Explanation Paragraph:

“A Deadly Offer” is a found poem I wrote using text from the short story “Button, Button” by Richard Matheson. This found poem represents the conflict within the story. “Button, Button” is about a couple, Norma and Arthur, who receive a button from a man named Mr. Steward. This button claims to give $50,000 upon being pressed but will kill a person whom the user of the button doesn’t know. This poem is written from the perspective of Norma (the protagonist of the story) and describes the Person vs. Person conflict found in this story. In the story, Norma tries to convince Arthur to press the button and use the money to go live in Europe, buy a nice cottage, and start a family. However, Arthur clearly disagrees with her, since she mentions the two of them getting worked up. Eventually, though, Norma presses the button, and she soon finds out that Arthur is the person who died. This is because her words and actions put a lot of strain on their relationship, making them disassociate with each other. I chose these words to represent Norma’s side in this conflict because they highlight her key points which she argued against Arthur. For example, she makes a point that this whole button thing might just be psychological research, and they’re not really killing anyone. This is represented by the line “Just saying someone would die, in order to study reactions.” I chose to use the font Courier New for this poem, since it (being a monospaced font) doesn’t give off any emotion, instead giving off a detached feeling. This represents how emotion can be stripped away when lives and money are on the line, and how Arthur and Norma detach from each other as the button puts stress on their relationship. Finally, the artwork I made represents the moral dilemma that the button poses to Norma and its consequences on the other side after Norma makes her decision.

Overall, I enjoyed this creative project a lot. I haven’t written a found poem since 4th grade, so it was nice to revisit this literary format and give it another go. This was really fun to write and I hope that our future projects are just as interesting.