Processing to Poetry: A Genre Analysis

Part 1: Genre Translation

High hydrostatic pressure

Makes your food so much fresher.

Loss of color, smell, or nutrition, not a problem

When this advanced treatment is out to solve them.

First HPP food released in the 90s was a japanese jam

But the process has now extended to a variety of foods such as eggs and ham

Although it has been out for a while it is still a new technology

Which comes with important terminology.

Foods are subject to pressure between 50 and 1000 MPa

Processing them in a healthier way.

A main advantage is the effect it has on microbacteria

They get eradicated when they don’t meet the criteria.

Since HPP rarely fails

It also betters the prices and sales.

The effect HPP has on food quality has potential

When the research is finished and perfected, it will be monumental.

 Pickett 1

Part 2: Reflection

In the reading “General into the Wild”, Bickmore states, “When a writer decides or

intuits that a particular genre is called for by the situation, he or she takes up the genre and uses it

to frame a written response to the situation.”1 In other words, the genre of a piece of writing is

determined by the context of the situation. Writers can utilize a certain genre in order to

influence the response they want from it. Choosing the appropriate genre is important when it

comes to getting the author’s narrative across, and in order to identify the genre when reading my

chosen article, I had to look at the components of the writing. The changes in understandability,

format, and wording across these different genres affects the discourse community and overall

purpose. The academic article I chose to focus on for this translation was “High-pressure

processing on microbial food safety and food quality.” This article presents research done on a

certain processing technology and the benefits it has on food safety and quality. Though this is a

simple argumentative point, the article is written in a way that may be difficult to understand

from an outside perspective. Since it is a scientific discipline, the article’s findings are filled with

jargon and terminology that only others in this field would be able to understand. This is why I

had chosen to translate this article into the genre of a poem. With the simpler formatting and

wording of a poem, the contents of the original article will not only appeal to a broader audience,

but also be more easily understood by them.

An essay titled “How to Read Like a Writer” written by Mike Bunn discusses how the

ways in which something is written can affect the response it gets from the readers. When

referring to writing like a writer, Bunn writes, “as you read in this way, you think about how the

choices the author made and the techniques he/she used are influencing your own response as a

1
Lisa Bickmore, “General Into the Wild,” Pressbooks
 Pickett 2

reader.”2 I implemented this idea in my own translation process. When reading the original

article, I had to focus on how the techniques that the author was using influenced me as a reader,

and thus, how it correlates to its specific genre. These techniques that I had to pay attention to are

identified as writing conventions.

The writing conventions of the original academic article and the genre of a poem differ in

many ways. One of the most obvious difference can be seen in the formatting and overall

structure of each. The original article starts off with an abstract followed by an intro, body

paragraphs, and conclusion. Beside occasional subheadings, the ideas of the text are written in

continuous paragraphs. Each of these sections in the article has its intended purpose. The abstract

and introduction provide an overview of the contents that are followed, and prepares the readers

for it. The body paragraphs having specific subtitles is used to guide the reader in each section so

they know what topic is next. In this case the two main subheadings being 1. the effect of HPP

on food safety and 2. its effect on food quality. This makes sense since these are the two main

talking points presented in the thesis. The conclusion works to summarize the article as a whole

and restate the thesis as well as get across any additional commentary by the author. This

structure of writing is essential for the formality that is intended. Because there is a lot of

information that the author needs to explain in as little space as possible, there is not much room

for spacings or formatting that may distract from the contents of the discussion. This layout also

helps the reader not get lost when the article becomes information dense. It is very clear what is

coming next and how it relates to the overall scientific thesis.3

2
Mike Bunn, “How to Read Like a Writer”, 72
3
Kiera M. Considine, Alan L. Kelly, Gerald F. Fitzgerald, Colin Hill & Roy D. Sleator, “High-pressure
processing-effects on microbial food safety and food quality”, FEMS Microbiol Lett, Vol. 281, (23 December 2007)
 Pickett 3

The non-academic genre works as the opposite. Instead of paragraphs, the structure of a

poem is formatted into lines and stanzas. Instead of the sentences being packed in together, they

are usually followed by a space in between. The page count, word count, and line length can all

vary depending on the style of poetry and author choice. Because poetry is a more artistic form

of writing, it is also more flexible in the formatting of it. One author could choose to format it

one way, and another an entirely different way. For example, there is “‘Hope’ is the Thing With

Feathers” by Emily Dickinson4 which follows the traditional poem formatting. Left side margin,

line stanza, rhyming scheme. While Austin Kleon’s “Back to the Beginning,”5 is a blackout

poem that is more sporadic with its empty spacing. This differs significantly from the format of

an academic article which is linear and concrete across other peer reviewed articles. The

consistency is necessary to keep it logical, and therefore the author may lose some of that

expression. This is why my first step in the translation was to recreate this and switch up the

formatting so it fit the poem’s style of organization. I changed the structure from

information-dense paragraphs to easier to understand and shorter sentences. It is much more

broken down so that only the key parts of the article are present. I had to take the logical

structure of the article and write it so that it has the flow and rhythm of a poem. A way that

helped me do this was to focus on the rhyming scheme of the poem since this is a famous writing

technique that makes up this genre.

