Words in Pictures: Ekphrastic Poems

In classical heroic poetry, ekphrasis was used as a rhetorical device in order to provide a vivid description of an imaginary scene. In modern usage the term refers to poetry that engages with any type of visual art. Perhaps the most famous ekphrastic poem is John Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” in which the poet responds emotionally to the images he sees portrayed on the urn. In Words in Pictures poet Robert Hamblin presents the stories, thoughts, and emotions conveyed to him by fifty-one of his favorite photographs. As Hamblin notes, the photographs speak; all one has to do is listen.