Some Proof!
Back in the day I got all gushy about the axis between visual art and poetry. Well, in the Wall Street Journal, Judith Dobrzynski wrote about Charles Demuth’s homage to William Carlos William’s poem, “The Great Figure.” The article itself mostly describes the painting in a where’s waldo/photo hunt sort of way, but I’m thankful to find this kind of cross-genre, pseudo collaboration.
It’s like the reciprocation for all those ekphrastic poems. There’s a collection of Ekphrastic poems called, Elastic Ekphrastic if anyone’s interested. It makes sense to me that ekphrastic poetry has such a long tradition and has a fairly consistent popularity, much like writing in a form. Also, I keep finding that many of the images in contemporary poetry are visual. Visual first. As if sight is #1 in the battle of the senses. With digital cameras, and super-awesome lenses of fanciness, and authors who are collaborating to include photographs in their books (Mary Oliver and her partner for example, if I remember right). Photography is the new painting, yo.
i for one enjoy capturing images and words. they can easily flow together of apart.