Jessica Purdy’s breathtaking ekphrasis of Rippl-Rónai’s “Woman with Birdcage” sets a new standard for the medium. The poet’s manner encapsulates perfectly the mood of the painting, adding new life to the art with stanzas that create motion, lore, and unity. Usually an ekphrasis plays second fiddle to the subject itself, but Purdy composes so succinctly, so imaginatively, so elegantly, it’s as if they were created by the same synthesis of mind. Thus, a lover of verse cannot help but ask the question; which came first, the painting or the poem?
Nocturne
