Ekphrastic Poems
What Are Ekphrastic Poems?
Ekphrastic poems are poems written in response to art. But that definition is too small. An ekphrastic poem does not just describe an artwork. It enters it, it listens and becomes part of it. The poem and the artwork begin to live inside each other.
The word ekphrastic comes from the Greek word ekphrasis.
- “ek” means out
- “phrasis” means to speak or tell
So together, it means “to speak out” or “to describe in full.”
Originally, in ancient Greece, ekphrasis wasn’t just about art. It was about using vivid language to bring something to life so clearly that a listener could see it in their mind. Over time, the meaning narrowed. Now, we use ekphrasis mostly to describe writing that responds to visual art. To write an ekphrastic poem is not just to describe but to speak the image into another form of life.
In ekphrasis, the painting is not separate from the poem. They are in conversation. Sometimes the poem speaks to the artwork and sometimes it speaks from within it. Sometimes it becomes a voice the artwork could not hold on its own.
This is what happens in my poem “Dear Frida”, written after Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird. The poem does not explain Frida Kahlo’s painting. It writes to her as it recognizes her gaze, her stillness, her pain. It enters the space of the portrait and speaks where silence sits:
“I am writing to you because your eyes are open
and to be alive is to be erect
and to be seen and to observe.”
Here, the poem is a letter, but also a mirror that holds Frida’s image as Frida holds the speaker. The hummingbird, black cat and monkey are not just passive parts of the painting but they become absence, grief; symbols of life that moves between both worlds.
In another poem, “For Me,” after Faith Ringgold’s Woman Looking in a Mirror, the poem does not simply describe the woman. It becomes her interior and moves through her stillness, her fragmentation, and her quiet endurance:
“all at once she appears
walled into her dangers
listening to what doesn’t answer”
The painting offers the body but the poem offers the inner landscape. Together, they complete something neither could do alone. That is the work of ekphrasis. Ekphrastic poems ask us to slow down, practice attention, dwell inside an image long enough that it begins to speak. Not just what we see, but what we feel and recognize; what we remember.
For writers, ekphrasis is an entry point. If you do not know where to begin, begin with an object inside the image. Stay with it and let one detail of the object hold you; a hand, a color, a shadow. Then ask:
What is this image carrying?
What is it refusing?
What does it make me feel in my body?
And then, write from there.
Because sometimes the poem is already inside the artwork, waiting for language.
--Kay
Please click on an image below to read my out my Ekphrastic poems
