Enjoy the festivities. My next blog entry will appear around January 6.
Season’s Greetings Monday, Dec 24 2007
Uncategorized 2:33 pm
PROMPT FOR TODAY: write a poem about the illustration on any holiday card you received in the mail.
(LATER NOTE FROM BLOGGER: The poem “December 26″ by Edward Hays was inspired by a Christmas card painting entitled Christmas Madonna. The poem appears in Ekphrasis journal, Spring/Summer 2008.)
Beauty/Truth Friday, Dec 21 2007
art and ekphrasis and poetry and pottery 1:52 pm
Beauty/Truth Press publishes a journal of ekphrastic poetry as well as some limited-edition ekphrastic chapbooks that include bilingual poetry as well as prose poems. I am aware of only two journals published in the United States which are devoted to ekphrastic poetry, and this is one of them; and I am aware of no other ekphrastic chapbook series. So be sure to check out this unique publishing enterprise.The name of the press comes, of course, from the last lines of John Keats’s ekphrastic “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” Those last lines are: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,–that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
Fanthorpe Wednesday, Dec 19 2007
art and ekphrasis and painting and poetry 12:12 pm
The Oxford Book of English Verse edited by Christopher Ricks (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999) contains a trenchant ekphrastic poem entitled “Portraits of Tudor Statesmen” by U.A. Fanthorpe. In only seven lines, this poem captures great truths about politics and art. The poem can be paraphrased as follows: Politicians think that they can control their public image in order to conceal their ruthless ambition; the portrait painter pretends to be complying with the politicians’ wishes, while actually exposing their self-delusion by depicting with great realism their “violently vulnerable neck” in ruffled collars. (Paraphrase ends.) In effect, the painter goes for the jugular, and the poet is witness. Politics lies, but Art does not. This poem is still relevant today during these final months of presidential campaigning. Democratic and Republican candidates want to present the best image possible to the media. But try as they might to do so, the truth of their characters comes out. Often the truth comes out in the nuances of their facial expressions and gestures relayed by television, photographs, and political cartoons. Maybe I’ll send a copy of this poem to campaign headquarters.
Best Monday, Dec 17 2007
art and ekphrasis and painting and poetry and pottery 2:57 pm
What is the best ekphrastic poem written in the English language between Chaucer and Robert Frost? If we look at Harold Bloom’s large anthology entitled The Best Poems of the English Language (2004), the main contenders may be “Ode on a Grecian Urn” by John Keats and “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning. Which poem would you vote for? Either of these? Or some other poem?
Georgia O’Keeffe Sunday, Dec 16 2007
art and ekphrasis and painting and photograph 12:35 pm
It’s impossible to know for sure how many poems have been inspired by the artwork of Georgia O’Keeffe. I am aware of four such ekphrastics (see list at end of this blog entry).
It’s also impossible to know how many poems have been inspired by Alfred Stieglitz’s photographs of Georgia O’Keeffe. I am aware of only one such poem: the captivating short poem entitled “Georgia O’Keeffe’s Hands” by Albany poet Dan Wilcox. Dan posted this poem on his blog on December 13.
I admire many aspects of this fine poem. It’s a good example of how eroticism is best conveyed in poetry: through suggestion, indirection, nuance, and gradual accumulation of images. Dan’s poem continues in the long tradition of erotic poetry which is most tantalizing precisely because it looks just to the side, rather than straight on (for an outstanding example of this same strategy, see Eavan Boland’s “The Briar Rose”).The imagery in Dan’s poem has great clarity–imagery taken from the photographs, but taken also from Georgia O’Keeffe’s own paintings. (The photographs and the paintings have been exhibited together in major museums.) The photographer knew what he was doing when he took pictures of Georgia O’Keeffe’s hands touching objects the shapes of which recall the sensual forms of her own compositions. Some poetry critic I once came across mentioned the erotic implications of “tree bark” appearing Robert Frost’s poetry. As for the other images in Dan’s poem–and in the original photographs and artwork–not much more need be said.
Dan tells us on his blog that the poem was based upon “notes” which he took about the photographs. It’s likely that each small stanza in the poem derives from a single note about a single photograph. Notes are like essaies (attempts, in French), like little sketches. When put in sequence, as they are in this poem, they affect us like the sketches, photographs, or paintings which are viewed one after another on an exhibit wall. Dan’s poem is itself an exquisite little exhibit.
