Out of Tragedy, Comes Hope.

What seemed so perfect,

so blue and bright

would be crashed down to the ground

destroying that even, perfect line

and creating this broken,

  place,

where chaos and destruction become hope.

And we unite to recreate that line

which will never be perfect again.

But has strung together these opposing sides

to create a line more powerful and new.

Although we are now joyous from connections

we won’t forget the line,

that was once straight and blue.

Ekphrastic Poem Intention Statement

In “Out of Tragedy, Comes Hope.” I am the exploring the feeling of “saudade” through the experience of destruction. Saudade is a Portuguese word that has no direct translation in English. Simply, it means the love that remains after something or someone is gone, the feeling of sadness from an experience with memories connected to it, but also the happiness from experiencing the feeling. In this poem, the narrator could be anyone, it could be me or the person who is reading it. The narrator of the poem is responding to the concept statement through telling a story. They talk about how after destroying something, all of that becomes something better. There is a bittersweet feeling that is commonly associated with destroying something familiar to create something new. The subject of the poem is the art piece, the water bottles filled with the blue liquid. The attitude is originally sad towards the subject because the straight line of water was destroyed, but then they are happy about the new meaning of a more crooked line. The image of the straight blue line referencing the water bottles in general is a metaphor for something that has been created. That holds a lot of power and symbolism and means a lot to people, so that when it is destroyed, it evokes strong feelings. I broke the lines up and made “place” its own line, because that is the point where the mood shifts from more of a sad tone to a happier tone. Then in the last few lines I rhymed “new” and “blue” and also had the phrases look similar so that they could be connected. I did this so that the poem could come to a nice sounding end, and also so that it could go full circle.