Ekphrasis

by The Tasteless

You all know this, you may have written one yourself. But most call those works "Image poem" which is wrong, image poems are poems that literally creates an image, such as the Japanese lantern, or the Etheree. Let us define an Ekphrasis shall we...

Ekphrasis, also spelled as ecphrasis, from the Greek word ek (out of) and phrasis (speech or expression), is a poetry form that takes its inspiration from visual art.

Most people (including myself obviously) tend to focus on "painting" the picture literally in words that they just end up describing the work into great detail, and once it is done, its just like a poetry version of the painting, in such cases other people who have chosen to see the painting rather than reading it. It gets boring if that's the case, poetry for me is much much more powerful than art. We have more weapons and emotions than art, thus, even when we write an Ekphrasis, we must say more than what the eyes can see.

Here's a couple of tips and techniques that could help:

1. Speak out
- Give voice to the mute object, if there's a little girl carrying a basket of fruits or a boy holding a dollar bill in his hand, give them a story, give them a voice.
- Artwork can either speak to the artist or the poem can speak to the artwork.

2. Praise
- praise the mastery of the artist and his/her work.

3. Emotional Response
- this is when the artwork triggers a mysterious emotional vulnerability. This mostly works better on a writer who knows a lot about art though, since once they see a painting, it just enters their heart directly, then to the brain, inspiring them to write something related to the painting. Could be a good technique for any writer however.

4. Actions of the Painter
- Relate your poem to the visual artist's action. (Will discuss this on "The Fall of Icarus" later on)

5. Museum Ekphrasis
- I've tried this before with some friends. An ekphrasis isn't necessarily just a "painting in words" it's an artwork. A sculpture can be written upon as an ekphrasis. If you want to practice writing one, best chance is to visit a local museum and stroll around, catch an artwork that speaks to you. Have a relationship with that object.

6. Sympathy
- Demonstrate sympathy for the position of the object. Empathize, if the painting is a picture of a naked lady, be that person and show your feelings.

Now to tell a painting's story. There are some small steps to make it easier before actually writing it.

1. List details
- Don't include emotions and reaction. Write down the colors you see, is there a lamp post? A candy wrapper?
- You may extend the frame and list things not in the picture. If it's a picture of a crying lady, include the lover who just left her.

2. Write a short description of the painting
- Since not all Ekphrasis poems are given birth a famous artwork, it could be from your local museum like I said, this technique is designed to help others who haven't seen the painting.

3. Write a story about the artwork
- Unfreeze the frame
- Listen to the story the painting is telling you.

Now that we're done with that lets study one of the famous Ekphrasis poems written by the greats...

Landscape after the Fall of Icarus
by Pieter Bruegel

http://www.usm.maine.edu/eng/bruegel%20icarus.JPG

Landscape With The Fall of Icarus
by William Carlos Williams

According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was spring

a farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantry

of the year was
awake tingling
near

the edge of the sea
concerned
with itself

sweating in the sun
that melted
the wings' wax

unsignificantly
off the coast
there was

a splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning

--

Hair-raising isn't it. A good example of technique number 4. Where the main message the painter was relating to was that even though Icarus was drowning (notice his legs on the lower right below the ship), it was not much of significance, the world still moves on. And in the poem, Williams introduced Icarus already, but then jumped out of topic explaining in detail the things around it, then just going back slightly on Icarus' drowning.

"unsignificantly
off the coast
there was

a splash quite unnoticed"

- How true is the message behind this? Happens everyday.

Auden had his own version of this just the same technique used.

"--the plowman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on."

Another one which is very unique is about the painting "The Scream" by Edvard Munch

http://www.ece.mcgill.ca/~elotay/scream.jpg

Excerpt's from Monica Yuon's "Stealing The Scream"

"the guards rushing in--- too late!--- greeted only
by the gap-toothed smirk of the museum walls;
and dangling from the picture wire like a baited hook,
a postcard: "Thanks for the poor security."

The policemen, lost as tourists, stand whispering
in the galleries: ". . .but what does it all mean?"
Someone has the answers, someone who, grasping the frame,
saw his sun-red face reflected in that familiar boiling sky."

- A good Ekphrasis that used technique's 1 and 6. You must first know that the painting itself must be the most "stolen" painting in the history of art, and not just that, it was rumored to have been damaged more than 5,000 times resulting for multiple versions of it. Now look at the painting again, isn't it so ironic?
The final lines of the last couplet were actually true. The robbers who took the painting actually left that note, and the final lines of the last couplet said it all. How the author "painted in words" an image of the robber grasping the frame, and as if kidnapping a real person, looks at the sun-red face of terror plastered in the painting... the scream.

Hope you learned something new on reading this, or that I didn't waste too much of your time. :)