Our first ekphrastic challenge inspired responses from four of us (so far… more will be welcome!). The pictures that inspired them can be found in the Challenges section.
Andy Grinter’s “David Hockney’s ‘My parents’” and his ‘Compartment C’ after Edward Hopper both imagine an alienating distance between the observer and the figures in the pictures.
Chris Short’s “Compartment C, Car 293” creates a villanelle out of the Hopper painting, while his ‘Waiting room’ is an un-rhymed sonnet on Hockney’s ‘My parents’.
Kathy Short detects rebellious thoughts in the expression of the girl in Paula Rego’s “The policeman’s daughter”.
Ken Gambles’ “As the crow flies” neatly brings together Hopper’s ‘Compartment C’ and Nevison’s ‘The soul of the soul-less city’ in a journey into the unknown.
A Walter Pater essay described da Vinci’s ‘La Gioconda’ in such poetic terms that Yeats included an extract in the Oxford Book of Modern Verse. Like Pater, Michael Field in “La Gioconda” finds Mona Lisa to be quietly threatening. ‘Michael Field’ was a collaboration of two Victorian women who wrote a number of ekphrastic poems.
William Carlos Williams’ “Landscape with the fall of Icarus” is, like his ‘Hunters in the snow’, a quite direct description of a painting.
Robert Hull’s “On television tonight” tellingly lampoons the upbeat adverts in between news reports of disasters.
Valerie Clark’s “Van Gogh” succinctly evokes the painter’s style as in his ‘Starry night’.
U A Fanthorpe’s “Not my best side” is a hilarious debunking of the characters in the legend of St George and the dragon. We had to imagine the four images inspiring the same poet’s “Notes at a photographic exhibition”, as I hadn’t found them online. The title of the one by Julia Margaret Cameron ‘Call and I follow, I follow, let me die’ is from Tennyson’s ‘Lancelot and Elaine’ (part of ‘Idylls of the King’).
In “Visit to an artist”, Elizabeth Jennings describes the experience of contemplating the paintings of the artist and poet David Jones.
Matt Harvey’s “Tilly and Cliff” is based on a sculpture by Lal Hitchcock. The poem is a dialogue which fizzes with imagination and wordplay, as does the same poet’s celebratory “Idle”.
Gavin Ewart’s “They flee from me” updates the Thomas Wyatt original with a mash-up of 1970s management-speak.
The French Rococo paintings in the “Oval room, Wallace Collection” amuse and entice Clive James.
The speaker in “Cover-up” by Michael Bartholomew-Biggs wants to be shielded from the horror and message of Picasso’s ‘Guernica’.
Chris Short’s “A statue in Corfu Town” and “For Kostas Georgakis” are inspired by a memorial to the Corfiot student and a picture ‘A lonesome border’ by Carmella Dolmer which was used in May’s monthly ekphrastic challenge on the poetry website Rattle.com.