Here's a sample of excellent cowboy poetry written by Timberview students in Mr. B's classes over the last several years. You can find previous drafts of William C.'s 2007 poem "The Lost Cowboy" at tviewlalab.blogspot.com in the post "Cowboy Poems" and see how Will kept making improvements until he finally ran out of time. "Cowboy Poker" by John S. and "My Cowboy's Return" by Katie K. along with "The Lost Cowboy" were submitted to the 2007 Red Steagall Cowboy Gathering Youth Poetry Contest. In 2006, Elizabeth C.'s poem "How the West Began" (also published here) won first place in that contest, and in 2004, "Picture" Marissa H.'s poem won second place. It's here, too.
My Cowboy’s Return
by Katie K., 2007
I knew the drive would take a while, how long he couldn’t say.
I hoped that he’d be comin’ back before the end of May.
He said, “I’ll try to hurry home so I’ll be back with you
And pretty soon our baby girl or little buckaroo.
We thought he would be back in time; she wasn’t due till June.
The pains, they started comin’though a month or so too soon.
Long hours of pain ‘n’ pushin’ and our baby girl appeared
Her daddy not beside me, just as I had feared.
My heart was filled with dread and fear ‘cause she was itty bitty.
Although she was so small and weak, her tiny face was pretty.
Seven days had come and gone before I heard the neigh
Of my sweet cowboy’s chestnut mare I’d prayed for every day.
An anxious look upon his face, with trail dust in his hair,
He looked at his new baby girl, her skin so very fair,
And when he took her in his arms, I knew that she’d be fine
‘Cause daddy’s brand new little gal smiled for the very first time.
Cowboy Poker
by John S., 2007
Five fine gamblers sit around a table,
Five gents from cities back East,
Five high-class card-sharks, minds sharp and able,
And one bunkhouse player cowboy.
Five stone cold faces, showing not one thought,
Five faces born of eastern creed,
Five expressions with emotions naught,
And one wide, cocky cowboy smirk.
Five expensive suits with black and gold threads,
Five pairs of brand new leather shoes,
Five regal hats set high upon their heads,
And one rough, dusty cowboy hat.
The cards are drawn, the ante’s in,
The poker players examine their hands.
Eyes glare out from behind the cards,
To see a broad grin learned from western lands.
Indeed, the cowboy grinned with heart,
His face shone bright with mirthful confidence.
The gamblers shrunk beneath its glow,
But each man’s hand gave him assurance.
The pot was large and filled with green,
And each showed his hand in a nervous rush,
But the cowboy’s hand crushed them all,
For he showed a royal flush.
The cowboy grinned and pulled in his due
Then smiled, “Hey don’t y’all whine a peck!
You got no reason to be so blue.
You just couldn’t win with a western deck.”
The Lost Cowboy
By Will C., 2007
Where have all those cowhands gone,
those men with the calloused hands,
the untamed souls who tend the cattle,
and thrive in our native lands?
Those stubborn ol' righteous cowboys,
all set in their mulish ways,
keepin' to their sacred code.
every night and every day?
Where’s that devoted tough ol' bunch,
with spurs that never die,
their leathery bodies hard at work,
with minds tough and tried?
They worked the ranches and rode the range,
with sweat runnin' down their side,
the hardest workin' lot of men,
their hearts swollen with pride.
Now where have all them cowboys gone,
away from the place they called home,
the vacant space they left behind,
where the cattle no longer roam?
Maybe those folk who live their lives,
always ridin' so free,
never have been really gone,
but live inside you and me.
How the West Began
by Elizabeth C., 2006
I’m not so sure just how the West began,
But I’ll tell you what I know:
Cowboys have been here forever
Through the rain, the sleet, and the snow.
Ropin’ the cattle, keepin’ the wild horses tame,
Livin’ life and hopin’ things will always be the same.
We look at the stars when life becomes a bore,
But them cowboys look up and see a little bit more.
They made a trail where not many go
And looked to the West when them wild winds blow.
They passed on their stories, legends, and ideals,
So when the past opens up, we’ll know they were real.
I’m not sure how the West began,
So I’ll tell you what I know:
The cowboy’s heart is forever,
And a cowboy’s forever never ends.
Picture
By Marissa H., 2004
Lookin' at that young'n in this picture
you could hardly tell that little girl is me -
bright eyes squintin' in the blazin' hot sun
'bove a wide smile so warm and carefree.
My silky, dark hair's a'blowin' in the wind
streamin' 'neath Pa's ol' rawhide hat,
reminds me of his patched and tattered clothes
and that peculiar way he always spat.
I got my favorite pony's reins in hand.
Her po' elderly head's a hangin' low.
Through her old age she never called it quits
though her pace grew real nice and slow.
Chips are scattered all around the grass
just waitin' for me to gather 'em up.
Wood's scarce there on the prairie where we lived,
we always used cow chips to cook our sup'.
I'm sportin' my brand-new calico dress
that MeeMa finished sewin' night before.
It was the only one she made that year.
