DAY 2. Pictures into Words: Ekphrastic Poetry

Hope you did your homework:

Bring in Pictures:

1. people 
2. places
3. picture of your choice

DAY 2. Pictures into Words

What is Ekphrastic poetry? 

1. Warm-up Exercise: Autobiography Poem:

First line: first name

Second line: three words that describe you

Fourth line: three things you do not like

Fifth line: three favorite movies/books

Sixth line: three fears - use figurative language (simile, metaphor, personification, etc.)

Seventh line: three things you like about school

Eight line: two goals

Ninth line: place you would like to visit

Tenth line: Last name

I will read the poems aloud without line 1 and 10 - guess who's who?


2. Imagery group poems: 

• Each student select one of her images (not the place poem).
• Write a line and pass it on. Write a line and pass it on...
• 2 rounds - pass each poem around twice
• Read these 10 line poems aloud.

3. Writing a 3 stanza poem (12 lines) on the painting below: 

• Overview: consider the 5 elements of Art: Color, Line, Space, Shape, Texture
• Parts: describe the background, middle ground, foreground 
• For example:

  Cezanne's Ports by Allen Ginsberg In the foreground we see time and life swept in a race toward the left hand side of the picture where shore meets shore. But that meeting place isn't represented; it doesn't occur on the canvas. For the other side of the bay is Heaven and Eternity, with a bleak white haze over its mountains. And the immense water of L'Estaque is a go-between for minute rowboats.

  Paul Cezanne, L'Estaque (1883-85) Oil on canvas. The Museum of Modern Art, New York City.

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• Title: give your poem a title that fits the picture
• Interdependence: how do these elements and parts come together?
• Conclusion: what conclusion can we draw from it? Suggest a story.

Morning Light, Interior  (1923)

Daniel Garber, American, 1880 - 1958

The Poetry Foundation defines Ekphrastic as “Description” in Greek. 
An ekphrastic poem is a vivid description of a scene or, more commonly, a work of art.
Through the imaginative act of narrating and reflecting on the “action” of a painting or sculpture, the poet may amplify and expand its meaning. 

What is imagery? GOATVOK

Sensory imagery:

• Gustatory - Taste
• Olfactory - Smell
• Auditory - Sound
• Tactile - Touch
• Visual - Sight
• Organic - Feeling
• Kinesthetic - Action/motion

4. "Build-a-Poem Exercise"

Building on the imagery exercises from yesterday afternoon with Ms. Coleman, we will work with images and words in her "Build-a-Poem Exercise":

1. Describe a single image that you feel captures the essence or spirit of a place you love.
The image will be concrete and specific but should capture the spiritual, physical, and emotional essence of the larger place. Be sure to use sensory detail.

2. Write a second line. Consider if you want to build on the first image (add more detail) complicate/change the first image slightly, add reflection (your thoughts) on the first image, add a second image, etc. You should still be trying to capture or distil the essence of this place.

3. Still focusing on this place, ask the image in the first line a question.

4. Answer the question, either as the image or by supplying an answer yourself.


5. Poetry Scavenger Hunt:

With laptops, explore some of the ekphrastic poems listed below - which is your favorite?

Rank your top 3. Please explain why. Be specific about details.

Examples of ekphrastic poetry on Poets.org include:

The Shield of Achilles by W. H. Auden

The Painting by Jon Balaban

War Photograph by Kate Daniels

The Family Photograph by Vona Groarke

Museum Guard by David Hernandez

The Mad Potter by John Hollander

Messieur Degas Teaches Art and Science at Durfy Intermediate School, Detroit 1942 by Philip Levine

Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats

Die Muhle Brennt—Richard by Richard Matthews

Photograph of People Dancing in France by Leslie Adrienne Miller

Why knowing is (& Matisse’s Woman with a Hat) by Martha Ronk

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus by William Carlos Williams

Stealing The Scream by Monica Youn

Joseph Cornell, with Box by Michael Dumanis


If you don't like these here are more examples to explore!

Plus from Emory: "Poet Speaks of Art"

Harry Rusche, English Department, Emory University. 

This project is designed for the students of English 205, "Introduction to Poetry."

