about “ekphrastic” poetry 10/25

It was Greek to me, even after I began writing poems and short stories (long ago, in what seems more and more like “a galaxy far away”).

When I learned the word began as “ekphrasis”, Greek for “description” and “interpretation”, it stopped being Greek to me.

I soon embraced this interesting form that used words to respond to artworks.

The idea that going beyond description to express my thoughts and feelings about an image might lead to an interpretation, an expansion, even, into a voice not heard before, still qualifies as poetical catnip.

Writing ekphrastic poems has led to my deepened appreciation for both art forms.

The photograph above was taken at the Surf City branch of the Ocean County Library, located on New Jersey’s Long Beach Island.

The exhibit featured artworks depicting the area’s significant maritime history. It was described as a celebration of “the powerful connection between poetry and painting” where “local poets will perform their verses, brought to life through their unique pairings”.

The artist (Carol Freas) chose to focus this painting on a person. I’ve put the poem on the wall beside it below. Is it ekphrastic enough?

THE BAYMAN’S WOMAN By Jeanne Sutton

 She woke when her man left their cottage

in the pitch dark they call the dead of night.

She let him slip away, wraithlike,

before her day’s work dawned.

She might be his wife or daughter, mother or sister,

or the secret love of some bayman,

each one aboard his skiff, his sloop, his schooner,

all out there, oystering, trawling, long-lining.

Sun overhead now, she sits, becalmed

hands at rest in the lap of her life,

hopes of his return pinned up with her prayers,

each intended to catch the wind.

NO APRIL FOOLING

Among many other celebrations, this also happens to be National Poetry Month.  

I started writing poems about the same time as the “memoir” mentioned in last month’s blog.  Eleven years old then, still at it now, often sharing at open mics that welcome spoken word along with music and comedy.

For me, writing poetry invites what’s inside of me to - manifest itself.  Reading poems, or hearing them read, reaches what’s inside of me and -  touches it. 

Rutherford, New Jersey’s own William Carlos Williams, born in 1883, knew from high school he wanted to be a physician and a poet. He became both to the end of his life in 1963. His poems The Red Wheelbarrow and Paterson are his most widely known, but this excerpt (from his poem Asphodel, that greeny flower is a personal favorite:

It is difficult 

to get the news from poems

yet men die miserably every day

for lack of what is found there. 

The first poet whose work I came to know and love and heading into my teens was also a teenager when her poem “Renascence” made her famous, launched her Pulitzer Prize-winning career, and supported her decidedly bohemian lifestyle. She served as a real role model for a lot of early imitative poems, and she continued to inspire as I  accepted that invitation to manifest what was inside of me, decade after decade after decade (and then some). 

The poet's name was Edna Saint Vincent Millay. Wherever you choose to search, you’ll find a wealth of information, along with the wonderful - make that ‘wonder-filled’ body of work she created until her 1950 death at her home “Steepletop” in Austerlitz, New York.

 I had this already famous quote of hers by heart at 11. Still do. This is how it goes:

 I do believe the most of me

Floats under water; and men see

Above the wave a jagged small

Mountain of ice, and that is all. 

Only the depths of other peaks

May know my substance when it speaks,

And steadfast through the grinding jam

Remain aware of what I am. 

Myself, I think, shall never know 

How far beneath the waves I go.

Here’s hoping you’ll find a way to read or listen to some poetry this month. Until the “lusty month of May”, signing off…

A not-so-new year...

…already filled with a series of changes, in actual weather, the political climate, and this writer’s schedules. which is my excuse - and I’m sticking to it - for the lack of recent blogs. January is already a memory. Here’s to a new month - and a new blog.

I recently rediscovered the 1st page of a story titled Memoirs of a Wallet that I wrote in 4th grade!

I’ve kept on writing since, prose and poems and pretty much everything in between, including a stint as copy chief at a boutique Philadelphia ad agency that coincided with the commercial real estate boom of the 80’s. It led to my most unusual assignment – so far.

One of our clients was the developer responsible for transforming the former Curtis Publishing Building, where Ladies Home Journal and The Saturday Evening Post magazines were produced, start to finish, into today’s Curtis Center, located at 5th and Walnut, a stone’s throw from Independence Hall.

The marketing materials were the usual, except for the informative brass plaque! to be displayed with the amazing artwork in the building’s lobby.

The Dream Garden began as a painting commissioned by Curtis Bok from artist Maxfield Parrish. It ended as a 15 by 49 foot favrile glass mosaic executed by Louis Comfort Tiffany and the Tiffany Studios in 1916. They used over 100,000 pieces of hand-fired favrile glass to achieve the 260 colors required to reproduce the original design.

The creative partnership won praise as a major artistic collaboration. Truth is, they had their differences. Parrish complained that Tiffany’s interpretation of his design lacked subtlety and “painterliness”. Tiffany dissed the technical vagueness of Parrish’s design sketches.

The work of both men survives.

So does the extraordinary mosaic. Not in a museum, but in the Curtis Center lobby.

If you’ve not paid this unique work of art a visit, think about it!