How to Write Art in a Short Poem Examples

I'm a member of the tribe who likes to write verse nearly art. The first moment of ekphrastic poesy we have comes from Homer when he halts the battle action in The Illiad to describe the stunning Shield of Achilles. The most well-known ekphrastic verse form is of class Keats'southward "Ode on a Grecian Urn," in which he uses the fabulously-named term, prosopopeia: he envoices the unravished, sylvan, silent urn to tease us into unceasing ideas nearly the relationship between beauty and truth.

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Classical ekphrasis tends to gloat and illuminate its subject; Postmodern examples undermine the importance of verisimilitude. And, Postmodern ekphrases characteristically bring up questions nearly authorship, stability, authenticity—that elusive auratic quality that Andrew Joron recently examined.

James A. Westward. Heffernan argues persuasively that poetic ekphrasis presents a struggle for dominance betwixt the word and prototype in his excellent study, Museum of Words: The Poetics of Ekphrasis from Homer to Ashbery. This human relationship is often gendered, he writes, every bit the traditional male poet feels challenged by the image (typically female or feminized) and and so tries to dominate it with his gaze and word. Put simply, Keats longs to penetrate the mysteries of the "still unravish'd bride" of the urn.

Ashbery's "Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror," Heffernan says, laments the impossibility of ever completely grasping Parmigianino's painting and its inherent silence, which the poet describes as "the strict / Otherness of the painter in his / Other room." A rapturous verse form, and lonely.

It strikes me that some poets have returned to classical ekphrastic strategies and are expanding on the tradition. See the late Barbara Guest's exquisite arbitration on Juan Gris in "Roses" (or any of Guest'southward poems, please!). Or Kevin Young'due south "Cadillac Moon," a verse form from his ecstatic conversation with Jean-Michel Basquiat in To Repel Ghosts.

The relationship between poet and artist in these examples is not adversarial; it'southward a response based on enthusiasm and appointment. A poetics that suggests permeability and difference: an interaction that doesn't crave a winner, that doesn't necessarily adhere itself to the anxiety of influence. It revels in the image, even if the artwork is ironic, a spectacle. It asks, it reveals, it wonders. I've written about the Unicorn Tapestries, and my latest book is about the art of Louise Bourgeois—both books are engaged with those subjects as a means of conversation and meditation. Ekphrasis every bit connectivity, a way of stepping into the aura.

Now that sounds similar a yoga retreat. I'k non proverb there isn't whatsoever tension or contest betwixt verbal and visual arts. Whatever human action of description is of course an estimation, and the relevance of verisimilitude has to be interrogated, yet again. Possibly it's a question of tone, a more friendly one as in Williams'southward Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems, equally I don't encounter the same blueprint of having to dominate and displace, or even of the despair of concluding "we cannot know each other."

Want more on Keats? Beak Berkson discusses ii books on the poet, and there'south a link to Tom Clark's blog with more ekphrastic poems.

Now I'm feeling wistful for all the French Feminist theory I read at Vassar in the nineties.

For e'er warm and however to be savour'd,

For ever panting, and for always immature;

All breathing man passion far above,

That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,

A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Originally Published: Apr 12th, 2013

Born in Seattle and raised in Pittsburgh, poet Camille Guthrie earned a BA at Vassar College and an MFA at Chocolate-brown University. She is the author of the poetry collectionsThe Master Thief (2000),In Captivity (2006), andArticulated Lair: Poems for Louise Conservative (2013). Her experimental long poems and inter-textual poetic sequences often engage...

fosterbithe1981.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet-books/2013/04/writing-poetry-about-art

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