Learn about ekphrastic poetry and an interesting perspective on a famous painting.
An ekphrastic poem is a poem written about a work of art using vivid descriptors. Such a poem can be approached in many different ways. It can be about a scene or a subject depicted. It can be written in the voice of a person or object shown. It can be about the viewer’s experience or it can imagine what was happening while the artist was creating the piece. It can speculate about why the artist created this work or imagine a story behind what one sees.
What perspective is taken in the following poem?
May Milton
A woman, her face a garish green,
stares at us from the right corner,
drawing us in.
Her lips stained red,
her hair a curly blond cap,
topped by a saucy headpiece.
What are we to make of her isolation,
separated from the convivial group
partying at the Moulin Rouge?
Is she a photo-bomber,
including herself
among Parisian luminaries like Jane Avril
and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec himself?
They seem unaware she is there.
Is she about to mount the stage,
her made-up face gas lit?
(In the left corner,
a diagonal intrudes at a dizzying angle,
adding to the theatrics).
Is she a ghost?
Or a stand in for the artist himself,
a man burdened with a cruel condition
which stunted his growth, which caused him pain.
May Milton was an actress,
not a very good one, I’m told.
She would soon fade into obscurity.
But she’s not fading here,
she’s electrified
given the starring role in a
painting seen by millions
as I wonder
if she ever saw it.
What were her thoughts?
And what went on between her and Henri?
Please consider submitting your own ekphrastic poems to Insight!
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