My found poem comes from page 4 of the short story “Lather and Nothing Else” by Hernando Tellez. It highlights an internal conflict within the main character, the barber. For some background information about the story, it takes place in a small town in Columbia during the La Violencia, a time of civil war between the two main political parties of Columbia. In the rising action of the story, a man named Captain Torres on the opposite political party entered the protagonist’s barber shop. Over the course of the rest of the story, the protagonist is internally conflicted on whether or not he should kill the Captain Torres, as shown in this quote: “And so, which will it be? Murderer or hero? My fate hangs on the edge of this razor blade.” (Tellez 4) I wrote my poem to highlight this internal conflict within the protagonist. The 2 images that I used each represent a part of the poem. The first image of a bloody hand ties into the line “Blood, on my hands”, which represents the protagonist imagining the consequences of him murdering Captain Torres. The second picture shows an old razor, which ties into the line “A razor like this cannot fail”, which is the protagonist reminding himself that whatever he does cannot be undone.

Overall I really enjoyed this project and I hope to do more interesting projects like this as the year goes on!