Lather And Nothing Else — Found Poem
My found poem is extracted from the short story “Lather and Nothing Else” by Hernando Tellez. The story is set in a Colombian civil war. In the story, a barber decides if he should kill an enemy of the side he is on in the war. The conflict in the story is mainly internal, since the protagonist tries to decide throughout the shave if he should kill his enemy, the antagonist, or stay loyal to his job and service. Very little happen externally, and the story is completely set in the shave, but in the protagonist’s mind, a lot happens.
My poem demonstrates the ambivalence in the story. The protagonist tries to decide between staining his hands with lather or the blood of the enemy. The lines “murderer or hero?”, “stain my hands with lather, and nothing else” show this internal conflict. I have also inserted the protagonist’s predictions of what others would say if he did or did not kill the antagonist; this way, we see more elements in the internal decision the protagonist is making. The ending line of “you an executioner, I a barber, each one to his job” shows the final choice of lather rather than blood. All in all, the conflict goes to hint at the connotation of the word “lather”. Lather also has the meaning of “agitation” and “nervous excitement”. The way the barber thinks his hands are “stained” with lather suggests that he feels the guilt of having to hesitate when faced with a decision that symbolizes wrong and right, moral and immoral.
My artwork shows lather, the bottom of which is contaminated by and dripping with blood. This both directly represents the conflict in the story and shows how even the lather contains swirls of blood, which can be explained by the meaning of “lather” shown above. I highlighted most of the poem burgundy, but the text showing the relatively positive outcome is colored blue, the color of the lather. Generally, I used short lines to connect the lines in the poem that are supposed to be in one sentence.
Hyperlinks For Extra Information
The Colombian Conflict/Civil War: https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/colombias-civil-conflict
Biography of Hernando Tellez: https://historytodayonline.blogspot.com/2021/04/hernando-tellez-biography.html