Content
Ekphrastic poetry involves writing poems that describe a work of art, or provide a reflective point of view about a work of art. Given the demographics of my student, what better way to teach reading and writing by using poetry, ekphrastic poetry? Not only will students learn descriptive writing, but will learn about interpretation by analyzing art as well as poetry.
Visual Art
To demonstrate the use of poetry on visual art, I selected Georgia O’Keefe’s painting “Red Hills and Bones” as an introduction. My intention is to ease my students into reading and writing ekphrastic poems, so my students will relate to this painting because it’s about red hills and the stillness of the land. Georgia O’Keefe was born the second oldest of seven children in 1887 and grew up on a Wisconsin farm. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, and later at the Art Students League in New York. In the early 1900’s she taught art in South Carolina and West Texas A&M University where she was the head of the art department. She is famous for being America’s first woman abstract artist. Her early abstract paintings caught the attention of Alfred Stieglitz an art dealer and photographer who in 1916 exhibited O’Keefe’s work in New York. O’Keefe married Stieglitz, who continued to manage her art shows and help with promoting O’Keefe’s bold colorful paintings. They lived in New York for years, and when Stieglitz died O’Keefe moved to New Mexico permanently in 1949 (okeefemuseum.org). She lived in Santa Fe until her death at the age of 99 years. Her house has been converted to the Georgia O’Keefe Museum where her famous paintings of large flowers and landscapes are displayed. While living in New Mexico, she painted the southwestern landscape using the rich colors of the earth including her views of the vast space of the southwest with the contrast of bleached animal bones or bright flowers. The New Mexican landscape is similar to that in Northern Arizona where my students reside. Using an artwork that my students can relate to visually will help them in breaking down any barriers and reluctance to learn about ekphrastic poetry writing. The painting, “Red Hills and Bones”, depicts the familiar reddish colors of Mother Earth and the overpowering barrenness and solitude of the land. The stark white bones in the forefront can be interpreted many ways: finality, cleanliness, passing of time or the stillness of time. The reddish clay mound in the middle ground is contrasted with the bits of color and shades of beige and yellow in the background. The overall landscape of the painting is similar to the land on the Navajo reservation. It’s quite safe to conclude that my students have probably played and roamed on such mesas near their homes. The clay sandy mesas are prevalent on the Navajo reservation and feature colors from the reds to lavender to muddy shades of green. My students will have the opportunity to work with this image, a familiar scene that will therefore provide familiarity and reassurance. Perhaps it will instill some pride in the fact that something so familiar and ordinary is a subject for a famous painting by a renowned artist who shares her perspective and vision, transforming a mundane landscape.
In my effort to have my students make connections to their Native American language and heritage, I will be using a painting by Navajo artist, Shonto Begay. Mr. Begay comes from a small community on the Navajo reservation in northern Arizona. He describes himself as being fortunate to be raised in the old ways by his parents and grandparents. Begay’s family taught him early in his childhood their traditional customs and instilled in him the value of his Navajo language and culture. Those lessons are what come from living the traditional way of life: understanding lessons that come from the land; raising a flock of sheep, planting a plot of farmland, and learning the old songs and stories of one’s ancestors. His early formal education was in a government boarding school, and he went on to study art at California College of Arts where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts and then studied at Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he received an Associate’s degree in Fine Arts. Mr. Begay currently resides in Flagstaff, Arizona, where he has a studio at the foot of the western scared mountains of his people. Shonto claims that he has taken back his native identity through his art and has learned to balance the harshness of reservation life with the beauty of the land, people, and heritage depicted in his paintings and writings (westofthemoongallery.com). The painting that I will be using in the classroom is titled, “My Mother’s Kitchen” The prominent focus in the foreground is an elderly Navajo woman standing near her wood burning kitchen stove making tortilla bread. She wears traditional dress, in muted colors of red and blue. Her hair is pulled to the back in a traditional hairstyle called tsiiyeel. This hair bun that is tied with white yarn is symbolic in that the hair is an extension of our thought processes which includes a connection with nature. The hair, being a symbol of the mind, should be tended to daily and kept neatly tied with a white yarn which represents clarity, orderliness and steadfastness. This hairstyle defines the identity of Navajo people and is recognized by the holy deities and other people in defining who we are. Again, this style is particular to the Navajo; other Native tribes each have their own style of clothing and arranging their hair. Just as with the traditional dwellings, there are traditional clothing customs that the Navajos adhere to. There are taboos in relation to how one is dressed and how one should conduct oneself. From the title of the painting, the artist tells us that this woman is a mother, and we can make an assumption that she’s also a grandmother, considering her age. We arrive at the conclusion that she is older based on her greying hair, and the signs of age on her skin. Her expression and stance shows the confidence of a matron who presides over her household. The Navajo people are matrilineal, so the offspring take their mother’s clan as their first clan, and their father’s as their second clan. The entire clanship structure includes the mother’s, father’s, maternal and paternal grandfathers’ clans. These four clans identify an individual Navajo, thereby establishing their place in the community and in the progression of their family tree.
