Intro

I made a found poem after reading a short story titled “Tuesday of the Other June” by Norma Fox Mazer. The story revolves around a girl named June who gets bullied by another girl named June in her swimming class. Despite constant harassment, June couldn’t stand up for herself; she had to endure all the harsh bullies from her classmates and June. The other June called her “Fish Eyes” for no justifiable reason. Once she started to tease June with ridiculous names, everyone else started to do the same. Additionally, the “other June” kept pinching, hitting, and mocking June, making June’s life in class worse.

Conflict

The type of external conflict of this story is Character vs. Character. It also includes Character vs. Society, but my poem centralizes on C vs. C. If two characters are struggling with certain things, that determines the C vs. C conflict. A simple example would be Harry Potter with Voldemort.  A quoted example of a conflict in “Tuesday of the Other June” is “‘Fish Eyes, you are really stupid.’ She shoved me into the pool” (Mazer 27). The other June is generally saying bad things about her just because their names are the same. Since they struggled with certain problem, that makes us to notice that the conflict is C vs. C.

Concept

The concept of my poem is “hardship.” I wanted to emphasize the pain of June getting bullied in an environment of no one helping her. Moreover, the fact that she had to deal with this situation in solitary, with no one by her side, makes me feel heartbroken.

Graphic Designs

For my graphics of the found poem, I included as many drawings as I could to emphasize the contrast between the antagonist and the protagonist. In all the parts where the protagonist June gets hurt by the other June, I expressed them with red because red is a strong color that often symbolizes danger, hurt, and blood. Such feelings show June’s agony. In addition, I drew small objects that are the key points of each sentence. For example, I have a calendar marked with sad faces on every Tuesday, creepy smiles, a gigantic fish eye, a girl crying in silence, and some side-eyes of the other June. I initially wanted such small drawings to highlight the main ideas, but I drew too much. Next time, I would definitely draw a few of them. 🤨

The key part I want to share is those flowers. They have different colors because they show the difference between the before June (before she met the other June) and the after June (after she met her). Before June met the antagonist June, I think she had a brisk tone and life along with her mom. However, she changed afterward; she was scared, wanted to avoid the situation, and was sad. So that is why the upper flowers have bright colors and the others are somber.

The fonts are primarily bold, red, and black. Red was used to highlight the words for the antagonist because her actions and words were mostly mean. However, “JUNE” was colored red to tell the readers that being “JUNE” made all of this situation. The bold texts evoked some serious moods compared to the thin ones when I tried having both.  So that is why most phrases are in bold.

I circled essential words like “my,” “other,” and “awful,” mainly because I think “my” helps with further understanding of June, the antagonist’s characteristics (with her imperative word choice). The word “other” was used to  emphasize who the antagonist is. Lastly, “awful” concludes the poem with some empathy for the protagonist June. It remains that vague feelings of sadness in the end.

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This project was fun. I loved spending my time listening to music while drawing.  It was fun making this poem with all those fun details, too.  😙