Workshop: Discover
Words That Sing
“Art washes away from
the soul the dust of everyday life.” Pablo Picasso
Reading for
Interpretation
This creates opportunities for both perspective and voice.
What part of a scene or image do you want the reader to understand the most or
identify with? Two well-known
poets have used the same source with startling differences while at the same
time remaining true to the story they explore.
The Fall of Icarus by
Breughel
1. Read over the following interpretations of the myth of
Icarus. What do they have in common?
2. What do they each choose as the special focus point
either in theme or detail?
3. Both poems were written in response to the same painting yet
they both reflect the actual myth itself as if they hadn’t seen the painting.
How?
4. See number three exercise in movie prompt at the very
end.
William Carlos Williams, “Landscape
with the Fall of Icarus”
According
to Brueghel
when
Icarus fell
it
was spring
a
farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole
pageantry
of the year was
awake tingling
near
sweating in the sun
that melted
the wing’s wax
unsignificantly
off the coast
there was
a splash quite
unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning.
Musee des Beaux
Arts by W.H.
Auden
About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
Which version affected you the most? Why?
Action Steps: Movie
Prompt
1. Take one particular scene from
a recent movie you’ve already watched and put it on pause. Whether you like to
write poetry or not pick out words and phrases from the visual sight that you
would incorporate in a poem, with the idea that a reader may, or may not, see
this ‘painting’ for themselves.
2. Write a poem based on your
selections just for the fun of it.
3. Do the same exercise for a
visual scene in your own novel.
Share: Did you notice anything in this scene that you missed
the first time around?
Read deep, marcy
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