[Me] A Little Recognition: An Adaptation from David Mazzucchelli's "Asterios Polyp"

I took a scene from a graphic novel I read in my HP LCC class this past semeter, and adapted it into poem form. The reason I chose a poetic adaptation over typical prose/narrative is because I felt that it contrasts the original medium more.

The graphic novel in essence, uses very few words; and thus, the images presented form a very concrete visual experience. This leaves very little room for the reader’s imagination to form it’s own picture of the story and characters (which is personally my favorite part about literature). Poetry, although there are standard forms and rhyme schemes that some follow, gives both the writer and reader more interpretive liberty. This allowed for more wiggle-room in what I chose to write about and focus on in the scene, and also provides the reader the opportunity to create his own interpretation and image with even less constraints than would be given in a very descriptive narrative passage (which was my first approach to this project).

So, I’d like to share a few quick things about the poem its self. First of all (for those who have read the graphic novel) the scene that begins with Asterios and Hana walking home from visiting the crazy musician guy. It’s snowing, and once they get inside Hana finally bursts; all of her pent up emotion finally comes flowing out into a simple realization (and tears). The poem is actually from Hana’s perspective. Along with choosing a contrasting medium to the original, I also chose to focus this portion of the story from the perspective opposite from the original (Hana vs. Asterios/Ignacio). Just thought it would be interesting.

Finally, each line of the poem contains four syllables like the name “Asterios.” I did this because 1. the overall graphic novel is about Asterios, so even with this scene being told from Hana’s perspective, it was still an homage to the actual main character and 2. This scene is really about Hana calling out to Asterios, essentially begging him to acknowledge her as a person; so through the syllables it’s as if she is calling out “A-ste-ri-os” with each line.

Overall, I really enjoyed working on this little project. I think adapting the graphic novel into a new form allowed me to appreciate and personally enjoy the novel its self. This is also the first “video” I’ve ever made, and I found yet another creative outlet that I may begin to use more of in the future.

Hope you all enjoy the video! (Make sure to turn up the volume, the intro music starts of relatively low, but makes a difference in the video experience).

**The video utilizes images directly from David Mazzucchelli’s graphic novel Asterios Polyp and the music is an excerpt from Philip Glass’s Violin Concerto No. 1, Mvt. II, performed by Gideon Kremer. **