Let's look at a few Vermeer poems.
Stephen Mitchell, poet and translator, writes about Vermeer's Young Woman with a Water Jug in his poem entitled, "Vermeer."
She stands by the table, poised
at the center of your vision,
with her left hand
just barely on
the pitcher's handle....
But go back to the epigraph which is in Latin, from the Bible's New Testament. The short line from Luke 1: 48 translates as "For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden ...." The poem now enlarges and the figure described in Mary, after the Annunciation, when she knows she is pregnant with Jesus.
How weightless her body feels
as she stands, absorbed, within this
fulfillment that has brought more
than any harbinger could.
And, finally, the poet writes that this woman gazes fondly "as though the light at the window/were a new-born child."
* * * * * * * * *
Ira Sadoff's "Vermeer: Girl Interrupted At Her Music" approaches the painting in several interestingly-different ways.
Though Vermeer’s artwork
typically centers around women, Sardoff has the man giving the music lesson as
the main character. In telling the
“story” of the painting, Sardoff also invents what happened moments prior to
the scene depicted by Vermeer:
When her mother entered the room, he did not
look up. The young
girl’s pale skin turned
white as the shawl she wore…
After what the reader may
assume is a quick inspection of the room and its two occupants, the mother
leaves and between the girl and her teacher
nothing
so heavy as speech would be uttered between them,
for there were still lessons to be learned,
what was to be played would soon be played out.
The last line suggests
the possibility of further, uninterrupted events between the man and the girl
occurring beyond the moment of the painting.
* * * * * *
On the other hand,
Lawrence Raab’s “Great Art”* * * * * *
uses “Girl Asleep at a
Table” by Vermeer
as merely an example to
further his ideas and not as the main focus of his poem. Raab establishes early that he dislikes
paintings crowded with too many people and he’s most happy
where you sense the artist changing his mind,
and sometimes a shape’s been painted over,
although the ghost of it remains.
He explains that
Vermeer’s painting currently depicts a young woman who
…leans on one hand, dreaming
perhaps of love…
whereas x-rays show that
at one time a man was in the painting.
(The subject of her dreams?)
Raab, pleased that Vermeer decided to leave out the man and “not to show
that much.” He concludes the poem with
Let her keep her dreams to herself.
Let the light be our secret.
There are many more than
these three poems which include, or are about, Vermeer’s paintings. They, like the poems discussed, use various
methods to engage in ekphrastic writing.
