Alice Walker
Be Nobody’s Darling
This project was to choose one of the listed poets to create a Collected Poems illustrated cover and spread only using liquid media (paint, watercolor, honey, food coloring, etc). I chose Alice Walker because I enjoyed how her stories consisted of the troubling times in the racist South, and through all
the unfortunate hardships, there is hope. That is why the cover has a forgotten and lost balloon, however, it is floating in a beautiful, calming,
and peaceful sky. The mediums for this project are watercolor and food coloring.
The poem spread is illustrated for Be Nobody’s Darling. Do not be ashamed
of being different from society, take control of your life, and be proud, bold, and confident. Be your own person. That is why the lone silhouetted figure is running through the beautiful landscape, relating to how the poem uses user interjection and actions to imply movement.
Claude McKay
If We Must Die
The expansion for the Collected Poems illustrated cover and spread is
Claude McKay, a Jamaican American poet who wrote poems about the
trials and tribulations of white authority during the 1920s. His poems
include motivation, hope, and resistance towards violence to uplift the oppressed African Americans.
The cover illustrates an abstract bloody red sky to relate to the events
of his poems, with a group of fists showing empowerment and resistance toward the troubling topics discussed. The spread covers his poem, “If We Must Die” showcasing that if we must die, let us not die like pigs, but nobly brave and fighting back with no fear but pride.