I could go on about other admirable aspects of this poem (the repetition of hands, the ending, etc.), but I hesitate to do so because so far as I can determine, Dan Wilcox dislikes too much analysis of poetry, even when it’s complimentary analysis about his own poetry. So I’ll stop here.
Thanks, Dan, for sharing your poem with us.
OTHER POEMS ABOUT GEORGIA O’KEEFFE
“Plainspoken” by Deborah Pope (source?)
“Cow’s Skull with Calico Roses” by Joanne Barrie Lynn (Ekphrasis, Fall/Winter 2007)
“Horizontal Horse’s or Mule’s Skull with Feather” by Erinn Batykefer (Ekphrasis, Spring/Summer 2008)
O’Keeffe Equivalents by Alan Catlin (produced in cooperation with Origami Condom)
“O’Keeffe Requirements” by Alan Catlin (Chronogram, October 2007)
“Wormwood: The Penitants” by Ellen Bryant Voigt, after Black Cross, New Mexico (Transforming Vision, edited by Edward Hirsch)
“Georgia O’Keeffe” by Basil King, after Sky Above Clouds III (77 Beasts, by Basil King)
“Black Place No. 2, 1944″ by Raphael Kosek (The Comstock Review, Fall/Winter 2007)
Li-Young Lee Friday, Dec 14 2007
art and drawing and ekphrasis and photograph and poetry 3:55 pm
One of the most beautiful poems I have ever read is published in the December 2007 issue of Poetry magazine: “Secret Life” by Li-Young Lee. Thanks to the generosity of the magazine editors and/or of Mr. Lee, the poem is now posted on the Poetry website for all of us to savor.
This holiday season, give the gift of this fine poem to your friends. Tell them about the poem. Email it to them. Read it aloud at local open mics. And, if you can afford it, start a subscription to Poetry magazine in order to support their mission. (I have subscribed for years.)
Is this poem ekphrastic? At least in some small way, the poem must have been inspired by “pictures, replete with diagrams” of flowers (line 19). Unless Mr. Lee objects, I propose that “Secret Life” is ekphrastic–one of the best examples I’ve ever found.
TU Directory of Artists Wednesday, Dec 12 2007
art and ekphrasis and poetry 11:25 am
Albany’s “Times Union” daily newspaper is compiling a directory of regional fine artists and craftspeople who sell any kind of art to the general public. Literary artists such as poets are included. This resource serves as a useful tool for identifying local artwork which can inspire ekphrasis.
Prairie Schooner Tuesday, Dec 11 2007
architecture and art and diorama and ekphrasis and jewelry and mosaic and poetry and sculpture 12:30 pm
The Winter 2007 issue of Prairie Schooner offers several ekphrasis poems–
1) “Artemis to Aphrodite” (Parthenon frieze) by Eloise Klein Healy
2) “A New Way of Thinking about Space” (Giotto’s cross) by Beth Bachmann
3) “Garden Smiles” (what’s seen from a museum cafe) by Katherine Soniat
4) “Racy Diorama at the Natural History Museum” (need we say more?) by Anna George Meek
5) “Icons” (mosaic figurines) by Phyllis Hoge Thompson
Beth Bachmann’s poem is one of a stunning group of four stark poems–what I would call a suite–published together in this one issue. The suite has no overarching title; the individual poems are not numbered. The poems do not progressively advance a single story. Rather, each spare poem sits alone next to the others. The words, images, and tone within each poem glance off those within the other poems. The final poem is devastating, retrospectively transforming the entire suite into a poignant tragedy. Here, then, Bachmann employs ekphrasis to provide variation within a group of several poems.
qarrtsiluni Saturday, Dec 8 2007
art and ekphrasis and poetry 12:43 pm
What a great delight to find a blogzine which is very fine in every aspect: editorial mission and vision, literary quality, artistic quality, technological currency, ease of use, and longevity.
I’m talking about qarrtsiluni, an online literary and artistic collaboration which has been in existence for two years. I highly recommend that you take a long look at it. Read the poetry and other writings. Gaze at the artwork. Read the site’s “About” page. Read its “How to Contribute” page. Read the resumes of the editors. Qarrtsiluni represents the very best of today’s blogzines: the promise of our literary future.
I have created a link to the “Ekphrasis” issue (March/April 2007) of qarrtsiluni in my sidebar category “Ekphrasis books and journals.” Don’t miss it.
