Poetry Soup – Ep. 20: Ekphrasis

Transcript:

Hello, and welcome to Poetry Soup! I’m your host, Emma Catherine Hoff. In this episode, I’m going to do something different from what I normally do – instead of talking about a particular poem or poet, I’m going to be talking about a writing technique called ekphrasis.

Ekphrasis is a literary device that involves the translation or adaptation of one media to another, or a different interpretation of it. For example, a poem written about or based on a painting is a type of ekphrasis, as is the opposite.

From the Ancient Greeks to classical literature, ekphrasis has been used since the days of Homer and Plato (some of the first people to dabble in ekphrasis)! There are many examples of ekphrastic poetry and prose, as well as paintings (the famous painting by John William Waterhouse, called “The Lady of Shalott,” was based off of a poem of the same title by Alfred Tennyson).

There are many different ways of writing “after” a painting. You can simply describe the painting, or you can use it as a sort of springboard, a jumping off point, to expand the story the picture is telling. You can even add dialogue to the scene in the painting, ultimately re-writing it and transforming it, or you can imagine what the artist is doing outside the frame. These are all examples of ekphrastic writing.

Ekphrasis is not limited only to writing and painting, however. There have been examples of ekphrasis where music has been inspired by poetry, prose, or art, like the piano piece “Pictures at an Exhibition” by the composer Modest Mussorgsky.

I use ekphrasis a lot when I write, especially with poetry. One of the first poems I published, titled, “The Ambassador,” was an ekphrastic poem, after the painting, “The Mute Orpheus,” by Giorgio De Chirico. The painting shows a robotic-looking figure sitting in a chair with a lyre on the ground next to it. The backdrop is a cluster of buildings devoid of people. In my poem, I blended a description of the painting with my own ideas about what could be happening. I focused a lot on the figure in the painting, who I referred to as “the ambassador.” To write the poem, I had to study the painting for a while and notice the small details. By doing this, I was able to draw comparisons between it and the things I’ve seen in real life. I wanted to show the feelings of the mysterious figure and talk about its thoughts.

Some famous examples of ekphrastic poems are “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” by William Carlos Williams and “Ode on a Grecian Urn” by John Keats. “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” explores the scene of the famous Brueghel painting by the same title and talks about the perspective of the painter. The poem begins with the lines, “According to Brueghel/when Icarus fell/it was spring,” referencing the painter.

Some famous works have examples of ekphrasis in them, even though you might not have noticed them! Both “The Odyssey” and “The Iliad” by Homer have descriptions of art in them, and “A Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde is written around a painting.

Ekphrasis helps emphasize the connection between writing and other forms of art that has been written about and explored time and time again. The poem I talked about in the last episode of Poetry Soup, “Falling Upwards” by David Shapiro, suggested this by showing the beauty of music through writing, putting the two together. 

I’d like to share with you a poem of mine that was published in my poetry collection, “An Archeology of the Future.” The poem is called “A Photograph by Pedro Luis Raota,” and is about a photograph I saw that moved me. I’ll attach the photograph in the transcript below.

The early death of the man behind the camera propels him

to make everything live forever, for it all to be old,

like the woman, barely looked at by anyone.

And as the soldiers pass by, their guns heavy on their shoulders,

the scene is immortalized in shadows and darkness.

At home, he blurs the figures angrily, but they’re still

marching through the streets, 

and the woman is somewhere else now, kneeling on the ground.

Nobody looks at her, except the photographer,

and he only has his camera, what good will that do her?

Just a man who finds her interesting, but has nothing to offer

other than her picture.

Still, the photograph finds its way onto the wall,

framed but then destroyed by what we will never know,

and still the gray wall persists, people striding past it,

the woman still there, the photographer gone,

and suddenly, all the world had ever known was erased,

and new things came quickly and startled the people.

No longer would pictures be taken, they all declared.

In this poem, I described the photograph (which was of an old woman sitting against a wall while silhouettes of soldiers pass her) and the things I saw in it, but I also thought about what the photographer was doing and how people reacted to it. So the poem talks about what’s outside the photo as well as the photo itself.

Looking at the photograph through the lens of a poet, thinking about it in terms of a poem, made me better understand it. What was the photographer thinking when he took the shot? Who was this woman and what was she thinking? What did other people think of the picture? The black and white photograph seems very melancholy to me, highlighting the horrors of fighting and violence and how it affects other people. This is shown by the contrast of the woman solemnly sitting and the harsh, black shadows that the soldiers cast, complete with guns on their shoulders. I used poetry as a way of interpreting the photograph, which is part of the purpose of ekphrasis. Ekphrasis should change the way people see a work of art or the way they think about it. It should tell them something new about it. Ekphrasis also adds something to the original work, offering something that is not shown in the painting. The painting is only the beginning – an ekphrastic piece can place it and its subjects in any context it wants.

I have written many ekphrastic poems. I find it a great way to write when I’m stuck for inspiration. There are a few artists that I love and that I sometimes like to pick paintings from. For example, I often use paintings by Edward Hopper or Henri Rousseau. Edward Hopper often does window scenes or the insides of buildings, which often contain people doing everyday things. This interests me, because you can picture the person in the setting and imagine what they’re doing, what they’re thinking, what they’re saying. Henri Rousseau, on the other hand, does more surreal paintings, which can be very fun to look at and think about. There’s an unlimited amount of things you can do with his paintings! Ekphrasis is a great way to start writing and can give you deeper insight about art.

I hope you enjoyed this episode of Poetry Soup and are motivated to write your own ekphrastic poetry or prose! I’ve linked my poem, “The Ambassador,” below, as well as my poetry collection, so check those out! I’ll see you soon with the next episode.

"The Ambassador:"

https://stonesoup.com/the-ambassador/

"An Archeology of the Future:"

https://stonesoup.com/an-archeology-of-the-future/

Other ekphrastic poems by Emma Catherine Hoff published in Stone Soup:

https://stonesoup.com/automat-by-edward-hopper/

https://stonesoup.com/explosion-in-a-shingle-factory/