Ensnaring the Moment. On the intersection of poetry and photography - Leah Ollman

Ensnaring the Moment: On the intersection of poetry and
photography is an anthology of poems from the late 19th century to the present that reckon with the staggering impact of photographs on our individual and collective consciousness.

This first-of-its-kind collection features the work of over 100 poets, including Elizabeth Bishop, Victoria Chang, Lucille Clifton, Nikky Finney, Jack Gilbert, Terrance Hayes, Maxine Kumin, Philip Levine, Ada Limón, W. S. Merwin, Sharon Olds, Adrienne Rich, Wisława Szymborska, James Tate and Ocean Vuong. These poems expand the tradition of ekphrastic poetry, while also serving as unfettered acts of criticism and lyric forays into photo theory. Addressing family pictures, news images, found photographs and more, each poem offers a verbal portal to the visual, where the visual itself is a portal to the past, to an unrecognized facet of the familiar, to the other and to the self.

An introductory essay by Leah Ollman explores the affinities between photography and poetry, their common impulses to compress time, distill experience, mine memory, engage the fleeting moment and bear witness.