Screaming
This week I am thinking about Ekphresis (or description in Greek) as a delicious inspiration for writing. Of course many of my invitations to write focus on ekphresis in one form or another (see Blue Inspiration and Waiting for Godot as just two recent examples) but more often we are thinking about stories and poetry and life. I want to focus on my ekphresis experiences on Feb. 28 and then fellow Rebel Cartographer Lisa Martin’s ekphrastic response to the events of Feb. 28. Surely there is much to inspire your writing!
Saturday, Feb. 28, was the second meeting of the 2026 Poetry Gauntlet cohort and our first in person. The day could not have have been a greater contrast as it was so sunny and warm that I left my coat in the car whereas our January meeting was held via Zoom because travel was hazardous and the Carnegie Center was still icebound.
Sean Corbin, our gauntlet leader, shared two ekphrastic writing prompts for us during our meeting. His first was Gil Scott-Heron’s ”I’m New Here‘ which led to a nice draft poem for me. The second was the featured image above. The painting by Francis Bacon definitely inspired me to write and the news of the day will definitely inspire my revision of that poem.
That evening my family book/movie club went to see Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights after reading the book by Emily Bronte (like so many book clubs across America). I have been very vocal about my dislike of the book (I am certain the Rebel Cartographers and my husband are sick of hearing about it), but after watching the movie and engaging in multiple conversations about it I have decided that Emerald Fennell made me feel better about reading the book. This movie is not for everyone. Every movie version fails to encompass the scope of Bronte’s story, but I believe Fennell captures the true essence of Bronte’s story because it leans into the gothic/horror of humanity. The movie was stunningly beautiful and disturbing (and definitely worth watching on the big screen) and made me think more than the book although I was glad that I had read the book to guide my thinking afterward. FYI, the movie trailers lean into the erotica and do not prepare you for the gothic horror of it all. One final note that definitely makes this worth thinking about when it comes to ekphrasis is the reaction of many people to Fennell’s interpretation of Bronte’s work. I logged Wuthering Heights into my movie challenge spreadsheet as the remake/reimagining instead of book on the big screen category because this not a simple retelling of the book, but that does not diminish the power of the movie. As W magazine notes: A feminist text or a Gothic nightmare? The Conversation writes: undercutting of the myth of the civilised society. The reason I did not like the book was the fact that there were no redeemable characters, but the movie showed me that this was the point. Humans are amoral and obsessive and destructive. We should not be trusted to raise children and certainly not allowed access to weapons of war.
Rebel Cartographer Lisa Martin’s ekphrastic response to the events of Feb. 28 was to turn to Bob Dylan’s Masters of War – see Eddie Veder’s tribute performance.
Whether you are screaming inside or outside at the failures of leadership and humanity, you have to admit that it can also lead to great art. Find your inspiration where you may!
And, just in case you need more inspiration, one final invitation to write: American Wanderlust: We all have conflicted feelings about our ancestors and ancestral places.