The grandmother in the picture is making bread, the substance that nurtures her family physically, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally. The act of mixing ingredients to make a food of sustenance demonstrates her ability to work from what seems like nothingness to arrive at an essential product with which to fortify her family. The expectation and wonderment of her nurturing extends itself to the covered cast iron Dutch-oven on the stove. She has taken the stance of defense of her family against any foe, even hunger, as she gazes off into the distance waiting for her family members to return for the meal. Perhaps her family members are out doing tasks like tending to livestock, chopping firewood, or checking on the status of a new foal. The setting is a traditional Navajo dwelling called a hogan which is usually constructed with cedar logs in a circular shape and with an earthen roof. The hogan is commonly a single family dwelling that is one room with an earthen floor. Traditionally, hogans are built with the entrance facing the east to invite the first light of a new day, and offerings of cornmeal or corn pollen are made to the holy deities that appear at the horizon with the dawn. This practice which was first demonstrated by the creator for First Man and First Woman has been passed down through generations. The traditional Navajo home has stories associated with the original prototype built by the holy deities that are part of Navajo folklore, prayers, and chants. Navajo families are very protective of their traditional beliefs regarding the home since it is representative of life, family, and security. The subject and theme of this painting, “My Mother’s Kitchen”, will resonate with my students. My freshmen students will become nostalgic since most Navajo homes are now equipped with electric or gas ranges, and my students live in small communities with modern conveniences like electricity and indoor plumbing. Introducing this painting to my students will be an excellent opportunity to point out what was and what is now. I’m expecting a full discussion, and many remembrances and nostalgic moments.
Art of this kind with its emphasis on traditional values can be used in so many ways, such as explaining how the Navajo language is being replaced by English. Other analysis will concern the daily life styles of the Navajo people, and the encroachment of assimilation on all facets of our being. Modes of transportation, clothing, hair styles, and more importantly how the family structure have all changed to an extent that causes considerable concern because of the negative effects of these changes on the younger generations of Navajos.
Poems
Red Hills and Bones (Excerpt) by: Laura Kasischke
“Where there are no flowers, Everything/becomes a flower./Without water, everything turns to water-/the hills/are red water stirred by a hand, and will/always be. Bright light in the dull bones.”
Laura Kasischke, a writer and poet from Michigan, wrote an ekphrastic poem about Georgia O’Keefe’s painting, “Red Hills and Bones”. Laura Kasischke was born in 1961 and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She received a Masters of Fine Arts degree from University of Michigan in 1987. Kasischke is the author of numerous books, some of which have been adapted to film. She has several books published on poetry, and has received many awards including the National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry (lsa.umich.edu).
Laura Kasischke was interviewed by Monica Petersen for Superstition Review, an online literary magazine, regarding her writing of novels and poetry. The poet was asked a question about an earlier comment Kasischke had made about writing “...no such thing as too much passion when it comes to making art…”; and the interviewer asked: “How is passion embodied in your writing process?” Kasischke’s responded with “I do feel that way. I guess in some ways I say that more like as inspiration for students to think ‘Ok, we’re really going to devote ourselves to this and get excited. If we argue we’re not going to feel bad about that, because we want to have, and we do have, strong opinions about this.‘ That part of at least continuing to write through a lifetime, is really deciding that it’s magical, that it’s sacred. I myself have never liked the whole idea of “craft” and the whole writing process seems much more supernatural to me than that. I guess that I don’t always, every time I sit down to write, feel that I am having a supernatural experience. But I write much better when I’m thinking of it like that than when I’m thinking about mechanics and outlines and what other people think of my writing. Even if nobody reads this poem that I sit down to write, it really matters because it matters to me.” (Petersen, SR, Issue 12).
