A Day in Class:  Interpreting Poetry through Image

Using their analysis skills, students read and discussed the poem The Great Figure (1921) by William Carlos Williams.  They then reviewed the famous painting "The Figure 5 in Gold: by Charles Demuth (1928) and called upon their knowledge of art history to compare and contrast the two.  After their discussions, students created their own artistic interpretations of the abstract poem.

The poem:

The Great Figure

Among the rain
and lights
I saw the figure 5
in gold
on a red
fire truck
moving
tense
unheeded
to gong clangs
siren howls
and wheels rumbling
through the dark city

William Carlos Williams
Sour Grapes: A Book of Poems
Four Seas Company, Boston, 1921

Student artwork, submitted in response to the poem: