: A sight to be recalled in elder days When learnedly the future we devote To yet more boastful visions of despair.
Summer in England, 1914 – By Alice Meynnell (1914)
On London fell a clearer light; Caressing pencils of the sun
Defined the distances, the white Houses transfigured one by one,
The 'long, unlovely street' impearled. O what a sky has walked the world!
Most happy year! And out of town
The hay was prosperous, and the wheat; The silken harvest climbed the down: Moon after moon was heavenly-sweet, Stroking the bread within the sheaves, Looking 'twixt apples and their leaves.
And while this rose made round her cup,
On London fell a clearer light; Caressing pencils of the sun
Defined the distances, the white Houses transfigured one by one,
The 'long, unlovely street' impearled. O what a sky has walked the world!
Most happy year! And out of town
The hay was prosperous, and the wheat; The silken harvest climbed the down: Moon after moon was heavenly-sweet, Stroking the bread within the sheaves, Looking 'twixt apples and their leaves.
And while this rose made round her cup,
The armies died convulsed. And when
This chaste young silver sun went up
Softly, a thousand shattered men,
One wet corruption, heaped the plain, After a league-long throb of pain.
Flower following tender flower; and birds, And berries; and benignant skies
Made thrive the serried flocks and herds. ---Yonder are men shot through the eyes. Love, hide thy face
From man's unpardonable race.
Who said 'No man hath greater love than this, To die to serve his friend'?
So these have loved us all unto the end.
Chide thou no more, O thou unsacrificed!
The soldier dying dies upon a kiss, The very kiss of Christ.
One wet corruption, heaped the plain, After a league-long throb of pain.
Flower following tender flower; and birds, And berries; and benignant skies
Made thrive the serried flocks and herds. ---Yonder are men shot through the eyes. Love, hide thy face
From man's unpardonable race.
Who said 'No man hath greater love than this, To die to serve his friend'?
So these have loved us all unto the end.
Chide thou no more, O thou unsacrificed!
The soldier dying dies upon a kiss, The very kiss of Christ.
