Ekphrastastical!
Make word picture from picture picture
At the Zoom poetry workshop last week1, we looked at ekphrastic poetry; that is poetry that responds to or is in conversation with or is inspired by some visual artform.
We looked at two ekphrastic poems as models. One was “The Uncanny Valley” by Kimberley Reyes (responding to the sculpture “A Subtlety” by Kara Walker). The other was “Replica of the Thinker” by Matthew Olzmann (responding to a replica of Rodin’s “The Thinker”).
Then we shared some visual art with the group that we liked so that we could choose one to write about. The following image (“Flayed Rabbit” by Chaim Soutine) inspired a few poems:
Poor bun.
I shared some of Francisco Goya’s Black Paintings - ones he painted on the walls of his house at the end of his life and weren’t meant for public consumption. Here’s one of my favorites:
It’s also pretty crazy how they got the original design for ALF from this secret Goya painting. In that way, the whole ALF show is really just one long ekphrastic poem.
Some of my other favorite Black Paintings from Goya are these:
I think when we do ekphrastic workshops in the future, they will be a deeper look at a series of paintings by one artist like these. Really dig into them, wide-eyed and naked.
Also, a fun thing about “Saturn Devouring His Son,” that painting was on Goya’s dining room wall (appetizing!) and like the other paintings in the series, it was titled long after his death. So it’s not necessarily a painting depicting the titan eating his godly son to prevent being overthrown, as the myth goes. It’s probably just some rando dude eating a child. Hooray!
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