This writer’s comment on writing better when she’s concentrating on the passion of her writing rather than the mechanics of writing is profound. This is a comment from a renowned published author, and an important point to make with my students, especially the reluctant writers and readers. The poem, “Red Hills and Bones”, begins with a juxtaposed concept in the first two lines: “Where there are no flowers,/ Everything becomes a flower.” In the painting the artist presents the idea of renewal through the ending of one life shown through the bones, which in turn will bring new life as shown symbolically through the flowers. In the third line, the poet is making a statement that when there’s no water, a drought situation, life turns to water in desperation to stay alive. And, in the next couple of lines the poet is describing or commenting on the artist’s technique of painting hills after mixing paints made from the minerals in just such hills. In this poem, one example of figurative language is the poet’s comparison of the spine of the skeleton to a ladder. The poet could be comparing the alteration of the bones made by time with the progress through time one makes climbing a ladder. The remaining lines show an outline of a ladder if the poem is seen vertically, like an image poem. The poem is written simply but descriptively, using ordinary words, and easy to follow in vocabulary and form.
In My Mother’s Kitchen
Shonto Begay
Fragrance of fresh tortillas and corn stew
Fills my mother’s kitchen
Sparsely furnished
Crowded with warmth
Soot-grayed walls, secretive and blank
She moves gently in and out of light
Like a dream just out of reach
The morning light gives her a halo
That plays upon her crown of dark hair
Strong brown hands caress soft mounds of dough
She gazes out into the warming day
Past sagebrush hills, out towards the foot of Black Mesa
How far would she let the goats wander today
Before it rains
Childhood dreams and warmth
Tight in my throat, tears in my eyes
The radio softly tuned to a local AM station
News of ceremonies and chapter meetings
And funerals
Flows into the peaceful kitchen
Lines upon her face, features carved of hard times
Lines around her eyes, creases of happy times
Bittersweet tears and ringing silvery laughter
I ache in my heart
My mother’s gentle movements light up dark corners
Her gentle smiles recall childhood dreams still so alive
My mother moves in and out of light
Like clouds on days of promising rain
Another poem that I will introduce to my students is Shonto Begay’s ekphrastic poem about his painting “My Mother’s Kitchen.” This poem is descriptive of his subject in the painting, his mother. Begay is honoring his mother, and the deep love and respect he has for her is portrayed in his words. In spite of the sparseness of the surroundings, he talks of the warmth of the home, and the halo adorning his mother’s head as she moves in and out of the light. Clearly, Shonto Begay is contrasting the sparseness of its material circumstances with the abundance of love and warmth in the home. He talks of the strength of his mother, yet she displays tenderness in her gaze as she’s contemplating the care of her goats. Goats could be representative of her family, who will wander away from home but they are still on her mind and she is protective of them. Begay could be at an age when he’s thinking of the inevitable which is leaving home, leaving his childhood, and the apprehension of being away from his mother, his home, and his land. The radio knits her small community together. The poet honors the life of his mother by knowing that her life was not easy, but she’s sweet and a happy woman. She is the foundation for him, as he sees her strength and goodness with her movements into and out of the light. He ends with hope, through the words “promise of rain”, and with the rain comes a rainbow which is symbolic of brightness and hopefulness. The poem is very personal from a son to his mother, expressing the deep love and respect he has for her and what she stands for as a Navajo woman who immersed her family in the tradition and culture of her people. My students will appreciate the sincerity of the poem, and together with the painting they will visualize and hear how an ekphrastic poem is an effective way to communicate a message. Studying a Navajo artist and writer’s work will encourage my students, and with that model before them they can visualize what they can do themselves. My students will confidently venture into reading and writing the English language more effectively.
Poems can be instrumental in teaching English Language standards, such as literary terms and conventions, figurative language, mood, tone, point of view, or modes of persuasion. In Laura Kasischke’s and Shonto Begay’s poems, students can learn from the metaphors and symbols inspired by the paintings the poets wrote about.
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