I attempted an imitation of Williams’s “Landscape With the Fall of Icarus” with an ekphrastic poem of my own that mimics Williams’s style and tone. I’ve used a piece of modern art by Kandinsky entitled “Reiter (Lyrishes)” to write of. I thought that by using modern artwork I could, like Williams, make a statement about a specific aesthetic vision and moreover illuminate the statement that there are “no ideas but in things” that Williams made and which moreover defined the aesthetic disposition of many modernist artists, including Kandinsky. Like Imagist poetry, most modern art found its meaning in objects rather than narratives, so I approached the painting with this in mind, seeking to capture this sentiment with my poem.
Kandinsky’s “Reiter (Lyrishes)”
Scene with no Subject
according to Kandinsky,
it was not
the season, nor
the Rider’s name
or eyes–
their color or understanding–
that defined
the scene
of the race.
it was
the joy of
dynamism:
strokes that understood
the rider’s elated rush
in their motion
so that ahead his featureless horse
could speed
towards boundlessness.