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The Ekphrastic Writer’s Column: Janée J. Baugher

3/12/2021

2 Comments

 
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Dear Ekphrasists,

Welcome to the third installment of the Ekphrastic Writer’s column. As the author of the first comprehensive guidebook on multi-genre ekphrasis,
The Ekphrastic Writer, I’ll be posting monthly musings, fielding your questions on ekphrasis (and beyond), and fostering a conversation on contemporary practices in visual-art-influenced creative writing. 


Because I didn’t receive any letters in February, I’ll take this opportunity to share with you a profound lesson that I learned during International Women’s Day. Actually, “day” doesn’t describe it. On Club House (a new, audio-only social media app) I participated in a 72-hour Woman’s Day Summit. We had speakers from around the world share their business acumen and offer feedback on entrepreneurial pitches, for example. But, the most powerful moments were when individuals shared their personal stories with great specificity and heart. Here’s my question to you: When’s the last time you shared something personal through your ekphrastic writing? Let your eyes be that portal to your vision. As Helen Keller said, “The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.” In every literary work of fiction and poetry, there’s truth within the space of imagination. However, you cannot hide behind abstraction, this is why ekphrasis is so genius. For, you can find the personal within the specificity of what you see as you look at art. To echo Rainer Maria Rilke’s creative approach, I suggest that you allow yourself to become subordinate to the object d’art and trust that through that space of deep-looking, and with great heart, the stories that you’re meant to tell will erupt. Yes, art contains multitudes, but YOU are also an integral part of that equation. 

If you wish to join the conversation, send your letters to E.W. at ekphrasticwriter(at)gmail.com.

Ekphrastically Yours, E.W.

E.W. (Janée J. Baugher) is the author of The Ekphrastic Writer: Creating Art-Influence Poetry, Fiction and Nonfiction, as well as the ekphrastic poetry collections, The Body’s Physics and Coördinates of Yes. Recent work has appeared in Saturday Evening Post, Tin House, The Southern Review, The American Journal of Poetry, The Light Ekphrastic, and Nimrod. Her writing has been adapted for the stage and set to music at venues such as University of Cincinnati, Interlochen Center for the Arts, Dance Now! Ensemble in Florida, University of North Carolina-Pembroke, and Otterbein University, and she’s performed at the Library of Congress. Currently, she’s an assistant editor at Boulevard magazine and the 2021 poet-in-residence at Maryhill Museum of Art. www.JaneeBaugher.com


2 Comments
David
3/14/2021 01:02:56 am

Can you feel... the Comings in Season’s Change

dd

Fresh flow bubbling briskly in sunlight.
Snow melt refreshing sound, sense and sight.
Footprints in fresh snow chilling to your toes.
Evergreen boughs bending where fresh snow froze.

Chill breezes dart in and out between trunks,
Sunlight filters. Waters slides past snow chunks.
Spring is in the air! Deer tracks found at brook side.
Remind you are not alone. These woods hide

Robins and squirrels, bobcats and eagles.
Nature’s residence. The scent is regal.
Deep breath draws in a fresh scent, feel the sting.
Caught quick like a fox.. the coming of spring!
Winters woes running in this bubbling brook.
Mystery. Transformation. Grab a look.

Photo Credit: Mary Mayko

Reply
Mario Savioni link
3/14/2021 04:52:20 am

When’s the last time you shared something personal through your ekphrastic writing?

The last ekphrastic thing I did was “Commenting on Heather Wilcoxon’s Seattle Studio Show December 2019” -- https://savioni.medium.com/commenting-on-heather-wilcoxons-seattle-studio-show-december-2019-blood-red-of-the-water-dcbe33d5b8fe

I think that I saw Wilcoxon’s work as one of the best renditions of the migrants’ horror while on boats crossing great bodies of water to flee their nations in turmoil, which is not “personal,” per se, except that I allowed less critical thought as to whether or not the words were making sense as I jotted them down. It was writing in faith amid the inspiration.

My words are personal in that they aren’t Wilcoxon’s visual art, but I am definitely having an opinion of the subject matter she is displaying. She might not even agree with me and think I am nuts.

A day before I reviewed Wilcoxon, I had written a poem “Hedging Bets” (https://savioni.medium.com/hedging-bets-e5c8b6f6b5c4) that was a direct response to a friend’s postcard, where I simply wrote what words came to me when I received it, and the first line was: “'More surface,' I must be a rapist/Wanting to dry hump your words.”
 That was pretty disconcerting. I am not a rapist, but the free-associative blathering took me back.

More so, I wrote “I look up with you,/But not as a friend,/But as a frenemy,” which made mention of a position I would never take. Maybe I am both his friend and his enemy. I called him on weaknesses I might have seen but never mentioned. 

I said he hadn’t worked for years. I said things I thought but would never say openly.

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