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Explore poems read by the two authors in conversation with each other, then follow your own fish to unlock your own creativity, and share it with us.
Welcome, dear listeners. I'm Deborah Buckle Schmidt here with Sue Boudreaux, and we are your Follow A Fish Poetry Podcast hosts. Today, we are delighted to have with us for this episode on Ekphrastic Poetry our special guest, Johanna Ely. As always, this pair of episodes will provide you with inspirational conversation, connections, and prompts. We're always thrilled to hear your responses at curiositycatpodcastsg gmail dot com.
Deborah:Also, sure to check out our website curiositycatpodcast.com, where you can find the featured poems in print with artwork chosen to go with them and many other resources as well. Before we begin, I want to let you know that our next open mic will be held on Sunday, June 21 at the Good Table Gathering Space in El Sobrante. Ekphrastic poetry is so named from the Greek word ekphrasis, which is a combination of ek, meaning out, and phrasis, meaning speech. So literally, ekphrasis means speaking out or speaking fully. It originally was used to describe the rhetorical device of responding not just to artwork but to people, places, and or scenes in such a vivid way as to make the listener feel as if they were there.
Deborah:Over the centuries, it has come to refer to a verbal description of and or a response to a work of art. So it is my pleasure to introduce Johanna Ely. Johanna is a poet laureate emerita of Benicia and the author of several gorgeous books of poetry, including most recently What Still Matters from Last Laugh Productions. Johanna is a poet who has had a very close lifelong association with the visual arts and is someone with keen aesthetic sensibilities, whether she's responding to her beloved garden, the wider natural world, or a work of art. You will notice that one of the signatures of her work is her ability to employ color in a vibrant and highly visual way.
Deborah:Johanna, would you be willing to introduce and read for us your poem, Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and Rose?
Johanna:Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose, written for a painting by Francisco de Zurbaran, 1633. The museum doesn't tell us this painting is an homage to Virgin Mary. The formal limited arrangement set on dark wood is interpreted as a sacred offering on an altar. The black background is a sky without stars, no hint of domesticity, no kitchen table bathed in sunlight. She mentions ethereal light and spiritual contemplation.
Johanna:Says the lemons placed perfectly on a plate symbolize fidelity and love. The oranges with their delicate white blossoms sitting primly in a woven basket chastity. The white rose placed next to the water filled cup purity. But I see a plate full of beautiful breasts, sensuous lemons with areolas and erect nipples, thick skinned oranges ready to be peeled, sweet juices not yet tasted, the seductive blossoms summoning bees. No virgin flower.
Johanna:The white rose, tinged pink, has been plucked. Its luscious scent fills the air. At night, Mary's naked body shines, a ripe fruit, a full moon. A cup of water waits on the altar to quench her thirsty lips.
Deborah:Oh, Johanna, I've loved this poem since you first brought it to our writing group. It just blew me away. From the very beginning, you set up the contrast between the docent's interpretation and your own. The first lines, the museum docent tells us, but I think we're already signaled that we're going to receive a different way of looking at this. And then your colors come in the black background.
Deborah:Your first color is this starless sky, and I love the contrast here. No hint of domesticity. No kitchen table bathed in sunlight. So you're contrasting the warmth and domesticity versus the pristine holiness of the starless sky. And then the colors again, the lemons and the white rose.
Deborah:So in our mind, the white pops against the black background that you've painted for us. And then, I see a plate full of beautiful breasts, sensuous lemons with areolas and erect nipples. The sensuality of this vision of yours astonishes us. And I feel like you're rescuing Mary from centuries of Catholic sanctity and turning her to the sensual world, to the earth and fertility goddesses whose place she took as Catholicism replaced the earth based religions. So as always, your use of color here and your ability to describe an object, a scene or a painting in such detail allow us to see it even before we have it in front of us.
Deborah:Do you have any tips for people who are wanting to bring their descriptions to life?
