Kate, that Magritte was perfect! Kudos!
Sorry, Roger, my statement about "immediacy" was confusing. I didn't mean that the audience of a poem about an apple painting (or photo) should sense that they are interacting with an apple, or even that they are interacting with a painting (or photo).
By "immediacy," I meant the reader's sense that the poetic material is fresh, compelling, and original--that it touches them directly and evokes an emotional response in and of itself, even while it acknowledges some debt to the artist.
So, yes, if we were to view a painting or photograph of an apple--realistic or abstract--our experience of the apple could never be "immediate." That experience would be mediated by the photographer or painter, whether subtly (as in realistic art) or obviously (as in abstract art). Nevertheless, our experience of the photograph or painting itself would be firsthand, direct, unmediated...immediate.
Likewise, if we were to read an ekphrastic poem about that piece of art, our experience of the painting or photograph would be mediated by the poet, but our experience of the poem would be immediate.
"Immediacy" would thus indicate direct interaction with the object at hand. In the case of an ekphrastic poem, the object at hand would be the poet's own work, not the artist's, or even the gardener's. (I think I'm in line with Rhina's sentiment here.)
I brought all this up in an attempt to address the complaint that ekphrastic poetry is, by definition, handicapped by the interposition of an extra layer of mediation between the reader and the "subject". Balderdash. An ekphrastic poem can still be fresh, compelling, and original; it can derive from another work without being "derivative."
Perhaps it would be useful to discuss foreign-language translations as a special case of ekphrasis. Since faithfulness to the letter and spirit of the original is highly valued in translations, this type of ekphrastic poem has much less freedom to vary from the approach taken by the original's creator. Even so, the translator makes significant creative decisions in terms of word choice and emphasis, and we readers interact with the translation differently than we do with the original--even those of us readers who are fluent in both languages.
Whaddya think?
Julie Stoner
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