Our crops was thin, and we was really poor.
My li'l white home stands solid there behind me.
The paint is peelin', and the wood is old.
My Gramps and his and his had all been born there.
'Least that's the windy I've always been told.
I don't rightly know where Pa's hat got to.
There's only a few strands left of my hair.
My blessed horse left her stall long ago.
That lovely homemade dress's gone threadbare.
Yet my eyes is just as lively and as brown.
My broad grin still lights up the darkest rooms.
True, my worn skin now has a web of wrinkles,
but the cowgirl spirit of my youth still blooms.
Monday, October 8, 2007
Friday, October 5, 2007
Film Noir Visual Motifs - Lecture Notes 2
Visual Styles of Film Noir: Iconography
Notes from a Lecture by Dr. David E. Whillock, Professor and Associate Dean of the College of Communications at TCU. Presented Sept. 26, 2007 at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth as part of a series titled: American Cinema: Film Noir and the Detective Film.
Whether one thinks of film noir as a style of moviemaking or a genre of movies (and that question is debated by the experts) [Ed. Though I myself can't understand the importance of the distinction without further enlightenment.] the film noir films do have distinctive visual motifs. As Hollywood had moved away from silent films with their inserted titles clarifying and focusing everything for the audience, the early talking pictures were hesitant to move away from balanced, conventional visuals, fearing that audiences might not be able to stay properly focused. Visually, film noir was a reaction against this formal, predictable, comfortable, balanced focusing. The film noir films of the 1940s and 50s, in contrast to their lightweight forbears, sought to develop an internal dimension, more introspective and psychological. Subjective effects like the voice over and flashback helped develop this internal dimension, and film noir used these techniques extensively. Noir filmmakers challenged the comfortable passivity of audiences by creating intentional stress and near strangulation with moods venturing into claustrophobia, paranoia, fear, despair, and nihilism. And their primary tool for creating these moods and establishing this unsettling discomfort was not dialogue so much as style, especially visual style.
1. Keeping things close. Though usually set in a city, film noir seldom used wide establishing shots of an expanse of buildings or a wide span of view. Many shots reaching beyond the close confines of a room were shot through a window.
2. Low key lighting. Lighting experts identify "key lighting" (that lights the main subject) and "fill lighting" (that lights other areas that would otherwise be in shadow) with traditional film lighting designed to reduce contrast and shadow. Low-key lighting used in film noir increases the contrast and intentionally creates and uses shadows.
3. Darkness. Film noir (French, literally "black film") makes use of darkness, not just in the high contrast effect of low-key lighting, but by creating dark spaces in its scenes. In the darkness other rooms and faces exist, but until they enter the light there is a sense that there is nothing beyond the light source. The prominence of darkness in film noir increases its psychological impact with a fear of the unknown and a mysteriousness about what is or is not. In the visual and figurative darkness, a character's motives and true identity remain uncertain and unrevealed. Film noir's use of darkness suggests that light is on the verge of being overcome by the darkness. And likewise hope and joy and peace and comfort.
4. Mise en scène. Film noir often employs a distinctive mise en scène (another somewhat slippery French language term meaning literally "putting on stage"). In the context of this lecture, mise en scène seems to mean "everything that appears before the camera and its arrangement – sets, props, actors, costumes, and lighting." (Wikipedia) As a visual motif, the term seems to suggest everything that is within the frame of a shot, perhaps as if the frame duplicates the arch of a proscenium stage. But the creation of what is framed in a shot is not fixed as on a stage. Thus, mise en scène refers to "all elements of visual style — that is, both elements on the set (or within the frame) and aspects of the camera (that create it)." (Wikipedia) The mise en scène of film noir involves off balance composition, and off angle shots creating compositional tension. It often conveys "the information of a scene primarily through a single shot – often accompanied by camera movement" rather than "multiple angles pieced together through editing." (Wikipedia) Thus, the audience enters an unsafe, unstable, uncomfortable world and may find itself asking, "Why do I feel this way?" The film noir mise en scène is often the answer.
5. Choker shots. Choker shorts are extreme close-ups of a face alone often used in film noir to intentionally create discomfort by staying too close for too long. Twitching lips, shifting eyes, and tiny facial details both close and disclose the character while the extended visual invasion of another's space creates dis-ease in the audience and a sense that there is no backing off from reality here.
6. Extended depth of field. Film noir often uses an extended depth of field, that is, it extends the distance in front of and behind the subject that appears to be in focus in a shot . Thus, a character's face and the buildings behind it may all be in focus. The effect of this on the viewer is a sense of equal weight of both the character and his or her environment. The forces acting on a character, the pressures of enclosing circumstances and encircling doom, are intensified by a deeper depth of field.
7. Minimal camera movement. The limited camera movement of film noir also emphasizes the forces of a character's environment, suggesting that a scene moves around a character instead of the other way around.