Johanna:Well, I always use some kind of photo or picture of what I'm going to write about when it comes to an Ekphrastic piece. So in this case I was at the Norton Simon Museum and they gave me a beautiful copy of this painting. And I took it home and I put it I always tape my photos to my fireplace mantel and I stare at them and really look at all the detail, all the color. I also try and use other senses to describe the painting or the piece of artwork. And so that's what I did with this.
Deborah:So you really live with it for a while before you begin to write?
Johanna:Yes. Yeah. Yes I do. I live with it for a while, and I always put it up somewhere where I can look at it.
Deborah:And do you start writing when you're in the museum? If it starts in a museum?
Johanna:No. Yes, I'm one of those people who writes alone. And I'm not good with writing, you know, at a cafe or with a crowd of people.
Deborah:So what at what point I'm just curious. In the contemplation of this painting or in the writing of the poem, did you realize you were diverging from that accepted interpretation?
Johanna:Well, when I got home with the beautiful reproduction and put it up, I immediately noticed the lemons. And to me they immediately looked like breasts with beautiful areolas and nipples. And that just started the whole thing going. And I just went from there.
Deborah:Yeah. Great. Yeah. They're very sexy lemons. You have to check this out.
Deborah:We're gonna put a link to this Wikipedia article about this painting in our show notes. I'd love to hear you mused a bit on how established religion has placed women, even goddesses, or maybe especially goddesses, on a pedestal or in a cage, and how you see us pushing back.
Johanna:Yes, I think in this case, especially with Catholicism, the Virgin Mary is definitely put up on a pedestal but not allowed to be sensual or sexual at all. And I feel that the goddesses, at least the ones I've seen in art or read about, have the ability at least to be sensual and sexy. Yeah. I guess pushing back is to take the Virgin out and the put in a woman that is more normal. Hey, didn't Mary have sexual feelings, sensuality?
Johanna:Yes, I'm sure she did.
Deborah:Bet she did.
Johanna:And so I think poets can do that. I think artists can do that. Anyone in the arts can probably change the way we think about that kind of thing. Yes. Can dance it, you can draw it, you can write about it.
Deborah:Yep. Anybody who reads this poem is gonna have their mind changed.
Johanna:Well I also think to another poem I did about the love story between Concepcion and
Deborah:Oh right, the famous Penetia love story?
Johanna:Right, yes. And everybody was I wish I could remember his name but everybody was fantasizing that, Oh, she fell in love with this man that was 42 years old and she was 15, and it was love at first sight. I came out with the poem and said it was really a political move. That they married because he wanted to be able to trade furs in California.
Deborah:He was a Russian trader, right? Yes.
Johanna:Yeah, it changed the story.
Deborah:Get right back into that historical character and read that. And now I get to reread Johanna's beautiful poem, Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose, based on a painting by Francisco de Subaran, 1633. The museum docent tells us this painting is an homage to the Virgin Mary, The formal limited arrangement set on dark wood is interpreted as a sacred offering on an altar. The black background is a sky without stars, no hint of domesticity, no kitchen table bathed in sunlight. She mentions ethereal light and spiritual contemplation, says the lemons placed perfectly on a plate symbolize fidelity and love.
Deborah:The oranges with their delicate white blossoms sitting primly in a woven basket, chastity. The white rose placed next to the water filled cup, Purity. But I see a plate full of beautiful breasts, sensuous lemons with areolas and erect nipples, thick skinned oranges ready to be peeled, sweet juices not yet tasted, the seductive blossoms summoning bees. No virgin flower. The white rose, tinged pink, has been plucked.
Deborah:Its luscious scent fills the air. At night, Mary's naked body shines, a ripe fruit, a full moon. A cup of water waits on the altar to quench her thirsty lips.
Sue:Johanna is now going to read her second poem called Back Alley, Lock, California.
