In Alan Sondheim’s, DAWN, the viewer is faced with a rather odd poem that appears to be, at first glance, rather depressing. The lines of the poem fade in and out, some quicker than others, overlaid on top of changing pictures of nature. The sound that plays while the poem runs is an annoying, crunching or clicking sounds of some sort. It’s not a sound that one would normally hear in every day life. It’s a constructed sound, which is very different from the rest of the experience of the poem and visuals that go with it. The poem and the visuals are organic and from nature. The sound takes the viewer out of the realm of nature. It’s almost as if the author is trying to tell you that he does not want you to view this as beautiful. That there’s a deep meaning behind his words. The poem itself is a mixture of beautiful and sad. With the visuals in the background, I believe it would be easy for the viewer to come away with a sad, but hopeful view, but the intrusive sound does not allow this. The feeling becomes panicky and uncomfortable. The longer the poem went on, the more uncomfortable I felt. The three different parts of the poem (the lines, the visuals, and the sound) work together to create a very powerful piece about life, death, and the beauty and sadness of this world. I don’t believe that there is any easy way to interpret what the author is trying to convey. The author does, however, seem intent on finding some sort of balance between the good, beauty, evil, and sadness of the world. The poem is fraught with these concepts.

One other thing that I noticed was that the second to last picture had a figure in it. All of the other pictures are different variations of flowers, fields, trees, and water. In this picture, there is a female standing with her head down. It has a very different feel to it than the other photos. The lines of the poem that appear with this picture are about a woman who will rise when the character, “I,” dies, and will sleep when “I” dies. Perhaps the “I” will sacrifice himself for this woman. It is a very powerful moment in the poem with the visual of the woman accompanying those lines. The lack of human figures in the other visuals makes this one so much stronger.