Introductory Remarks

• W. H. Auden, "Musee des Beaux Arts"
• John Berryman, "Winter Landscape"
• Walter de la Mare, "Brueghel's Winter"
• Greg Delanty, "After Viewing 'The Bowling Match at Castlemary, Cloyne'(1847)"
• Stephen Dobyns, "The Street"
• Paul Engle, "Venus and the Lute Player"
• U. A. Fanthorpe, "Not my Best Side"
• Lawrence Ferlinghetti, "[The Wounded Wilderness of Morris Graves]"
• Donald Finkel, "The Great Wave: Hokusai"
• Richard Foerster, "Breughel's Harvesters"
• Allen Ginsberg, "Cezanne's Ports"
• Edward Hirsch, "Edward Hopper and the House by the Railroad"
• Randall Jarrell, "The Bronze David of Donatello"
• X. J. Kennedy, "Nude Descending a Staircase"
• Joseph Langland, "Hunters in the Snow: Brueghel"
• Mary Leader, "Girl at Sewing Machine"
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "The Cross of Snow"
• Derek Mahon, "St. Eustace"
• Derek Mahon, "Girls on the Bridge"
• Derek Mahon, "The Hunt by Night"
• Derek Mahon, "Courtyards in Delft"
• Edwin Markham, "The Man with the Hoe"
• Lisel Mueller, "Paul Delvaux, The Village of the Mermaids"
• Frank O'Hara, "On Seeing Larry Rivers' 'Washington Crossing the Delaware' at the Museum of Modern Art"
• W. D. Snodgrass, "Matisse: 'The Red Studio'"
• Cathy Song, "Girl Powdering Her Neck"
• John Stone, "Three for the Mona Lisa"
• John Stone, "Early Sunday Morning"
• John Stone, "American Gothic"
• John Stone, "The Forest Fire"
• Nancy Sullivan, "Number 1 by Jackson Pollack (1948)"
• May Swenson, "The Tall Figures of Giacometti"
• Wislawa Szymborska, "Two Monkeys by Brueghel"
• William Carlos Williams, "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus"
• William Carlos Williams, "The Hunters in the Snow"
• William Carlos Williams, "The Adoration of the Kings"
• William Carlos Williams, "Peasant Wedding"
• William Carlos Williams, "Haymaking"
• William Carlos Williams, "The Corn Harvest"
• William Carlos Williams, "The Wedding Dance in the Open Air"
• William Carlos Williams, "The Parable of the Blind"
• William Carlos Williams, "Children's Games"
• William Carlos Williams, "Classic Scene"
• William Carlos Williams, "The Great Figure"
• William Carlos Williams, "The Dance"

Charles Sheeler, Classic Landscape (1931)
Oil on canvas, 25 inches x 32.25 inches.

Classic Scene William Carlos Williams A power-house in the shape of a red brick chair 90 feet high on the seat of which sit the figures of two metal stacks--aluminum-- commanding an area of squalid shacks side by side-- from one of which buff smoke streams while under a grey sky the other remains passive today--

6. Write your own poem on a famous work of art:

Suggested Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) Artworks

Questions:

• List the first words that come to mind when you look at this artwork.
• What is happening in this artwork? What story is being told? 
• Who or what is the subject of the painting? 
• How would you describe them? 
• What is the mood of the artwork? 
• What sounds, smells, feelings, tastes could you associate with it? 
• How does this artwork connect with you personally? 
• Why did you choose it? 
• How would you summarize its main idea? 

The Lost Balloon, 1882
William Holbrook Beard
oil on canvas
47 3/4 x 33 3/4 in. (121.3 x 85.7 cm.) Museum purchase
1982.41.1

http://americanart.si.edu/images/1982/1982.41.1_1a.jpg

Subway, ca. 1934
Lily Furedi
oil on canvas
39 x 48 1/4 in. (99.1 x 122.6 cm.)
Transfer from the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service
1965.18.43

http://americanart.si.edu/images/1965/1965.18.43_1a.jpg

Interception, 1996
Mark Tansey
oil on canvas
71 1/4 x 108 1/4 in. (181.0 x 275.0 cm.)
Museum purchase made possible by the American Art Forum
1996.78

http://americanart.si.edu/images/1996/1996.78_1a.jpg

Cape Cod Morning, 1950
Edward Hopper
oil on canvas
34 1/8 x 40 1/4 in. (86.7 x 102.3 cm.)
Gift of the Sara Roby Foundation
1986.6.92 

http://americanart.si.edu/images/1986/1986.6.92_1a.jpg

Café, ca. 1939-1940
William H. Johnson
oil on paperboard
36 1/2 x 28 3/8 in. (92.7 x 72.2 cm.)
Gift of the Harmon Foundation
1967.59.669 

http://americanart.si.edu/images/1967/1967.59.669_1a.jpg

The Girl I Left Behind Me, 1870-1875
Eastman Johnson
oil on canvas
42 x 34 7/8 in. (106.7 x 88.7 cm.)
Museum purchase made possible in part by Mrs. Alexander Hamilton Rice in memory of her husband and by Ralph Cross Johnson
1986.79

http://americanart.si.edu/images/1986/1986.79_1a.jpg

Homework:

Bring in songs/lyrics and lyrics to share.