Ekphrastic Poetry

1. Ekphrastic Poetry • Definition: a poem inspired by a work of art.

2. Lucille Clifton [B. 1936] TUESDAY 9/11/01 thunder and lighting and our world is another place   no day will ever be the same   no blood they know this storm in otherwheres israelirelandpalestine but God has blessed America we sing and God has blessed America to learn that no one   is exempt the world is one   all fear is one   all life   all death all one. Lun-Yi Tsai, Disbelief. 2002. Oil on linen.

3. Edward Hopper (American 1882-1967), Nighthawks. 1942. Oil on Canvas.

4. Samuel Yellen[B. 1906]NIGHTHAWKSThe place is the corner of Empty and Bleak,The time is night’s most desolate hour,The scene is Al’s Coffee Cup or the Hamburger Tower,The persons in this drama do not speak.We who peer through that curve of plate glassCount three nighthawks seated there – patrons of life.The counterman will be with you in a jiff.The thick white mugs were never meant for demitasse.The single man whose hunched back we seeOnce put a gun to his head in Russian Bank,Whirled the chamber, pulled the trigger, drew a blank,And now lives out his x years guarantee.And facing us, the two central charactersHave finished their coffee, and have litA contemplative cigarette,His hand lies close but not touching hers.Not long ago together in a darkened room,Mouth burned mouth, flesh beat and groundOn ravaged flesh, and yet they foundNo local habitation and no name.Oh, are we not lucky to be none of these!We can look on with complacent eye:Our satisfactions satisfy,Our pleasures, our pleasures please.

5. Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890.) Starry Night. 1889. Oil on Canvas

6. Anne Sexton [1928-1975] The Starry Night That does not keep me from having a terrible need of—shall I say the word—religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars. —Vincent van Gogh in a letter to his brother The town does not exist except where one black-haired tree slips up like a drowned woman into the hot sky. The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars. Oh starry starry night! This is how I want to die. It moves. They are all alive. Even the moon bulges in its orange irons to push children, like a god, from its eye. The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars. Oh starry starry night! This is how I want to die: into that rushing beast of the night, sucked up by that great dragon, to split from my life with no flag, no belly, no cry.

7. Henri Matisse (French, 1869-1954.) Dance. 1909. Oil on canvas

8. Natalie Safir [B. 1935] Matisse’s Dance A break in the circle dance of naked women, dropped stitch between the hands of the slender figure stretching too hard to reach her joyful sisters. Spirals of glee sail from the arms of the tallest woman.  She pulls the circle around with her fire. What has she found that she doesn’t keep losing, her torso a green-burning torch? Grass mounds curve ripely beneath two others who dance beyond the blue. Breasts swell and multiply and rhythms rise to a gallop. Hurry, frightened one and grab on—before the stitch is forever lost, before the dance unravels and a black sun swirls from that space.