Wow. Thank you for the talk and the embedded prompt. I immediately wrote a poem that I think I love. I'm calling it, "To a Black-Eyed Susan who Refused the Sun." And I love to write ekphrastic poems, but this one wasn't one of them. So much inspiration - from Icarus to Oranges.
Very beautiful article and your questions made morning coffee much more interesting! I am starting to write and paint again after decades...so, thank you!! Ox
I've long worked back and forth between painting and writing. There is something about the interaction of mediums.... when I hit a block in writing, the flow of color and form from my brush seems somehow to loosen and stir words that were locked in my subconscious mind, prying them loose, scattering them across the page where they refused to manifest before. That could, I suppose make much of my writing ekphrastic, LOL! I never considered it in that light before!
Love this!!! I have this idea that ekphrastic as a term has been limited and that really the act of writing through anything is a deep conversation that ekphrasis can unleash. Anything in the world is a piece of art for us to write with or against, maybe. Anyway, thanks so much for reading my post!!! Sending you good vibes.
A lovely, entertaining talk, Dorothea; I wish I had been there. (Highly unlikely given the fact that I live in a small village in Australia). Thankyou!
I also got a great laugh - and a lesson or two - from the Frank O'Hara poem.
My wife is an artist and I write Poetry (mostly). Sometimes - especially when travelling - we collaborate by writing and painting/drawing on the same subject. The two works belong together through that link of shared theme and experience, but they are created in parallel rather than the two works being in direct dialogue with each other. There is also a poem I wrote about watching Meg draw - but I don't think I have ever written directly about one of her art works itself....
So - something new to try!! It may end up on my Substack...
This is so beautiful! I wish you could have gone, too--it was such a lovely symposium organized by Tiffany Troy about writing in museums and art spaces. And the Queens Museum of Arts, where it was held, is so fantastic! I love hearing about your collaborations with your wife. I hope to read your poems about her work on your Substack someday soon! Thank you again for reading my post! <3
Thankyou, Dorothea. If we get to NY, the Queens Museum will be on our visit list...
We have travelled fairly extensively in Western areas of your beautiful country - several long road trips through Cal, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Colorado and Wyoming - mainly visiting wild places (our passion).
This commentary is sufficiently beautiful to illustrate that two art forms (any two, not just the painting and the poem) are seamless in their human effort to convey a complementary reality that science cannot achieve. And by telling a story, which is so much more ancient than language.
I have been fortunate in having five ekphrastic pieces published in the two-plus years I've been writing creatively. In a magical way, the painting is more than a prompt, and if I were a painter the poem would be more, as well.
Thank you so much!! Congratulations on your publications!! I agree "the painting is more than a prompt." That's so beautiful. I think paintings and poems are portals. To where? I am not sure. Thank you again!
Thank you for this wonderful word ekphrastic. I totally love Wisława Szymborska’s poem People on a Bridge and didn’t know poems as a reaction to a painting had its own word. Your selection is inspiring. A dance in two mediums.
I never heard of this and struggle to pronounce the word but I am extremely interested. I would like to try to write a poem of a painting. I might go to the library and look for a book of paintings and give it a try. Thank you for a most interesting article.
Wow. Thank you for the talk and the embedded prompt. I immediately wrote a poem that I think I love. I'm calling it, "To a Black-Eyed Susan who Refused the Sun." And I love to write ekphrastic poems, but this one wasn't one of them. So much inspiration - from Icarus to Oranges.
I am so glad you liked it! Thank you for reading it!! Your title is amazing and this makes me so happy you wrote a poem! Lots of love to you xoxxo
Love to you! xoxoxo (I'm thrilled to even get to engage with you - your poems have buoyed me over the years. So glad you're here.)
Thank you that means the world to me!!! Thank you for reading them, too! I hope to write on here more. More love to you xxxx
RUBENS
Fleshly fanfare, this; though
No trumpets sound, still sway
Painted skirts, circling, spinning.
Cherubs a gallery wall away
Smile. If flesh be grass, then
How verdant these canvas fields!
Luxuriant, the human blades
Undulate. Each sensuously yields
To the wind of song, and
Raw unseen rhythms. No sweeping
Scythe is seen. . . what
Revelry! A whirling vertigo
Of small, guileless sins enticing,
Cajoling. Would a fist-
Full of writhing flesh in
This body-feast be missed?
Not so. For sin and decay fade
Away like anxious ghosts in nocturnal
Haste; while painted memories muse
On things transient, things eternal.
