Ekphrasis: Poems and Art
Image Credit: Cathleen Cohen
Welcome to a new Mad Poets blog, to be offered quarterly.
It’s a pleasure to write about the relationship between poetry and other art forms, to examine ways that a various creative arts relate to each other.
The term ekphrasis can be defined narrowly as writing that describes a work of art in another medium-- paintings, music, photography sculpture and the like. It can also refer more broadly to the alchemy that happens when one medium tries to define and relate to another. This could refer to poems inspired by the visual arts or music -- and also the reverse! To my mind, ekphrasis can also encompass hybrid works, like artists’ books, author/illustrator collaborations and graphic poems.
Many scholars have written about ekphrasis and there are great resources online. Though not scholar of the topic, I have had a practice of writing poetry and painting for many years. Both are essential to my creative life. These art forms interact, challenge each other and open up many questions and tensions.
My aim in this blog is to feature the work of various poets and artists, to let you know of interesting viewing opportunities and to provide some angles that might prompt your own writing.
Ekphrastic Adventures
This month I share my own adventures with ekphrasis. The time seems opportune since I’ll be teaching two courses in February that link visual art with poetry writing (details below). But first, some background on my obsession…
While attending PAFA (Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts) as an adult in the 1990s and enthralled with visual art, a long-dormant love of poetry returned. It happened in animal drawing class. A friend and I were sketching, observing a lion and tiger sunning themselves on rocks in separate enclosures. They raised their heads and eyed each other for long, tense moments. Gulping, I dropped my charcoal, grabbed a pencil, and started scribbling words in a notebook. Fragments of this experience emerged in a later poem.
PORTRAIT
Sketching at the zoo,
we’d rough in the forms of giant turtles
like tilting boulders.
Beside the lion cage
we’d glide sticks of charcoal
to imitate their prowl.
Once the pride male leapt to a ledge
across from the tiger on his ledge.
Neither flinched.
What passed between them?
Or between us
that last day teaching
before you got so sick?
Our students sat rapt
while you demonstrated
how to sketch portraits
with a loose grip.
You wavered, nearly fell
but gestured away
my help
and eyed me, as if
from a long distance.
From Etching the Ghost (Atmosphere Press)
I began to write poetry in earnest, something I had done in earlier years. Now imagery expressed in poetry and in painting seemed to intermingle, leading to experiments with one-of-a-kind artists’ books. Initially I kept text and paintings discrete, as in the first two examples, which are pages from different books. However, the third example shows mark- making superimposed over text in a practice known as “asemic” writing. Asemic art is quite intriguing and I recommend the work of Karla Van Vliet as one practitioner of this approach. (eg, Fluency, Shanti Arts Publishing, 2021). It often has a calligraphic quality and seems related to pictograph languages, like Chinese, Arabic and Hebrew.
Painting, Cathleen Cohen
Light and Shadow
Our eyes turn toward light,
but shadows are vital in painting.
Their muted tones reflect
more outgoing, brassy colors
of candlesticks and copper pots.
Shadows conduct a subtle life
below surface, as dreams do.
They hold things together,
underpinning what shouts
and seeks attention
like glints on glass
or highlights on a rose.
I’m so easily distracted
by bright objects, headlines,
sharp words, the rush of daily life.
Let me notice what’s nuanced,
like your sustaining love.
Let me sense where to place
a shadow, a soft brushstroke, silence,
a kind word.
Murmuration, Cathleen Cohen
Murmuration
Have you ever witnessed starlings
swirl above landscape,
scattering souls over
pale, winter grasses
in cramped, suburban yards
like mine? The shock
might wobble your heart.
I stare as a thousand tiny birds
slant toward sunlight,
mimic roofs and branches,
bloom into clouds
and blessings.
They spread like open fingers
spelling out questions
then contract
into a line, a siphon into
breath. Pause.
I pray they’ll soon reappear
above another landscape.
Although I’m not a scribe,
I stay up all night to paint
what I recall – traces.
https://ritualwell.org/ritual/murmuration/
In Murmuration, language (Hebrew in various fonts ) is integral to the composition of the watercolor and lately I’ve been creating works that reference Psalms and other ritual texts.
Upcoming Course Opportunities
This leads me to sharing about two upcoming course I’ll be teaching that offer ekphrasis experiments as inspiration for writing poems. The first, Jump Into Poetry, will meet weekly in person in February through Main Line School Night at the Creutzberg Center in Radnor, PA.
Information on how to register should be up online soon. No prior experience even lifting a painting brush is needed!!!
https://mainlineschoolnight.org/ or email me at cpoems@gmail.com
My second course on Ekphrasis in February is Mussar as a Generative Practice for Art and Poetry. It will be conducted online through Ritualwell.org. Poets and artists from any and background are most welcome. Mussar is a study of ethics that originated with European Hasidic practitioners in the 19th century. It emphasizes daily practices that can help people connect with kindness and compassion, to transform our behaviors and strengthen our relationships. In this poetry course, we will use visual art and poetry experiments to consider issues like: seeking order in the overwhelm of our experiences, boundaries and connection, and values that guide us.
https://ritualwell.org/event/mussar-as-a-generative-practice-for-art-and-poetry/2024-02-14/
For more information about my own creative work, including exhibitions and books:
https://ceruleanarts.com/pages/cathleen-cohen
https://cathleencohenart.com/poetry/new--sparks-and-disperses
Cathleen Cohen was the 2019 Poet Laureate of Montgomery County, PA. A painter and teacher, she founded the We the Poets program at ArtWell, an arts education non-profit in Philadelphia (www.theartwell.org). Her poems appear in journals such as Apiary, Baltimore Review, Cagibi, East Coast Ink, 6ix, North of Oxford, One Art, Passager, Philadelphia Stories, Rockvale Review and Rogue Agent. Camera Obscura (chapbook, Moonstone Press), appeared in 2017 and Etching the Ghost (Atmosphere Press), was published in 2021. She received the Interfaith Relations Award from the Montgomery County PA Human Rights Commission and the Public Service Award from National Association of Poetry Therapy. Her paintings are on view at Cerulean Arts Gallery. To learn more about her work, visit www.cathleencohenart.com.