8. Nighttime lighting. A great deal of the action in film noir occurs at night. As a visual motif rather than a necessity of plotting, this works to reinforce other motifs mentioned above along with the addition of water (with its heaviness and confinement) in street scenes. According to the contract of union lighting workers of the period, all night shots must include water. [Ed. Huh? Go figure.]
9. Vertical lines. Of particular note in Out of the Past the noir film screened in connection with this lecture, the use of oblique vertical lines dramatically splinters the screen as the mounting tension splinters the characters' psyche.
Notes from a Lecture by Dr. David E. Whillock, Professor and Associate Dean of the College of Communications at TCU. Presented Sept. 26, 2007 at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth as part of a series titled: American Cinema: Film Noir and the Detective Film.
Whether one thinks of film noir as a style of moviemaking or a genre of movies (and that question is debated by the experts) [Ed. Though I myself can't understand the importance of the distinction without further enlightenment.] the film noir films do have distinctive visual motifs. As Hollywood had moved away from silent films with their inserted titles clarifying and focusing everything for the audience, the early talking pictures were hesitant to move away from balanced, conventional visuals, fearing that audiences might not be able to stay properly focused. Visually, film noir was a reaction against this formal, predictable, comfortable, balanced focusing. The film noir films of the 1940s and 50s, in contrast to their lightweight forbears, sought to develop an internal dimension, more introspective and psychological. Subjective effects like the voice over and flashback helped develop this internal dimension, and film noir used these techniques extensively. Noir filmmakers challenged the comfortable passivity of audiences by creating intentional stress and near strangulation with moods venturing into claustrophobia, paranoia, fear, despair, and nihilism. And their primary tool for creating these moods and establishing this unsettling discomfort was not dialogue so much as style, especially visual style.
1. Keeping things close. Though usually set in a city, film noir seldom used wide establishing shots of an expanse of buildings or a wide span of view. Many shots reaching beyond the close confines of a room were shot through a window.
2. Low key lighting. Lighting experts identify "key lighting" (that lights the main subject) and "fill lighting" (that lights other areas that would otherwise be in shadow) with traditional film lighting designed to reduce contrast and shadow. Low-key lighting used in film noir increases the contrast and intentionally creates and uses shadows.
3. Darkness. Film noir (French, literally "black film") makes use of darkness, not just in the high contrast effect of low-key lighting, but by creating dark spaces in its scenes. In the darkness other rooms and faces exist, but until they enter the light there is a sense that there is nothing beyond the light source. The prominence of darkness in film noir increases its psychological impact with a fear of the unknown and a mysteriousness about what is or is not. In the visual and figurative darkness, a character's motives and true identity remain uncertain and unrevealed. Film noir's use of darkness suggests that light is on the verge of being overcome by the darkness. And likewise hope and joy and peace and comfort.
4. Mise en scène. Film noir often employs a distinctive mise en scène (another somewhat slippery French language term meaning literally "putting on stage"). In the context of this lecture, mise en scène seems to mean "everything that appears before the camera and its arrangement – sets, props, actors, costumes, and lighting." (Wikipedia) As a visual motif, the term seems to suggest everything that is within the frame of a shot, perhaps as if the frame duplicates the arch of a proscenium stage. But the creation of what is framed in a shot is not fixed as on a stage. Thus, mise en scène refers to "all elements of visual style — that is, both elements on the set (or within the frame) and aspects of the camera (that create it)." (Wikipedia) The mise en scène of film noir involves off balance composition, and off angle shots creating compositional tension. It often conveys "the information of a scene primarily through a single shot – often accompanied by camera movement" rather than "multiple angles pieced together through editing." (Wikipedia) Thus, the audience enters an unsafe, unstable, uncomfortable world and may find itself asking, "Why do I feel this way?" The film noir mise en scène is often the answer.
5. Choker shots. Choker shorts are extreme close-ups of a face alone often used in film noir to intentionally create discomfort by staying too close for too long. Twitching lips, shifting eyes, and tiny facial details both close and disclose the character while the extended visual invasion of another's space creates dis-ease in the audience and a sense that there is no backing off from reality here.
6. Extended depth of field. Film noir often uses an extended depth of field, that is, it extends the distance in front of and behind the subject that appears to be in focus in a shot . Thus, a character's face and the buildings behind it may all be in focus. The effect of this on the viewer is a sense of equal weight of both the character and his or her environment. The forces acting on a character, the pressures of enclosing circumstances and encircling doom, are intensified by a deeper depth of field.
7. Minimal camera movement. The limited camera movement of film noir also emphasizes the forces of a character's environment, suggesting that a scene moves around a character instead of the other way around.
8. Nighttime lighting. A great deal of the action in film noir occurs at night. As a visual motif rather than a necessity of plotting, this works to reinforce other motifs mentioned above along with the addition of water (with its heaviness and confinement) in street scenes. According to the contract of union lighting workers of the period, all night shots must include water. [Ed. Huh? Go figure.]
9. Vertical lines. Of particular note in Out of the Past the noir film screened in connection with this lecture, the use of oblique vertical lines dramatically splinters the screen as the mounting tension splinters the characters' psyche.
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