Poetry Is Pretentious

How To Write An Ekphrasis

Ekphrasis is a form of poetry focused more on content and less on form, functioning more like a genre than anything else. Ekphrasis is the Greek word for “description”.

Sam Kilkenny

July 24, 2023

What Is Ekphrasis?

Ekphrasis is a form of poetry focused more on content and less on form, functioning more like a genre than anything else. Ekphrasis is the Greek word for “description”. This type of poetry typically refers to poems written about visual art, from paintings to films and everything in between. Its purpose is to expand on a visual medium –writing about the emotional impact a piece of art has on a person and attempting to explore that using words instead of images. It can also function as complementary or speculative commentary.

How To Write Ekphrasis Poetry

Choose a piece of visual art.
Write about it
That’s it!

Advantages of the Form

Ekphrasis is an incredibly versatile and useful genre of poetry. It can be useful to introduce outside elements into the composition process. It is an amazing exercise in imagination as well. Writing speculatively about what a piece of art means can help expand your understanding of yourself and of art in general. Additionally, it removes any potential writer’s block in terms of content. It’s a unique exercise that will work out writing muscles for imagery and visualization.

Challenges of the Form

This is not an easy genre of poetry. It can be challenging to come up with something new to say when your primary inspiration is someone else’s piece of art. It can be really difficult to write conceptually about a piece of art when you’re looking right at it. But its challenges also remain one of its greatest assets and there are great resources for helping to move past the easy and observational style.