November Poetry Challenge: Ekphrastic Poetry

[SweetMerry]

Band Drawing Compostion by: Catherine Sarlatte


Sibling Rivalry

Hers was the orderly way
the clever point that
won our arguments
I blustered through
knowing it was hopeless
anticipating her smug retreat
Try as I might I could never control
my passion using dramatics to illustrate
the righteousness of my crusade
it never worked I always lost
she was amused
she tells me now so much
that she would instigate a set-to
just to watch me scramble my reality.

​

wow, it always fascinates me to see people's differnt reactions to the same image. When i saw this my mind went immediately to self conflict, or to the social mask of calm one usues to cover inner turmoil. But, when I read Sibling Rivalry it made perfect sense, too. I could feel the frustration coming off it in waves. It really fits the image.

 

[SweetMerry]

You are my Caesar
You are my conqueror
Wrapped in your golden robe and crowned with nature's brilliance
I submit

Willingly
Surrendering to your command
That is my wish
My joy to grant us both

This kiss

 

[Tzara]

Gawrsh! We have even more ekphrastickers! (Or repeat ones. Shame on them.)

Look here. We have

• Another Tessie
• Another Angie
• And, hey, new SweetMerry. Welcome, SweetM! And what an excellent choice for a painting. I love Herr Klimt. I wanna go to Vienna just 'cuz of him.

We have, oh, several days left in November, people.

Hint. That's a hint.

 

[SweetMerry]

Thanks for the welcome. I love this painting. It appears simple, but there are so many layers and interpretations.

 

[Tzara]

Well, ekphrasticizers, we're right near the end of November. There's still time to plunk down a poem (or two or three, if you get really industrious) before our cutoff time of tomorrow midnight (PST).

Thanks to all of you who participated--many more than once. We all got to check out a lot of intriguing art and read many wonderful poems.

Twenty-six hours to go. C'mon. It's fun.

 

[Paris_Garters]

Danae
Gustav Klimt

You call her beautiful, drawn to
those parted lips, the blush
of her perfect nipple. Your eye
is drawn like a comb through her hair
and hypnotized by the waves. You see
flesh and think innocence, gentle temper,
the purity of sleep. I warn you
there is no immaculate conception here
this is no victim, no virgin.
She is not asleep. That is the first lie
and the second is her resistance. Look:
she lifts her thighs willingly,
those ankles crossed and pulling
lewdly on the spine of that god
like they all do, horny for gold,
fucking for coins, and always
ready with those grasping fingers
and that hidden hand
and all those open, greedy mouths.

 

[Tzara]

Danae
Gustav Klimt

You call her beautiful, drawn to
those parted lips, the blush
of her perfect nipple. Your eye
is drawn like a comb through her hair
and hypnotized by the waves. You see
flesh and think innocence, gentle temper,
the purity of sleep. I warn you
there is no immaculate conception here
this is no victim, no virgin.
She is not asleep. That is the first lie
and the second is her resistance. Look:
she lifts her thighs willingly,
those ankles crossed and pulling
lewdly on the spine of that god
like they all do, horny for gold,
fucking for coins, and always
ready with those grasping fingers
and that hidden hand
and all those open, greedy mouths.

Oh my!

Oh. Oh, my!

Unstick me, moddies. I'm stuck now on life.


TY, PG. Great poem.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Unstuck or not you're still not going to shake me off.

Sumi-e

saved
in an ornate box
waiting
to be useful

Ink stick drily set
beside blackened slate
bamboo brushes hibernating
bristles straight
aligned
grasses in the wind

Rice paper rolls
virginal white
like snow fields
waiting for the first
small animal
to leave its mark.​

 

[Biffalo_Buff]

My thanks to Angeline for her encouragement regarding my submission for the Thanksgiving Challenge. I know it's a day late but I don't have much opportunity to visit here, so I hope it's still alright to post something for this challenge.

Bronze Tintinabulum
2nd C Rome

Disjointed, isolated, my cock
when it hangs near you is as mythical
as this odd ancient totem. What I know
is that inside you, that is what I feel:
wings, a mind, a body
flight and multiplicity, myself as
cock within cock within cock.
Mine, lover, my own leaping totem
protects you from famine
keeps you filled,
I make my offering, stand guard,
winged, multiple
Aloft, I sway
and play charmed music
when you walk past
Place me at your doorway
let my spin and rock bless this space
let it multiply,
and fill your dwelling
with abundance. I will be
your staff, your doorpost,
raise a high roofbeam over you.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Gawrsh! We have even more ekphrastickers! (Or repeat ones. Shame on them.)

Shame? So it's not okay if I do this, then. hmph. I'm doing it anyway.
Just the way I am, I guess.

Girl
by Egon Schiele


Schiele's Nudes

He doesn't trust me, doesn't love
any of us. I'm one of the few
who will hold still for it -
the sullen silence, tantrum and scratch
of those afternoons as he slashes
at canvas. I can feel his pen
making holes in me, warping my outlines.
He is merely predicting me, eating my sins.
He takes the confession and traps it
in crooked outlines.

It is assumed that I let him take me.
We all fall occasionally; it's too tempting,
with the artists. Their focus, their oblivious
fascination with work invites challenge.
This one, though, refuses distraction. I stretch
open, give him more in a pose than he
asks for, but there is only
that absent glare. Whose face
does he scratch out
over and over,
whose thighs does he grip
with those merciless colors,
whose body does he split and stab
with his pen, into whom
does he thrust those harsh lines?

 

[twelveoone]

Yeah, I know. I'm using odd words again. So go read this. It over-generalizes stuff, but covers the basics.

