Frank PodmoreMy poem ‘Eric’s Trip’ published in THE YELLING CONTINUES
As I’m sure you, whoever you are, already know, Sonic Youth are my official standard answer to ‘What’s your favourite band?’, a question I think we should ask more as adults because it’s much more fun and informative than ‘What do you do for work?’, which is all adults ever ask each other.
A little while back I read a poetry collection, the author of which I’ve completely forgotten, where there were several ekphrastic poems – poems inspired by a work of art – about songs by Bob Marley. Naturally, I thought, I could do that, but for Sonic Youth, so I went back to my favourite SY song, ‘Eric’s Trip’, from Daydream Nation (the Greatest Album Of All Time). Funny thing about ‘Eric’s Trip’ is that it’s already ekphrastic, which makes my poem doubly so. The song was inspired by The Trip, a film by Andy Warhol in which Eric Emerson, musician, dancer, actor and general Warhol hanger-on, takes acid and talks for a long time. A really long time. He really does go on. I actually transcribed the whole thing in order to write the poem and it took ages.
Anyway, my poem being an ekphrastic ekphrastic poem actually fits into a long tradition. Probably the most famous ekphrastic poem is WH Auden’s ‘Musée des Beaux Arts’, which was inspired by Pieter Brughel’s Landscape with Fall of Icarus, which was itself inspired by the myth of Icarus, most famously told by Ovid in the Metamorphoses. Here’s the painting:
Apparently this painting also inspired William Carlos Williams to write a poem of the same name.
Somewhere in the world, someone must’ve written a triply ekphrastic poem. I look forward to reading it. You can read my merely doubly ekphrastic poem on Procrastinating Writers United. Fans of SY will note that I piled in references to their other songs and even a particularly cool guitar of theirs, as well as to some other works by Warhol. Enjoy!
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Simon J Ashcroft
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