Though I haven't written many ekphrastic poems, I do love what others do when writing about the art they are viewing, art that they love. Diane Mayr at Random Noodling wrote cheritas to art by women artists this past April, Irene Latham at Live Your Poem wrote to art from the Harlem Renaissance and often poets share some new poem they've written or discovered about a piece of art for Poetry Friday. This year, for Laura Shovan's birthday month, a large group signed up to share a piece of art they own for all of us in the group to respond to. You can read about her plan here. I posted a few of the poems I wrote here. It was special to read the depth of the poems written and the varied responses to each piece of art. After all, this was a daily exercise, not easy to write beautiful words so quickly! Here is the piece I shared and the intro to it: This is a pencil drawing from one of my grandfathers who went to art school briefly before having to return to the family farm while his brother served in WWI. He said this was by one of his teachers. Over 25 wrote a poem response.
I tried a prose poem to this, my own response!
Long Ago Life
When I was young, after World War II, I lived with my maternal grandparents. We had flush toilets then, but others did not, nor running water. The war meant sacrifices of more than people. Grandma had those luxuries but washed the clothes in big tubs. Grandpa dumped the wash water on his garden, nothing wasted. I remember handing her clothespins as she hung the clothes on the line. My uncles came home from the war, midst celebration for them, grief for my father, who did not. They held a party with distant family finding enough gas to make the journey to welcome them home. People hugged me and my uncles a lot, ate, laughed, and cried. The first thing one uncle did was borrow Grandpa’s truck and take it to the nearby bigger town, brought back a wringer washer for Grandma. She sat down on the sofa and cried and cried. I didn’t understand. It seemed like a wonderful thing to me.
