To Be Feminine, By Kenzi Kimball
My brain never accepted the word
“Womanhood”
I never developed a relationship with
Her
The signal had fizzled out
synapses growing miles apart
never truly connecting
—
Stuck in the liminal space
Forced to identify with one gender
Though it is ever changing
Free flowing
Every day a new experience
Reflection on Writing:
For all drafts but the final, I was stuck on trying to use computer imagery/terms. In the final draft, I decided I wanted to make it feel more human, because the poem talks about a human experience and not a digital/robot experience and I didn’t want to boil that emotion down using that terminology. I struggled with how long I wanted to make the poem. This came from all the emotions I was feeling behind the poem wanting to jump out on the page. However, I feel like I narrowed down the poem to just long enough to feel some of the emotions I wanted to portray. I feel like I could make a string of poems relating to the topic discussed, but I wanted to put enough of it into the real estate I had so I could expand the poem later if I wanted to. What guided me through to the final draft on page 6 was the different descriptive words I would come up with each day. For example, my brain really stuck onto the words “disconnect”, “error”, “fizzled out”, “denouncing”, “rejoicing”, and “stuck”. I think this helped lead me to the final poem, conveying the feelings those words produce, but in a shorter/more concise poem.
Reflection on Bookmaking:
The color of the paper used to make the book is a very obvious personal touch since I embody the color purple every day with my hair and clothes. Little did I know how important that aspect would be to the poem! The poem inside comes from a very personal experience with gender. So, I wanted to focus on the words and color scheme rather than to make extravagant drawings to go along with the poem. I wanted to embellish the pages by picking out a favorite word used from each page. This is why you see “ERROR”, “STUCK”, and “FREE” written out, as well as the “no signal” symbol and a puzzle piece on pages 3 and 4. I wrote those words in all caps because I felt it would be more impactful, kind of like a reminder of the emotions within the poem. For the covers, I picked out tissue paper I used for a similar poetry book project I just finished in ART324 (The Painted Book 3D). That book has a very similar message about gender and I thought it would be really cool to tie these two projects together! The purple and green colors on this paper are why I specifically chose to use it for both projects. In recent years, I have noticed that when a parent decides to raise their child outside the gender binary (not referring to them as a boy or a girl), they tend to use shades of green or purple for their nurseries and clothes. That is the significance of the paper I used, and I think it adds a fun touch if the reader can make that connection between the colors and the content of the poem.