Johanna:Back Alley, Lock, California, written for the painting by John Tullis. I am an escape route, the desire to slip away unnoticed. I am an unmarked path of beauty for the curious stranger. I am cracked and dusty, a narrow back alley shadowed by old trees. I treasure the blue house, color of sky, the hidden flowers blooming behind a white picket fence, the vegetable gardens only neighbors can see.
Johanna:I protect two cars, their tags expired. I am quiet, except on the day a garbage truck rumbles by. I am proud, part of a town Chinese immigrants built. I am eccentric and full of secrets. I am a shortcut only locals know, a quick way to disappear.
Sue:Well, thank you, Johanna. That was a really beautiful poem. And when you I hope that listeners will take a moment to go to the show notes where you can find the the picture as well because it is a gorgeous description of it. I loved the I am an escape route, the desire to slip away unnoticed, an unmarked path of beauty for the curious stranger. Because that was exactly how I felt when I went to visit Locke a little while ago.
Sue:It was like stumbling on this little hidden gem in the Delta Lands in, I guess, East Of The Bay Area in California. Have you visited Locke? Yes I have. I visited there. I've only been there once.
Sue:I want to go back. And I was just fascinated by it. It seems like a ghost town in a way. You know
Johanna:just going back and as if all the people disappeared but left it you know as if they all of a sudden there was a earthquake or something happened and and it was just left as is, except the people aren't there. You know, of the gambling rooms and stuff seemed kinda dusty. Did you
Sue:go to that cafe that has all of this memorabilia in it? And there was a lady in there who wanted to tell me all about the history of love.
Johanna:I don't know if I did, but I just remember seeing, I think the gambling hall. I went into a shop that sold books and souvenirs and I got this wonderful book on lock called Bitter Melon which I highly recommend.
Sue:Okay I'll try and link that in the show notes.
Johanna:I did walk around off the main little street, so I might have even seen that little back alley. It's a small yes it felt just like a old ghost town.
Deborah:It did. Yeah.
Sue:I just had that sense of being out of time somehow. Yeah. I also loved the way that you said the vegetable gardens only neighbors can see. I am eccentric and full of secrets. I am a shortcut only locals know.
Sue:The sense of being there being so much more beneath the surface. And I think that this may be common in high tourist areas where locals know the real deal. And I think that Loch is actually becoming a little bit of a destination. I mean, not a huge destination, but have you found that in other sort of touristy areas where there's a kind of local underbelly? My own town.
Johanna:Oh yes. Well yes, that's true. Venetia is historical town and was the state capital for one year. And I also live with an alley behind me, which was part of what attracted me to that painting. Not only that it was in lock, but that I know the experience of having a back alley.
Johanna:And I know a lot of times at night we have a bar and a restaurant on the corner called the Bottom of the Fifth. The regulars from the bar will go walk home on my back alley avoid the police. So it is alleys are kind of you know you can see the backside of the houses and they're so different. They have hidden gardens. They have junk, old cars, and just all sorts of kind of interesting stuff.
Johanna:I love that and I thought that that painting kind of showed that part. Yeah.
Sue:It really does. It does. I also particularly loved your use of I am. As if you're you are the painting. The painting is you.
Sue:And I've come across this idea with photography where you are what you see. What you notice is who you are. And it's an idea in psychology as well. And I think it's also a very nice way to start to write. If you're stuck, if you just look at something, a view, a work of art or whatever and think I am this thing that I see.
Sue:I'm looking out the window right now and I'm seeing the heavy roses blow in the in the afternoon wind coming down from the hill. Know that kind of thing and it gets you started off. So I just I really love that. Can you describe a little bit about your creative process for writing and publishing this piece? Sort of from beginning to end.
Johanna:Oh okay. Well this piece was in a gallery there was going in Martinez and there was going to be an Ekphrastic reading. So I went in and looked at the artwork and chose it. I've written pieces, I mean I've written poems for this artist So usually, I take my phone or a camera, so I took a photograph of his painting, and I took it home and put it on the fireplace mantel, and started thinking about it, and then I don't know where I got the idea. I think I had probably read someone else's poem, because we know that this way of of personification has been done before.
