Artistic Encounters

Ekphrastic poetry, when a poem works to describe or evoke another work of art, is one of the most ancient modes of poetry. Most often associated with visual art, ekphrastic poems can take any art or craft as inspiration and theme for a poem, including film, sculpture, architecture, dance, performance arts, textile arts, flower arrangement, tattoos, or, in Angela Jackson’s powerful poem, “One Night ZZ Hill Sang at the Club Tupelo,” a blues singer’s memorable and moving performance.

Read “One Night ZZ Hill Sang at the Club Tupelo” by Angela Jackson several times. A few questions you might consider, either in writing or in conversation with others:

• How does this poem describe ZZ Hill’s art? The speaker’s experience? 
• What would you expect to be included in an ekphrastic poem that is not included here? What does Jackson include that you would not expect in an ekphrastic poem?

Assignment:

Write a poem about a memorable encounter you have had with an artist or work of art. You are encouraged to spend time with a complex or complicated experience, one that changed you in a significant way, or that stayed with you for a long time after. Take ten minutes and write down every single thing you remember about this work of art and your experience. 

After leaving this writing for a bit (a few hours, or, ideally, a few days at least) compose a poem that describes your experience during the encounter, shortly after your experience, and finally from your position writing this poem at this moment. How did your experience of another’s art change you or how you see the world?