Ekphrastic poetry is a poem based on a painting, drawing, sculpture, or photograph. The poem describes the appearance of the artwork, but it also aims to expand on the artist’s emotions, meaning, and purpose behind the piece.

In English 12 Honors, Mrs. Williams had us study famous poems inspired by artwork. For our assignment, we were asked to create a poem based on any piece of art that inspired us. I chose a piece that showed a heart and a mind being controlled like puppets by a hand. To me, the mind represented logic, the heart emphasized emotion, and the hand resembled society influencing us. Through my poem, I wanted to question whether we should listen to our minds or our hearts.

The Truth or The Reason

By Lila Garrity

The hand
hangs above the world;
still,
yet full of power.

From its fingers
hang simple threads;
small in size,
but holding fate.

One thread holds the mind,
a maze of whispers,
rows of reason,
and questions always flowing.

The other thread holds the heart,
wanting more;
beating emotion instead of answers,
bleeding truth instead of reason.

The mind wants logic.
The heart wants freedom.

Both hanging,
controlled by strings.

And somewhere between logic and truth,
between questions and emotions,
we realize…

Maybe the hand
is not a stranger.

And maybe
it has been there our whole life.

It’s just a puppet
trying to decide
which one to follow:

the mind
or the heart,

the truth
or the reason.