An important aspect of poetry is not just the words being said, but the feeling behind

them. The rhyme scheme is a common convention utilized across different types of poems and is

used as a way to convey a narrative in a more flattering way. The rhyme scheme I went with was

AABB in which the lines that rhyme are coupled together. The lines that rhyme together in a

4
Emily Dickinson, “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers”, lines 1-4
5
Austin Kleon, “Black to the Beginning”
 Pickett 4

poem vary depending on the specific scheme (alternative, monorhyme, etc) and therefore vary

across poems. But there are other aspects of language utilized in the style of poetry as well. One

of the most famous examples of poetry that we can use as reference is Edgar Allan Poe’s “The

Raven”. Take the first line for example, “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak

and weary”.6 Aside from the very obvious rhyming scheme, the poem follows a narrative that is

written in a dream-like way. It is much less direct and more expressive. Instead of outright saying

what it is that is happening, they utilize forms of figurative language such as imagery, metaphors,

personification, etc. Another line in The Raven, ‘To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into

my bosom's core”.7 Instead of stating that the fowl startled the character, the author chooses to

use a metaphor and relate the fowl’s eyes to fire. By doing this, it adds much more emotion into

the narrative that the author may be trying to get across.

This differs from the first line from the text, “High-pressure processing (HPP) is a

nonthermal process capable of inactivating and eliminating pathogenic and food spoilage

microorganisms.”8 Right from the start, the article is telling the audience what high-pressure

processing is in a way that is direct. This is the common theme throughout the passages as

having coherence and an objective tone is important in keeping the clarity of the writing so the

audience does not get confused and focuses on the facts given.

The Raven and most other poems can get away with not being as clear because it is more

expressive and subjective to the writer themselves, and sometimes can even be up to

interpretation of the audience. A scientific academic article though, is not up for interpretation. It

is backed up by concrete evidence throughout. I chose to keep the persuasive nature of the

original article so as to not lose the main message of the research. Though, I still chose to keep

6
Edgar Allan Poe, “The Raven”, line 1
7
Edgar Allan Poe, “The Raven”, line 74
8
FEMS, “High-pressure processing effect on microbial food safety and food quality”, 1
 Pickett 5

the language and figurative nature of a poem to get this point across most effectively. This would

add emotion and a humorous aspect that was not there before the translation, and present the

important evidence of the article simultaneously.

“High-pressure processing on microbial food safety and food quality” relies on

research-based findings alongside commentary. Sometimes this evidence can be difficult to

understand from someone who is not in this particular genre. For example when explaining,

“HPP does not disrupt covalent bonds, changes in weak inter- and intramolecular interactions

that affect the stability of the cross-b structure of amyloids thereby increasing digestion

efficiencies with proteinase K.”9 The terminology used in this passage requires prior knowledge

about covalent bonds, intramolecular interactions, cross-b structure, and other terms. Because

this is an academic article that falls under the scientific genre, terminology such as these are

frequently used and not usually explained to the audience. This would suggest that the intended

audience is others in this field.

In my translation I wanted to target a broader audience and by doing this I made it much

more simplified. In the words I was using and the sentence structures as a whole. The previous

example of the article given can be compared to a poem that follows this simplistic formatting.

In the poem, “Dreams”, Langston Hughes writes, “hold fast to dreams- for if dreams die - life is

a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.”10 Having just two verses, this poem is concise but also

understandable to the average person. In terms of modern-day poetry, the wordings do not

require prior knowledge because it presents concepts of dreams, birds, death, ones that most are

familiar with. My translation process consisted of taking the terminology of the academic article

and replacing it with easier to understand definitions. Using concepts most people understand.

9
FEMS, “High-pressure processing effect on microbial food safety and food quality”, 2
10
Langston Hughes, “Dreams”, lines 1-4
 Pickett 6

For example in the lines in my translation, “Loss of color, smell, or nutrition, not a problem -

When this advanced treatment is out to solve them.” This can be compared to sentences like this

in the article, “HPP can have an effect on food yield and on sensory qualities.”11 Both lines

convey the benefits of HPP on food quality, but the new translation is written in much easier to

understand wordings.

In the process of writing the translation from the academic peer-reviewed article to the

genre of a poem, I had come across some challenges with getting across the scientific properties

into this new form. I worried about leaving out the data that was presented throughout the article

since those explanations are essential for explaining the key points, especially in a research

article. But I decided to just keep it simple and have only the claims/summaries of the author and

their findings compared to listing out numerical data which would have disrupted the flow of the

poem. Overall, the change in formatting, language, and complexity of the original text allowed

for the concepts of high-pressure processing to be conveyed in a more artistic way, and thus,

appealing to a broader audience as well.

11
FEMS, “High-pressure processing effect on microbial food safety and food quality”, 5
 Pickett 7

Citations

Mike Bunn, “How to Read Like a Writer”, Writing Spaces: Reading on Writing, Vol. 2,

(2011): pg. 71-86

Kiera M. Considine, Alan L. Kelly, Gerald F. Fitzgerald, Colin Hill & Roy D. Sleator,

“High-pressure processing-effects on microbial food safety and food quality”, FEMS Microbiol

Lett, Vol. 281, (23 December 2007)

Langston Hughes, “Dreams”, In The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. New York

:Knopf : Distributed by Random House, (1994)

Edgar Allan Poe, “The Raven”, Dover Fine Art, History of Art. Mineola, NY: Dover

Publications, (1996)

Emily Dickinson, “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers”, The Complete Poems of Emily

Dickinson, edited Edited by R. W. Franklin (Harvard University Press, 1999)

Austin Kleon, “Black to the Beginning”, Steal Like an Artist, (2024)

Lisa Bickmore, “General Into the Wild,” Pressbooks, (2016)