Poems on Pre-Existing Works of Art

[AuntShecky]

I'm posting this in the hopes that LitNetters who are following a current topic in "Poetry Games and Contests" --
"Poems Inspired by Paintings" (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=60810) -- might find the following background information useful.

Ekphrasis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekphrasis) is the umbrella term for works of art whose subjects are pre-existing works of art (usually in a different form.)

The subset of poems inspired by works of art is large. Perhaps the most famous is this one by Keats. (http://www.bartleby.com/101/625.html)


Other notable ekphrastic poems include a famous offering by W. H. Auden. (http://poetrypages.lemon8.nl/life/musee/museebeauxarts.htm)

Here's another "take" on the very same painting from Pictures from Brueghel by William Carlos Williams. (http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15828)


And finally, Wallace Stevens (http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88v/blueguitar.html) reacts to a famous Picasso work. (http://www.dotcalmvillage.net/nowwhatzinesep02/legacysep.html)



If you can think of any other notable poems based on works of art, please post them on this thread.

[stlukesguild]

For Our Lady of the Rocks, by Leonardo Da Vinci
-Dante Gabriel Rossetti

http://www.rossettiarchive.org/docs/5-1848.raw.html

There are dozens of poems inspired by the work of the American artist, Joseph Cornell. perhaps my favorite is the collection of poems/meditations by Charles Simic, entitled Dime-Store Alchemy:

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19893