Before I get to today's ArtSpeak: RED poem,
Happy birthday also to my niece JuliAnna, who is a huge HP fan.
Also, I want to share this handout I created (also available as a pdf download on my website):
Finally, I'd like to address a question brought forth by Linda in comments to last week's blog post:
How do you select art for this project?
The truth is, I don't have any hard and fast method. Before I expanded this project to year-round (instead of for National Poetry Month only), I would sit down sometime before April 1 and search the internet. I'd populate a file on my computer with 31 images (allowing 1 to be a throwaway, if for some reason I couldn't find a poem in it). Some years I've written on them in the order they appear in my file. Other years I picked whichever image spoke to me that day. Still other years I've been more organized and had themes per week within my broader theme.
But now, with the expansion of this project, I really try to let my muse (and whimsy!) guide me. Sometimes I'll sit down and search for red art. Sometimes I find art on other people's websites (most recently I wrote a poem after a strawberry piece I saw on Jama's blog), and sometimes I want to explore a particular artist's work, and so I will search their works to see what might fit my theme.
One source I've found helpful this year, because I've got a color theme, is Google Arts and Culture. They have a "search art by color" feature. Most of the art I select is in the public domain (wikiart is a good source; also the National Gallery of Art online collection), but not all of it. I am careful to attribute the work and have been advised that because I am transforming the work by adding a poem, this falls into "fair use" territory.
I hope this information helps any of you who may want to write your own ekphrastic poems! And I will tell you: I have enjoyed the "red" theme so much, I am already looking ahead to 2021 (for many MANY reasons!), and I think I may write BLUE poems next year. We'll see!
And now... today's poem! I wrote several pages on this painting, trying all sorts of approaches. This is where I landed:
How do you select art for this project?
The truth is, I don't have any hard and fast method. Before I expanded this project to year-round (instead of for National Poetry Month only), I would sit down sometime before April 1 and search the internet. I'd populate a file on my computer with 31 images (allowing 1 to be a throwaway, if for some reason I couldn't find a poem in it). Some years I've written on them in the order they appear in my file. Other years I picked whichever image spoke to me that day. Still other years I've been more organized and had themes per week within my broader theme.
But now, with the expansion of this project, I really try to let my muse (and whimsy!) guide me. Sometimes I'll sit down and search for red art. Sometimes I find art on other people's websites (most recently I wrote a poem after a strawberry piece I saw on Jama's blog), and sometimes I want to explore a particular artist's work, and so I will search their works to see what might fit my theme.
One source I've found helpful this year, because I've got a color theme, is Google Arts and Culture. They have a "search art by color" feature. Most of the art I select is in the public domain (wikiart is a good source; also the National Gallery of Art online collection), but not all of it. I am careful to attribute the work and have been advised that because I am transforming the work by adding a poem, this falls into "fair use" territory.
I hope this information helps any of you who may want to write your own ekphrastic poems! And I will tell you: I have enjoyed the "red" theme so much, I am already looking ahead to 2021 (for many MANY reasons!), and I think I may write BLUE poems next year. We'll see!
And now... today's poem! I wrote several pages on this painting, trying all sorts of approaches. This is where I landed:
Lacemaker, Late Afternoon
Even as the light dies
and the needle bites,
she greets each task
with tenderness.
And when the threads
tangle into a nest of knots,
her fingers remain
devoted –
for lace is made of dreams.
- Irene Latham
Wishing you dreams and lace and a lovely day! Thank you for reading.
