#1
Nationality:
Themes:
Emotions:
Topics:
Form:
Genre:
support@poemanalysis.com
Poem Solutions Limited
Company no: 10883994
United Kingdom
Ekphrastic poetry is a form of literature that responds to a work of art—typically visual art such as a painting, sculpture, or even a photograph.
The goal of ekphrastic poetry is not just to describe the artwork, but to engage with it, often adding insight, interpretation, or imbuing it with new meaning. This dialogue between art forms can yield rich, evocative poems that enhance and deepen the reader’s understanding of both the poem and the art it responds to.
Famous examples include John Keats‘ ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn‘ and W. H. Auden’s ‘Musée des Beaux Arts.’
‘Archaic Torso of Apollo’ by Rainer Maria Rilke details the remaining beauty and power of a damage sculpture missing its head and legs.
We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,
‘Csontváry’s Flowers’ is a fascinating insight into one extraordinary artist’s view of the work of another.
The thin ribbon of sky, and thinner still,
blued hints of the easterly Carpathians
then down into the whole arboretum of blue-greens and greens
closing in around the valley town of Selmecbánya
‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ by John Keats is an ekphrastic poem that praises the timeless ideals preserved by art, providing a sublime alternative to life’s fleeting impermanence.
Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
‘Carpet-weavers, Morocco’ is a challenging poem which explores issues such as child labour as well as examining the myriad origins of beauty.
The children are at the loom of another world.
Their braids are oiled and black, their dresses bright.
Their assorted heights would make a melodious chime.
‘Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror’ by John Ashbery manifests art’s struggle to capture the multifaceted self.
As Parmigianino did it, the right hand
Bigger than the head, thrust at the viewer
And swerving easily away, as though to protect
What it advertises. A few leaded panes, old beams,
‘Woman Seated in the Underground, 1941’ is a haunting portrait of a woman’s fractured mind as she sits in silence, trying to remember who she is in the aftermath of war.
I forget. I have looked at the other faces and found
no memory, no love. Christ, she’s a rum one.
Their laughter fills the tunnel, but it does not
comfort me. There was a bang and then
‘Happy Accidents’ intertwines war’s chaos with a teen’s photo lab mistake, revealing deeper truths about conflict’s brutal reality.
And Robert Capa, how was he to know?
As the ramps were lowered and the air turned lead
and the marines before him dropped into the water,
‘A Picture of Otto’ by Ted Hughes is addressed to Sylvia Plath’s father, Otto. It contains Hughes’ disagreements about how he and Otto were depicted in Plath’s work.
You stand there at the blackboard: Lutheran
Minister manqué. Your idea
Of Heaven and Earth and Hell radically
Modified by the honey-bee’s commune.
‘On Seeing the Elgin Marbles’ by John Keats is a poem about mortality. The speaker observes the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum and is moved by their power.
My spirit is too weak—mortality
Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep,
And each imagined pinnacle and steep
Of godlike hardship tells me I must die
Amy Lowell’s ‘Chinoiseries’ is an ekphrastic poem depicting the engravings on chinoiserie pottery. Lowell’s speaker gets lost in the art as if it is the eyes of her loved one.
When I looked into your eyes,
I saw a garden
With peonies, and tinkling pagodas,
And round-arched bridges
The poem reflects on how statues symbolize the lasting power of art to preserve history, culture, and values, while showing the fleeting nature of human life and achievements.
Pythagoras planned it. Why did the people stare?
His numbers, though they moved or seemed to move
In marble or in bronze, lacked character.
But boys and girls, pale from the imagined love
‘Musee des Beaux Arts’ by W.H. Auden describes, through the use of one specific artwork, the impact of suffering on humankind.
About suffering they were never wrong,
The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position: how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
‘The Museum of Obsolescence’ reflects on the passage of time, showing how once-important objects, ideas, and even people become outdated, left behind like relics in a forgotten museum.
So much we once coveted. So much
That would have saved us, but lived,
Instead, its own quick span, returning
To uselessness with the mute acquiescence
Written in response to fellow poet Coventry Patmore’s poem The Angel in the House (1854), ‘A Face’ by Robert Browning explores the poet’s fascination with a lady’s portrait, particularly her facial features depicted in it.
If one could have that little head of hers
Painted upon a background of pale gold,
Such as the Tuscan’s early art prefers!
No shade encroaching on the matchless mould
‘And Ut Pictura Poesis Is Her Name’ by John Ashbery is about poetry as an art form to express what’s in a creator’s mind. This piece focuses chiefly on the role of art and its nature.
You can’t say it that way any more.
Bothered about beauty you have to
Come out into the open, into a clearing,
And rest. Certainly whatever funny happens to you
support@poemanalysis.com
Poem Solutions Limited
Company no: 10883994
United Kingdom
Access Poetry PDF Guides
for this Poem
Complete Poetry PDF Guide
Perfect Offline Resource
Covers Everything You Need to Know
One-pager 'snapshot' PDF
Great Offline Resource
Gateway to deeper understanding
870+ Reviews
