Welcome to Day 20! Today's prompt is an idea of what to write about with more wonderful artwork. This is the third of your four ekphrasis prompts (writing about art), each one featuring a different local artist depicting Oxford in a different medium. And today's vision of Oxford is Simon M Gannon's stunning photo of the Botanic Gardens viewed from within the stone portico:
Click on the image for a full-size version
If you're local to Oxford, you might already have seen Simon setting up his camera and tripod in the city centre on a Friday night, where he captures the buzz of people, swirling lights, and luminous stately buildings. Or you might have seen his photos popping up on the local Facebook group, familiar sights in vivid colours with light streaking past mixed with eye-popping landscapes. In talking about his work, he quotes Aaron Siskind: "Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever… It remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything." That's exactly how I feel about his photos of Oxford: that sense of absolute love for it. You can see the whole gallery of his photographs here. And if you fall in love with a piece and want to bring it home, he offers prints from just £5.
Ekphrasis, remember, just means "writing about art", anything from responding to the piece personally or simply describing what you see. You could write this one free verse or use it to explore any poem form you've had your eye on which you haven't tried yet – ekphrasis is always a useful way to explore a new form. If you'd like an idea for a type of poem, I think the strong symmetry and simple bold images here are perfectly suited to a sansan. Sansan is Chinese for "three three" and it uses three central images, each of which it repeats three times. The imagery repeats, rather than the exact words, which is a lovely spin on the usual kind of repeating poem. It's just 8 lines long with a rhyme scheme of abcabdcd. You can read more about sansans and see an example here.
The Meddling with Poetry course explores a host of different poetry forms as well as the musicality of language, poetic imagery, and other aspects of the poetic. It's 8 weeks long, one evening a week, and absolute beginners and experienced writers are equally welcome. You can read more details and book a place here.
