107: How Things Work (1985)

OBJ: Design visuals for a poem.

TASK: Read "How Things Work" by Gary Soto

WORKTIME:

1. make visuals (backgrounds, puppets, objects) for your table's section.

2. have one person narrate, others perform the scene on the table using visuals.

HOW THINGS WORK

(1985)

Today it's going to cost us twenty dollars
To live. Five for a softball. Four for a book,
A handful of ones for coffee and two sweet rolls,
Bus fare, rosin for your mother's violin.
We're completing our task. The tip I left
For the waitress filters down
Like rain, wetting the new roots of a child
Perhaps, a belligerent cat that won't let go
Of a balled sock until there's chicken to eat.
As far as I can tell, daughter, it works like this:
You buy bread from a grocery, a bag of apples
From a fruit stand, and what coins
Are passed on helps others buy pencils, glue,
Tickets to a movie in which laughter
Is thrown into their faces.
If we buy goldfish, someone tries on a hat.
If we buy crayons, someone walks home with a broom.
A tip. a small purchase here and there,
And things just keep going. I guess.

"How Things Work" Visual Poem from MEDIA ARTS on Vimeo.