Ekphrastic Poetry
Ekphrastic poetry refers to a mixed-media form of literature, combining both the written and visual arts. This kind of poetry is highly imaginative, and it has earned its name from the Greek word “ekphrasis”, which refers to a vivid description of a work of the visual arts.
Often a painting, but sometimes a sculpture, or a photograph, is described in an ekphrastic poem. Along with this description, there can be a narrative of the creation of the work, or an explanation (extension) of the work's meaning. Almost always accompanying this, is a description of an experience, an interpretation.
“The speaker” in a poem refers to the point of view from which a poem is written, a poem's point of narration, and it is not always the author of the piece. In ekphrastic poems, the speaker is allowing the reader into their experience with a piece of art, allowing them to wander landscapes and cities, explore a cemented mind, or folds of paper, right along with them.
This is the joy behind ekphrastic works. It is known that art has an intrinsic community between the piece and the viewer, and due to poetic adaptation of language, each of these communities, the individual perceptions and experiences that occur when engaging with the visual arts, can be shared in an extensive way, leading to stories carried across mediums and across minds.
Ekphrastic Poem Written by Sydney Augenstein
Ekphrastic poetry allows for exploration of complexities within containment. Worlds are found within a single frame. For example, in the above poem, the speaker appears to be wrestling with multiple differing perceptions about the interaction between the two people standing just out of focus in the painting. The speaker is continuously searching for clues and as the reader moves through the poem, the speaker becomes certain of the intimacy of the moment. The reader is then left with a question that spurs a feeling that they themself, have intruded on the lovers, just as the speaker, and Monet, have.
The influence that the painting had on the speaker in this poem is a great example of the opportunities that lie in ekphrastic works. The interpretations of artwork are just the start. Ekphrastic poetry opens the door for sharing of opinions, for the author and the speaker to take a stand and argue with the subjective strength that gives poetry its vulnerability, its honesty. Approaching the visual arts with this mind, like that of a poet, allows one to embrace this vulnerability within themself.
To the reader, next time you come face to face with a painting, a sculpture, or a photograph, one that leaves you enraptured with what the art, or the artist, is trying to say, I beg the question, what is the art, or the artist, saying to you?
