Ever want to write a poem? Just feel like diving into that surreal world of your thought, vision, and dreams, but you don’t know where to start. Life is full of clocks and deadlines. Social media and technology have us in a vice grip. ADD or ADHD is a common household term. Anxiety is at its highest as we are constantly made aware of other countries’ strife, our political controversies, and artificial intelligence on the rise. Our food is produced by an aspirin company that demands farmers use Roundup and Seminis pesticide poisoning; pharmaceutical companies provide prescriptions which cause a litany of side effects and eventually the illness its supposed to treat; and our free country forces untested vaccines upon us and people are dying undocumented for the reasons on daily basis. Man is not supposed to tinker with DNA. GMO is an acronym for hubris. Yet still, deep in our psyche we remember the good things from our childhood and continue to persevere if we do not die by suicide.
What does it boil down to? Good vs evil? Rich vs poor? Or is the survivalist the devil in us, hence the altruistic cultural arts have always been an escape, like a theater of the soul for humans to delve into-- the part of us that is holy and a mystery. I believe this mystery and connection to creativity is the reason we all still believe in a higher power.
Ekphrastic poetry is made by viewing another artist’s work and writing a poem inspired by the imagery. It has come to be defined as poems written about works of art; however, in ancient times. Greece, the term ekphrasis was applied to the skill of describing a thing with vivid detail.
The existential artwork piece is something to ponder and focus on to bring forth my depths of solitude. Like an octopus looking up at the light hitting the sea’s surface, I am in awe of another’s power. I might take a large spin on a piece but for some reason the artwork led me to these thoughts--like a river brings a rock to a shore.
Try it out!
The image here is by an amazing artist, Elizabeth Hlookoff of British Columbia Canada. The name of the piece is titled “Here I Go.” You can find her ink and watercolor mixed media art images on Facebook: art by Elizabeth.
Obsessed with the multiverse concept and frequently drawn to flipping my montages to see them in a new perspective, I flipped her painting upside down and wrote a poem about the deep South and superstition.
