Ekphrastic Poetry
Ekphrastic poems are poems inspired by pieces of art.
On Sunday 6 November 2022, Metchosin ArtPod held an Ekphrastic Poetry Workshop, under the expert tutelage of past Poet Laureate of Victoria, Yvonne Blomer.Here are some results:
Look at all the stars down there
by Sally Whitehead
There is a galaxy too, beneath our feet
where specks of pollen as
numerous as yellow stars
scattered
on a glossy black plate. There are twists,
curls, an explosion of dried-out colour. Solid
without the dew of life.
A dahlia
with no ahhh.
There is still fluttering: a fall
towards the edge. There is
a tumbled curve
towards the end.
Earth, too, dangles at the end
of the arm of a spiral galaxy. Unseen?
Nothing could be less empty than space.
after Feel Like Going Home by Edward Peck,
in the style of Torso 1 by Arleen Paré
After Dyan Marie’s Sun Flowers: Fishing for Gauguin
By Memet Burnett
There is white, black,
Where you pressed things once dear,
now dead, dyed, preserved. There is whimsy
drained of laughter. Transience
without pretence.
A bouquet
with no smell.
There is absence: ribbon, lace, flower food packet.
Everything natural. There is
fish
flowers
a child’s finger game string.
No gift could be more welcome.
In the style of Arleen Paré’s Torso 1
On encountering Kim Money’s “Who are you that I should have to lie”
by Memet Burnett
I taste
the fizz of an orange Vitamin C lozenge on my tongue.
I hear
the crazy-ass sax-playing band in a tiled NY subway
I smell
A sparkler lit from the bonfire, loopy cursive written on the dark
I feel
The frenzied house-tidy minutes before guests arrive.
It’s a child amped on candy, up too late on a hallowe’en night
It’s a Light-brite on uppers displaying for it’s true love: the firefly
It’s a brain unhinged, overbrimming with renovation decisions
What can I say that I cannot
On encountering Arrival & Departure by Phyllis Schwartz
by Sally Whitehead
I stand in the whisper of ghosts
grain towers cut down
grown faded
a dried mono
culture
of bread crust wheat
Empty as the song
of the last crickets
Where does the grain go now?
On encountering Alison Taylor’s Carpe Diem/ If I could tell you
by Sharon Taylor
There is, at the heart, the mane
Where the lion’s insubstantial presence floats
Over the blue. There is spirit
With no substance. Dis-membered
Without loss of self
Re-membered in majesty
There are intersections dividing the body into components. There are
I told you so’s and
I would let you know’s
As the lion runs away from behind the bars which tie it to
This work-a-day world.
In the style of Arleen Paré’s Torso 1
On encountering Edward Peck’s “Feel like going home”
by Sharon Taylor
DIS-INTEGRATION
Yeats said “things fall apart – the centre cannot hold”
But these flowers were ruthlessly pulled apart as they feebly clung to life:
Spread on a slab, manipulated into a symbol of what had been left behind –
grace and transient beauty
Flayed and pinned to the wall like a butterfly – splayed for the gaze
Of people who see only its present
And neither its past
as love in the hand,
Nor its future
as renewal for the children of its kind
Directions
By Steven Ross Smith
*
“There is no there there”
where space is within space
paired to itself
in umber
There is pumpkin no vegetable matter
orange without meaning scattered afloat
in cloudy musty dusk drawing down
with no direction to where
there is not though framed
& brushed
There is
a hush no a rustle
a dance of brushed bristle
a smithy’s work worked to
waken corner to corner uncornered
nothing could be taken bound
with without frame without knot
in expanding space
the universe
where there
is & is not
In the style of Arleen Paré’s Torso 1
Which is after Diana Smith’s Diptych Directions: many; Directions: two (Cold Wax & Oil)
Which is after Arleen Paré’s Heart’s Arrow
& Beginning with a quote from Gertrude Stein