OK, done? Good. Ekphrastic poetry is simply poetry about another form of art. I'd like to restrict that a bit for the challenge, if I may (and since it's my challenge, I guess I can freakin' do whatever I want), and suggest that you write a poem about a visual work of art. Painting, sculpture, photograph, whatever.

Oh yeah. Make it something you can link to so we know what the hell you're writing about. That's important. Don't care if you want to write about something famous (La Gioconda, for example) or some local artiste. Even some art of your own. We have a number of poets here who are talented visual artists as well. That's perfectly OK. Just show us the picture (or sculpture or photo or whatever) so we can judge how well the whole thing works.

Prototypical example: Hey, only from the best the Twentieth Century has to offer. How 'bout two poems describing Pieter Bruegel the Elder's Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels.

This is a fabulous painting. I've actually seen the real thing and it is way, way better in person than even in reproduction.

Oh, and then there are the poems. By two of the 20th Century's, like, most awesomely gifted poets: W. H. Auden and William Carlos Williams. Both wrote about this particular painting. Like here: Auden or here Williams.

Awesome stuff.

So, hey. Do yer best to emulate them about something that means something to you, 'K? Any length, any form (including free verse), any number of submissions. You control the vertical and the horizontal.

Oh. Deadline November 30, midnight PST.

'Cuz that's where I live.

see you in a month

 

[l8bloom]

tenatively translated from Tzara's
le chat dans le chapeau chie en arrière

I'm not good with French

I think it means, "The cat came back / the very next day."

What a great contest! More! More!! Let's extend it through December.

Or at least have another contest like this one. The poetry has been swimmingly good -- très wonderful. I've been up to my hairline in work and other promises, so haven't been around much. But I thank you each and every one for writing. It's been a delightful treat.

L8 .

 

[PandoraGlitters]

This thread has been so popular and so fun to read that maybe it should just become a year-round challenge. Work has been hectic lately so I haven't been able to write as much as I'd like, but I still manage to sneak in now and then and nibble on some poems during breaks. It's making me hungry for more.

Thanks for the inspiration, Tzara and company.

<3 Dora

 

[champagne1982]

lol... really, the cat shits through his hat... . (the cat in the hat leaves shit behind, literally) we were talking about dr. suess

 

[Tzara]

Gah, two days late and only half done...
I lose

It wasn't a contest. But you knew that, right?

<snip>

tenatively translated from Tzara's
le chat dans le chapeau chie en arrière

I'm not good with French

Merde! I didn't write that crap.

Nor did Dr. Seuss. The Cat in the Hat Shat Last?

Oh, do not do, sir,
this kitty doo, sir.​

At least, I don't think he did.

Nice picture, tho'. I was in Noo Yawk this year and saw the real thing. Appropriate for this site, I think, as he was a bit kinky: L'homme est né libre, et partout il est dans les fers!


Oh, wait. That was the other one.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Oh, do not do, sir,
this kitty doo, sir.​

Isn't that Sylvia Plath?

I'm outta here. Not enough booze around this place.


celebratin'. big time.

bj

 

[ElmerGlew]

.....

.....

 

[ElmerGlew]

.....

 

[champagne1982]

for bistro bijou bonus points

Autumn In The Northland

escarpment birch orange oak
fall encroaches faster than decay
boreal forest saying goodnight
to woodsmoked day and hello
to aurora borealis to blow kisses
against their outstretched limbs​

 

[PandoraGlitters]

Kissers

The anchor that grounds him is her kiss
and the offer it makes him. Her body's crescent
balances under the seeking mouth, would hold
her even if his arm didn't, firm to the ground.

 

[champagne1982]

Gah the link won't work. I'll just have to write about something else.

Hi 'dora,

Don't use the shortcut link generator when you right click on the photo. If you haven't already, build an account at photobucket.com or other online storage. Save the painting to your harddrive and then upload it into your photobucket album. That way the image code is already fixed up for you with the pic. The link will also stay up until you choose to delete the file from your photobucket (or whatever) album.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

Thanks for the advice, Champagne. I am relatively inexperienced with linking but enjoying it. I might try a hypertext poem next. Question (Tzara? Mods? Champagne?): When the source material for the poem is another genre of writing is it still called ekphrastic poetry? Awhile back, I wrote a poem about a children's book, speaking as the main character. Would that rightly be called an ekphrastic poem?

 

[Angeline]

Thanks for the advice, Champagne. I am relatively inexperienced with linking but enjoying it. I might try a hypertext poem next. Question (Tzara? Mods? Champagne?): When the source material for the poem is another genre of writing is it still called ekphrastic poetry? Awhile back, I wrote a poem about a children's book, speaking as the main character. Would that rightly be called an ekphrastic poem?

That's a Tzara question because it's his challenge, but here's an interesting link on ekphrastic poetry. Maybe it'll help.

 

[Tzara]

When the source material for the poem is another genre of writing is it still called ekphrastic poetry? Awhile back, I wrote a poem about a children's book, speaking as the main character. Would that rightly be called an ekphrastic poem?

"Ekphrasis has been considered generally to be a rhetorical device in which one medium of art tries to relate to another medium by defining and describing its essence and form, and in doing so, relate more directly to 'you', the audience through its illuminative liveliness."

By which, I guess, I would answer your question "yes."

Don't really matter to me, actually, since if you under correct or misguided guidanceness write a good poem, I am ain't gonna care about he nicely finalities about where it technically is ekphrastic or not. Don't frankly know who would, actually.

You want an honest answer?

"Your poem is ekphrastically beautiful," Monet said appreciatively while he tried to write one himself before giving up and going back to painting water lilies.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

extra bump cause this one is kewl too.