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Going to the Tate Britain allowed us to see the style in which Turner painted, which actually allowed me to think more about the painting. Dabydeen’s poem inspired by Turner make more sense even though the actual picture of inspiration was not at the museum. This might not make much sense, but seeing other paintings and the style in which Turner painted them helped me to understand what Dabydeen saw in order to create his own work. The style was clear and Turner’s paintings, especially of the sea seemed a bit chaotic. There was a lot of sea paintings, and very few of them were calm. I found this particularly interesting because many of his other paintings were calm and exuded an air of ease. This chaos is something that directly relates to the poem and the inspiration for the poem. The poem talks about how one slave is thrown overboard and how this person, floating in the ocean, is confused about the life he lived. The wording and tone of the poem seems to indicate that confusion and chaos reigned the mind of the narrator. This is a comparison to the confusion and chaos of the sea as well, which seemed to be reflected in turner’s paintings of the sea. Even when the water was calm there seemed to be an overcast present. This might have to do with how the water was painted. This water was painted to show the waves and to show how water moves. Naturally, this gives a movement to the water and induces a sort of general chaos. This is more obvious in the painting that was a direct inspiration for the poem. While the painting was not in the gallery itself, even seeing the reproduction could show how the water was possessed as part of the storm.  These choppy waves gave the painting a clear indication of how Turner might have seen his production. The choppy waves were repeated in numerous other paintings, specifically ones that were stormy or had a scene/title that induced a similar feeling to a storm.

The painting that Dabydeen wrote upon took place during a storm. When we discussed the painting in class we focused specifically on the lower part of the poem and the leg that sticks out of the water. Now, I would focus more on the water in the picture even though it might not seem to reflect all of the themes. However, the water does reflect the confusion of the narrator. White caps and stormy seas are visual representation to the ideas of crazy nature and lack of understanding. Yet there are points in the poem that are calm and reflective even. This is much the same as the nature of the ocean, calm and clear one second, stormy the next. This is an occurring them through many different types of art and literature, but here it directly forms a comparison between the art of Turner and the poem of Dabydeen. Dabydeen creates some calming moments in which the narrator “recalls” bits of his/her past. These moments do however have an ominous undertone to them, mirroring a calm sea before a storm. The ominous undertone is not easy to distinguish from the confusion inherent in the poem but much like water can be cleared up if the murkiness is settled. The words can create a murkiness of tone, which is similar to how silt can make the water dirty and unsettled.

Of course, this forms a metaphor that is extremely convoluted and is most likely not what Dabydeen was thinking upon his writing of the poem. The evidence focuses on the mercurial nature of the poem and how the choice of words and context affects the tone. The tone is completely dependent on the choice of words much like the murkiness is dependent on the tide. Overall, the water in Turner’s painting could have very well influenced Dabydeen as much as the leg sticking out of the water after being tossed off of the ship did. It’s just that the leg clearly told a story and there was history behind it, unlike the water, which has no history and can only change as it is affected.