The found poem, a multimedia product I created for the page 4 of the short story “The Bass the river and Sheila Mant”  by WD Wetherell  .This story portrays a boy who falls in love with this girl, Sheila Mant. (As explained in page one) Gradually, he gathers up the courage to ask her out, offering to go to a fair with her by canoe. As they get on to the canoe, he slowing learns that Sheila hates fish as quoted on page 3. “―I think fishing’s dumb, she said, making a face. ―I mean, it’s boring and all. Definitely dumb.” Failing to throw he equipment out board, a huge bass hooks on to his fishing rod, a catch that he would only encounter few times in his life. He is split in half between keeping the fish and hiding the fact that he fishes to impress Shelia. 

The found poem clearly represents this conflict with the words “desperate” and “frantic” is wondering whether or not he should keep the fish on the line. The repetitions of the word “hesitating” portraying his love for both Sheila and the bass, showing that he’s conflicted which he should keep. Both of these loves are a tug on his heart. In the poem, these “tugs” keeping conflicting, getting stronger and out growing each other. The color used around the areas of these tugs in the heart emphasize the conflict between each side. These highlights are use especially at the climax when the moon shines on Sheila and the Bass starts to tug harder on the rod.(Yellow represents the love for Sheila and blue represents the desire to keep the bass) To further highlight the conflict, I use the words “torn apart ” and split in half together. As Sheila’s tug overthrow the basses tug eventually as she “stretches lazily into the sky” the protagonist cuts the string and is over flowed with regret. The regret is represented in the word “nauseous” as he watches the rod unbend. 

Art I chose for this story clearly portrays the conflict since it reflects on where the conflict takes place (a canoe in the river at night washed in moon light). In the work of art you can also notice that there is cracked heart next to Sheila and the Bass highlighted in blue and yellow. (Like previously mentioned, “Yellow represents the love for Sheila and blue represents the desire to keep the bass”) like in the story and poem, he is torn apart and the broken heart represents that. In the  piece of art, there is also a moon clearly drawn shining upon Sheila. This is very important because the moon was the factor that intensified the conflict, because it accentuated Sheila’s beauty that is was hard for the protagonist to resist to cut the string. 

“The moon was out now. It was low and full enough that its beam shone directly on Sheila there ahead of me in the canoe, washing her in a creamy, luminous glow. I could see the lithe, easy shape of her figure. I could see the way her hair curled down off her shoulders, the proud, alert tilt of her head, and all these things were as a tug on my heart. ” page 4

The art work of my found poem also relfects on the theme of the short story(which heavily reflects of the internal conflict), not letting your love of something be overshadowed by anything else. In this case, the main character is blinded by love towards Sheila as is conflicted with the intervining hobby of fishing. The art shows this with the over all misty and blurry feel of the sky, light and water. All of this represents the counfusing and inteneral unclarity of the main character. This uncertainty and regret of emotions (theme of conflict)was also captured in the last segment of the poem. “Sheila’s tugging claimed me, a mistake “

Made with IBIS paint

Short story pdf:

“The Bass the river and Sheila Mant”