We asked our spring 2021 intern Adj to complete one of the activities in the Writing Prompts for Visual Art packet we created to guide museum goers of all ages to engage more deeply with works of visual art. Adj chose to create diamante poems for five pieces in Young Contemporaries 2021. You can see this activity and all the other writing prompts by clicking here.
As you can see in Adj’s examples below, creating a diamante not only helps the viewer slow down and consider a work of art more closely, but also creates a fun shaped poem! Considering that the lines of your poem don’t need to rhyme in this structure and are based entirely on what you are personally observing and noticing, it can be completed by art lovers of all ages!
Diamante poem instructions:
L1 – a word that comes to mind, immediately
L2 – an action phrase based on something you see or sense in the work
L3 – a comparison, using like or as, between something in the art and something in the real world
L4 – a word that comes to mind, immediately
Jillian Thorvaldson, Sweet & Sour, 2021, silver gelatin print
Striking
Staged lust and desire
The white tulle encapsulates the model like it was protecting their virtue from those yearning
Shielded
Meghan Donohue, All Consuming, 2020, painting
Lawless
The fire is devouring everything in sight
Just as wildfire firemen battle to extinguish the fire, all humans need to fight against climate change
Infernal
Timothy Hunter, Es la hora del jugo demonzone, 2020, painting
Relatable
Drowning in the deep when the world seems too hard
Just as society causes our distresses, it forces people to suppress and control their emotions.
Repress
Daniel Jacobs, Within the Yggdrasil Tree, 2021, drawing
Detailed
Mythizing the Yggdrasil Tree’s reality
The work is centered around the Yggdrasil Tree, just like how the tree is the center of the cosmos
Folklore
Glenn Courtney, Through the Eyes of the Innocent, 2020, sculpture
Advocate
Propoganda to help broadcast the need to rethink our plastic use
Just as Sea Turtles need Humans to responsibly dispose of trash, humanity needs a healthy ocean
Conservation
