As my family knows, I’m a big logophile – a person who loves words. Scrabble, anyone? I’ll play at the drop of a hat. Wordle, Spelling Bee, I’m obsessed. The word on my mind lately is “ekphrasis,” which is Greek for “description.” More specifically, I’ve been thinking about “ekphrastic” poetry, which, according to the Poetry Foundation, is a vivid description of a work of art, such as a painting or sculpture, which amplifies and expands that artwork’s meaning.
A couple of weeks ago, I attended a workshop on ekphrastic poetry at Tippet Rise, an art center set on a sheep and cattle ranch in Fishtail, Montana. https://tippetrise.org/about The golden rolling hills of Tippet Rise, unfolding to vistas of the Beartooth Mountains, are studded with monumental sculptures by famous artists such as Ai Wei Wei, Louise Nevelson and Mark di Suvero. It’s a landscape that truly inspires awe.
The night before the workshop, I asked myself why I had signed up for this thing - a three-hour class that would require four hours of driving. But I had a hunch that it would be worth the effort. I was right. The workshop was led by poet-in-residence Jenny Xie http://www.jennymxie.com/, who made it feel natural to talk passionately and learnedly about poetry among a group of strangers. We discussed several ephrastic poems, including Albert Goldbarth’s 1400 (wow!), and then we disbursed into the landscape to write about a sculpture that spoke to us. In the last half hour, we read our drafts aloud. I was moved by the vulnerability of those willing to share, and the creativity of the poetic voices. It confirmed for me that art begets more art, and that all art fosters community and connection.
Here is my piece, written about the newest addition to Tippet Rise, Wendy Red Star’s sculpture called The Soil You See.
Wendy Red Star’s sculpture The Soil You See, at Tippet Rise Art Center
On Wendy Red Star’s The Soil You See
Monument to earth furls
and clouds turbulent,
to time and leagues
grasping and loosing,
Blood dusted disk
insisting with your whorl words
that we feel a thumb
impressed on a neck,
You inhabit this slant
And dare us to chant your lament.
Yet we stutter, the chant
stuck to our tongues,
our bloodied hands seeming to stain
no matter the ablution.
Elizabeth Anthony
In September, I’m presenting a show of paintings and poems at the Bozeman Public Library, in collaboration with my neighbor Kim Epskamp. Ekphrastic poetry will naturally be a part of it. More on that in my next newsletter.