Try Writing Ekphrastic Poetry (Part 1)

What is Ekphrastic Poetry?

Ekphrastic poetry explores art. Using a rhetorical device known as ekphrasis, the poet engages with a painting, drawing, sculpture, or other form of visual art. Poetry about music and dance might also be considered a type of ekphrastic writing.

​The term ekphrastic (also spelled ecphrastic) originates from a Greek expression for description. The earliest ekphrastic poems were vivid accounts of real or imagined scenes. Through effusive use of details, writers in ancient Greece aspired to transform the visual into the verbal. Later poets moved beyond description to reflect on deeper meanings. Today, the word ekphrastic can refer to any literary response to a non-literary work. 

SOURCE: Jackie Craven, for ThoughtCo.com, Feb. 2021
​

Techniques for Writing an Ekphrastic Poem

• Write about the scene you see in the artwork.
• Think about what the subjects did after the painting or sculpture. Did they move from that spot? Where did they go?
• Write a conversation between the characters in the piece.
• If you're in a gallery or museum, write dialogue between two pieces facing each other.
• Write about your experience of looking at the artwork.
• Write a monologue from the point of view of a character or object in the artwork.  Or write what you think they want to say to you.
• Compare the artwork to something else.
• Imagine a story about the creation of the artwork.  OR, write in the assumed voice of the artist.
• Is there anything in the artwork that is a metaphor for something in your own life?  Write about that.

​Now, You Try It  #1

New York Movie (1939) by Edward Hopper

​As you look at the artwork, pay attention to how it makes you feel. Take notes about any sensory impressions it gives you or memories it triggers.  Write for 10-15 minutes.

IF YOU WANT MORE ON THIS PAINTING:

• Listen to a 3 minute audio from two curators at MoMA, discussing movies in 1939 in New York city.  This entertaining excerpt is from the “Made in New York” exhibit.
• Read  Joseph Stanton's ekphrastic poem "Edward Hopper's 'New York Movie' " here.​

​All we can see on our side / of the room is one man and one woman— / as neat, respectable, and distinct / as the empty chairs that come / between them . . . Here we are an accidental / 
fellowship, sheltering from the city's / obscure bereavements to face a screened, / imaginary living, / as if it were a destination / we were moving toward. ​

• Enjoy MoMA security officer José Colón's close look at Edward Hopper’s painting, noting that the painting’s "lush detail  simultaneously captures an intimate moment and triggers a longing for the shared moviegoing experiences of the past -- and hopefully the future."

You Try It  #2

Alexander Calder, Rouge Triomphant (Triumphant Red), 1959–63

​As you look at the artwork, pay attention to how it makes you feel. Take notes about any sensory impressions it gives you or memories it triggers.  Write for 10-15 minutes.

IF YOU WANT MORE ON THIS ARTWORK: 

Under a Calder Mobile, August 1959
JACKIE CRAVEN
 
A bird was missing, or maybe
a boomerang, but a blue one
fallen off the wire
so the others hung crookedly,
twirling and colliding
when the window fan blew strong.
Their shadows wobbled
over the spoon-shaped chairs
and the sofa where I drowsed,
a child adrift in the summer heat.
Dipping and swerving, the shadows
became my father’s Thunderbird
vanishing over a hill, then turned
into a swirl of phantom birds--
             Sofa to chair to beyond,
             sofa to chair and gone--
except for the heavy one
that smothered me with the scent
of cocktails and cigarettes. I woke
beneath the damp weight of my mother,
rocking as she moaned--
             Do you love me?
             Do you love me more than him?
 
SOURCE: Originally published April 15, 2020 AgniOnline
https://agnionline.bu.edu/poetry/under-a-calder-mobile-august-1959

​You Try It  #3

Family Portrait, II is an oil on canvas painting created by Florine Stettheimer in 1933.

​Listen to this wonderful (1:44) audio clip from curator, Anne Umland at the MoMA.
 Now, go on to write a “family portrait.”

• How would you represent yourself?
  
• Who all is in your portrait?
  
• What objects (like the flowers) would you enlarge?
  
• What “ghostly images” would you write for the background?
  
• What are you “known for?”
  
• Who comes to see you; who comes to your parties?
• Of course, these are suggesions, branch off in any way that has energy.

Drop a note in the comment section, telling us about your experience with Ekphrastic Poetry or in writing your family "portrait."