Breaking things apart and putting them back together: ekphrastic poetry
Loading...
Files
Date
2020
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of New Brunswick
Abstract
“Breaking Things Apart and Putting Them Back Together” is an ekphrastic poetry collection composed of forty-nine poems, as well as a critical introduction. It deals with paintings from artists on the East Coast of Canada such as Mary Pratt, Harold Cromwell, Maud Lewis, and Molly Lamb Bobak; these fours artists are discussed at length in the critical introduction that explores the creative and theoretical framework of ekphrasis. I reimagine ekphrasis as a collaborative art, through which I try to understand life on the East Coast, finding within the range of artists I examined thematic and technical similarities, as well as a general folk sensibility; many artists illustrated landscapes suggesting a consistent creative connection with the land they lived on. While the images gesture outward to viewers, the poems I wrote about them are often introspective, dealing with issues of home, community, culture, and mental health.