Painting Poetic Lines: A Muse in Composition

Let’s Talk About Art…  “In the category of literacy, writing poetry helps students in all genres of writing. Writing poetry aids students in understanding the importance of careful word choice, especially active, vivid verbs and nouns. (Lynn Marsico)  “Perceptiveness is an awareness of things and people, of their qualities. (Ben Shahn)”

Possibilities with Picasso… What I See… What I feel…

Possibilities with Picasso Continue… 1. Let’s think-pair-share in groups 2. The group speaker is… 3. All listeners will record whole group discussion comments

Ekphrastic Poetry, eh? Ekphrasis (also spelled "ecphrasis") is a direct transcription from the Greek ek, "out of," and phrasis, "speech" or "expression.“ More narrowly, it could designate a passage providing a short speech attributed to a mute work of visual art. In recent decades, the use of the term has been limited, first, to visual description and then even more specifically to the description of a real or imagined work of visual art. (Alfred Corn)

Dare to Write Your Own Poetic Line  Now, create a poem from your list of what you see and feel.  Spend minutes writing…  Let’s share

Prelude to a Poetic Introduction Allusion Alliteration Antithesis PersonificationRepetitionImagerySimileMetaphor A PRISM is the acronym! My Many Colored Days By Dr. Seuss

Scaffolding Poetry? Use a R.A.F.T.! Role= Choose the old man or the guitar Audience= A bystander Format= A poem Topic= While using your notes, create a poem using vivid images from the point of view of the old man or the guitar in Picasso’s painting.

Ekphrastic Examples: THE MAN WITH THE BLUE GUITAR by Wallace Stevens I The man bent over his guitar, A shearsman of sorts. The day was green. They said, "You have a blue guitar, You do not play things as they are." The man replied, "Things as they are Are changed upon the blue guitar." And they said then, "But play, you must, A tune beyond us, yet ourselves, A tune upon the blue guitar Of things exactly as they are." II I cannot bring a world quite round, Although I patch it as I can. I sing a hero'd head, large eye And bearded bronze, but not a man, Although I patch him as I can And reach through him almost to man. If to serenade almost to man Is to miss, by that, things as they are, Say that it is the serenade Of a man that plays a blue guitar.

Another Ekphrastic Example: It weeps for distant things. Hot southern sands yearning for white camellias. Weeps arrow without target evening without morning and the first dead bird on the branch. Oh, guitar! Heart mortally wounded by five swords. The Guitar by Federico García Lorca Translated by Cola Franzen Federico García LorcaCola FranzenFederico García LorcaCola Franzen The weeping of the guitar begins. The goblets of dawn are smashed. The weeping of the guitar begins. Useless to silence it. Impossible to silence it. It weeps monotonously as water weeps as the wind weeps over snowfields. Impossible to silence it.

Muse Can be Musically Inspired Let’s dance, move our bodies and our pens! 1. What do you hear? 2. How does it make you feel? 3. What memories are evoked?

Visual Artistic Influences  “A visual artist expresses voice through conscious choice of lines, colors, shading, foreground/background and detail.(Nancy Dean)”  “Poetry and painting alike create through composition. (Wallace Stevens) Painters to Consider:  Degas  Monet  Cassat  Edward Hoper Photographer to Consider:  Gordon Parks

“ Penning poetry stretches the mind and awakens the imagination. And isn’t that what teaching is all about?” ~ Nikki Grimes

Supporting Sources: Ekphrastic Poetry website: Ben Shahn,The Shape of Content McClatchy, J.D. ed,Poets on Painters