So gorgeous!!! I love it! Thank you for sharing this wonderful poem!
I'm honored and thank you!
Nice work!
I have quite a few more of my poems on my Substack site, Dana. I read most of them aloud there if you’d like to listen.
I'll check them out... and thank you! It's lovely to find someone with such a lovely feel for actual poetic composition!
Many of my poems are free verse but I like writing in more formal styles, too.
Very beautiful article and your questions made morning coffee much more interesting! I am starting to write and paint again after decades...so, thank you!! Ox
So exciting!!! Thank you for reading it and sending you good vibes and love xx
I've long worked back and forth between painting and writing. There is something about the interaction of mediums.... when I hit a block in writing, the flow of color and form from my brush seems somehow to loosen and stir words that were locked in my subconscious mind, prying them loose, scattering them across the page where they refused to manifest before. That could, I suppose make much of my writing ekphrastic, LOL! I never considered it in that light before!
Love this!!! I have this idea that ekphrastic as a term has been limited and that really the act of writing through anything is a deep conversation that ekphrasis can unleash. Anything in the world is a piece of art for us to write with or against, maybe. Anyway, thanks so much for reading my post!!! Sending you good vibes.
A lovely, entertaining talk, Dorothea; I wish I had been there. (Highly unlikely given the fact that I live in a small village in Australia). Thankyou!
I also got a great laugh - and a lesson or two - from the Frank O'Hara poem.
My wife is an artist and I write Poetry (mostly). Sometimes - especially when travelling - we collaborate by writing and painting/drawing on the same subject. The two works belong together through that link of shared theme and experience, but they are created in parallel rather than the two works being in direct dialogue with each other. There is also a poem I wrote about watching Meg draw - but I don't think I have ever written directly about one of her art works itself....
So - something new to try!! It may end up on my Substack...
Thankyou again.
Best Wishes - Dave :)
This is so beautiful! I wish you could have gone, too--it was such a lovely symposium organized by Tiffany Troy about writing in museums and art spaces. And the Queens Museum of Arts, where it was held, is so fantastic! I love hearing about your collaborations with your wife. I hope to read your poems about her work on your Substack someday soon! Thank you again for reading my post! <3
Thankyou, Dorothea. If we get to NY, the Queens Museum will be on our visit list...
We have travelled fairly extensively in Western areas of your beautiful country - several long road trips through Cal, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Colorado and Wyoming - mainly visiting wild places (our passion).
Yesterday I wrote and posted this brief piece on the intersection of landscape, art, poetry and love: https://davidkirkby.substack.com/p/a-good-time-in-the-bad-lands
Best Wishes - Dave :)
This commentary is sufficiently beautiful to illustrate that two art forms (any two, not just the painting and the poem) are seamless in their human effort to convey a complementary reality that science cannot achieve. And by telling a story, which is so much more ancient than language.
I have been fortunate in having five ekphrastic pieces published in the two-plus years I've been writing creatively. In a magical way, the painting is more than a prompt, and if I were a painter the poem would be more, as well.
Thank you so much!! Congratulations on your publications!! I agree "the painting is more than a prompt." That's so beautiful. I think paintings and poems are portals. To where? I am not sure. Thank you again!
I've looked often. But never written. I've looked and stitched. Maybe I'll look again and write.
The stitching is so beautiful, too, and important, I think. Sending you love!!
Let us all calmly sail on...
Love to you! xxx
~~oo~~
Ekphrasiode:
The Origin of the World • Gustave Courbet • 1866
~~oo~~
.
It's what you always wanted
kinda
but looking at it
the senses cool
the legs are spread too wide
left thigh wrenched apart
pubes too dark
Ah yes, Soutine painted meat
Rembrandt too
so this is human flesh
raw detached realism
as Courbet's yoni
meets the butcher's slab
ah yes, but where
are studies of the human toe?
it's the yoni, stupid
always the yoni
no one issued from a toe
in any case
what does she look like?
and isn't love
the origin of the world?
.
~~oo~~
Thank you for this wonderful word ekphrastic. I totally love Wisława Szymborska’s poem People on a Bridge and didn’t know poems as a reaction to a painting had its own word. Your selection is inspiring. A dance in two mediums.
I never heard of this and struggle to pronounce the word but I am extremely interested. I would like to try to write a poem of a painting. I might go to the library and look for a book of paintings and give it a try. Thank you for a most interesting article.
So nice, thanks for posting.