Art and Poetry
Contributed by Anna Roseboro on NCTE-Talk taken from
a workshop "Image, Word, Poem : Visual Literacy and
the Writing Process" at the Detroit Institute of Art,
November, 1997. Presenters Terry and Jenny Williams
ENTERING*
"Therefore I ENTER those landscapes…"
Czeslaw Milosz
Any work of art invites imaginative entry into its
drama, mood, theme, locality, texture, space. Both
representational and abstract art can entice us into
the artist's original act of creation. This
imaginative entry evokes all our senses, memories,
dreams as we look, allow ourselves to feel and
imagine. For each of the experience is personal and
uniquely our own. Putting experience into words
enriches both our own viewing and the work of art
itself. What follows are some prompts to encourage
"entry" into the artwork.
1. Step inside the art work. Let its
space become your space. What does it feel like as
you journey into the painting? Where are you? What do
you hear? Smell? What do you notice under your feet?
Imagine you can touch something in the painting. What
would that be? How would it feel?
2. Write about the art work as if it were
a dream. Bring the scene to life and leave us in that
moment. Use. "In a dream, I…" or "Last night I had
the strangest dream…" or simply, "I dreamed…"
3. Write about the scene as if it is
happening now, using present tense, active verbs.
Begin with "I am…" Move around inside the work and
make things happen. Begin a line with "Suddenly…" in
order to create surprise, moving into something
unexpected.
4. Write about the work as if it is a
memory. List short, separate memories or lone long
memory. Both invent and remember as you write.
5. Imagine the art as something you see
outside a window. Begin with "From my window, I see…"
6. Putting on a mask. Imagine that the
work is something you can put on, over your everyday
self. What new identity does it give you? Write as if
you are the voice of the piece or the voice of one of
the figures represented in the piece. You need not be
a human figure. Give the grace a voice. Become the
fog. Speak in first person and try to figure out.
What does the speaker feel? remember? want or fear?
Perhaps the voice is issuing a warning or offering a
prayer.
7. Exploring an object. pick an object from the
paint or use the painting, sculpture, or object of
art itself, to answer the following
questions:
What does the object believe?
What does it remember?
What song does it song?
What does it wish?
What tricks has it played?
What does it see (past, present, future)? What does
it imagine?
What does it forgive?
What can't it forgive?
What is its history? its legend? its myth? What is it
used for?
What would it like to be used for?
PORTRAITS
Portraits of individuals, self-portraits, or
portraits of groupings of people can invite us to
participate in the lives of the figures in the
painting. Edgar Degas, for instance, the
impressionist who paid most attention to the human
figure, stresses psychological depth while avoiding
narrative detail. The intensely rendered figures in
his "Violinlist and Young Woman (1871) have
repeatedly lead students to create intriguing
scenarios of the relationship between the man and the
woman in the painting. Benny Andrews" mysterious
"Portrait of a Collagist" and Eugene Jansson's "Ring
Gymnast, No. 2" both encourage reflection on their
figures' state of mind.
Here are some prompts that can lead into writing
about characters:
1. What is the person feeling at this moment?
What is the person thinking? What is s/he doing?
Describe the person's actions. Follow the gaze of
the person and imagine what s/he sees.
2. Include lots of details, such as clothing,
objects on the floor or the wall. Putting details in
your poem will help readers imagine the portrait even
if they can't see it.
3. Go beyond the moment of the painting? What
can't we see about this person? What is the person
thinking? What will the person do next? Imagine the
person's memories. You might begin a line with "Once
he…" or "Sometimes she feels as if…"
4. Try different points of view. You could speak
in the voice of the person; address the person, or
write about the person. Each stance give a new
perspective on the work, puts you in a slightly
different relationship to the piece.
5. Copy change. Use models from other poets to
have students frame their observations about a piece
they are work with. Rilke's "Portrait of My Father as
a Young Man" (lines 1-9) can be adapted as follows:
In the eyes: dream. The brow as if it could feel
something far off. Around the lips, a great freshness
– seductive, though there is no smile. Under the rows
of ornamental braid
on the slim Imperial officer's uniform:
the saber's basket-hit. Both hand stay
folded upon it, going, nowhere, calm
and now almost invisible, as if they
were the first to grasp the distance and dissolve.
Introduce and discuss this poem. Let the students
feel the music and the mystery of it. Let them use
its pattern to get them started on their own catalogs
of precise observation.
In the eyes.__________. The .__________ as if it
could .__________
.__________. Around the .__________, a .__________
.__________, though there is no .__________
Under (over/below the .__________,
on the .__________… and so on.
The idea here is not to create clones or Rilke's
work, but to use his grammatical structure as a
launching pad.
Email: kglee@webtv.net