Johanna:So I must have read someone else's poem and thought, wow, great idea. I think I'm gonna do that with this. Mhmm. So because I I remember in my notes I had, I am, and then I just, it just came to me by looking at the painting, and also my own feelings about Allie's, you know, that's how it came to be. Mhmm.
Johanna:And it was a fairly easy poem to write. Didn't have to do a lot of editing with this one, which is kinda cool when that happens. It doesn't happen very often.
Sue:And this particular painting really pulls you into it, doesn't it? It pulls you down
Johanna:the alleyway.
Sue:And it's got like this sense of sunshine.
Deborah:Mhmm.
Sue:This bright sunshine and a sense of kind of quiet about it too. So, yeah, look just keeping your eye out for what kinda grabs you. Locke has a feeling of a little of being a little bit left behind in time, which you capture beautifully. What do you think we've lost as a society from the heyday of Locke and other similar settlements?
Johanna:Well, now Locke is a different kind of settlement because it was a Chinese immigrant settlement. And Walnut Grove, where the Chinese had lived before their part, was burned down. They actually moved and built this all themselves. They had a school, and they had restaurants, and gambling, brothels, and at one point it was called like the Monte Carlo Of The Delta. I did not
Deborah:know that.
Johanna:Las Vegas! Anyway, so in a sense I am glad that this community has changed. I think I read there are only 70 people living in Loch right now, and only 10 of them are of Chinese descent. So it really has changed. And I'm hoping that we've come a long way, and that Chinese Americans are not discriminated as much.
Johanna:And they don't have to have their own community, though of course they still have great communities in Oakland and San Francisco. And I think we still do have some small communities, as you guys have in El Sobrante, where you get together and do things, and I think Venetia does too. So I think that those still do exist and have a history.
Sue:Yeah, thank you. Johanna, I
Johanna:was wondering whether you'd like to read the prompt for today. Oh, okay. The prompt for today is, Go for a walk and take your phone or camera. Take photos of something that inspires you, and write an ephrastic poem about it. Try to include as many of the five senses as you can.
Johanna:I find that nature offers us beautiful pieces of art. If you want, try using the I am approach I took when writing Back Alley Lock, California.
Sue:Thank you very much, Johanna. Please feel free to send us what you wrote here at curiositycatpodcasts@gmail.com, and Deborah and I will be sure to read it and respond with specific positive comments. Or or and you could bring it with you to the next open mic. And our next open mic, I think, is on Sunday, June at the Good Table Gathering space at 03:30. And, there will be details in our show notes and on our website at curiositycatpodcast.com.
Sue:I'm going to reread Johanna's poem, Back Alley, Lot, California, written for the painting by John Tullis. I am an escape route, the desire to slip away unnoticed. I am an unmarked path of beauty for the curious stranger. I am cracked and dusty, a narrow back alley shadowed by old trees. I treasure the blue house, color of sky, the hidden flowers blooming behind a white picket fence, the vegetable gardens only neighbors can see.
Sue:I protect two cars, their tags expired. I am quiet, except on the day a garbage truck rumbles by. I am proud, part of a town Chinese immigrants built. I am eccentric and full of secrets. I am a shortcut only locals know, a quick way to disappear.
Deborah:We adore finding your poems in our inbox. Voice recordings as .wav files are also welcome, or let us know if you'd like us to record your poem for you. We may very well choose a poem to read aloud on a future show. We will respond to all submissions whether or not they are featured. Also at curiositycatpodcasts.com, you can read our show notes and see the poems in print with the artwork especially chosen for them.
Deborah:We'd love it if you would tell your friends about us. And if you like us, like us. Our theme music is Emile Pessar's On the Loose, played by me, Deborah Schmidt on flute, accompanied by Brian Baker on piano. Production and editing are done by Sue Boudreaux in El Sobrante, California. Thanks for listening.