The “Man Walks Outside Time Now”: Verbal Representations of Photographic Images in the Poems of Larry Levis

The poet Larry Levis often employed ekphrasis as an elegiac device—particularly with his verbal descriptions of photographic images—to explore human suffering and reconcile feelings of loss. Through the ekphrastic mode, Levis could juxtapose otherwise disparate images, manipulating their temporal and spatial relationships, to achieve what he conceived an authentic portrait of the human experience. The poet, through his verbal descriptions of photographic images, does not try to evade the pain or joy of being human; instead, he confronts his grief directly and, in so doing, transcends that suffering to better understand himself and his own human position. This thesis analyzes the following poems by Larry Levis: “My Only Photograph of Weldon Kees,” “García Lorca: A Photograph of the Granada Cemetery, 1966,” “The Assimilation of the Gypsies,” “Sensationalism,” and “Photograph: Migrant Worker, Parlier, California, 1967.”

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Year dc:date.available

2012

Author dc:creator

• Miner, Lauren

Contributors dc:contributor

• David Wojahn

• poet
• poem
• poetry
• Larry Levis
• Levis
• ekphrasis
• elegy
• photograph
• image
• Pound
• Weldon Kees
• Kees
• Federico García Lorca
• García Lorca
• Federico Garcia Lorca
• Garcia Lorca
• Ian Gibson
• gypsies
• Josef Koudelka
• Koudelka
• sensationalism
• Granada cemetery
• Lorca
• Arts and Humanities
• English Language and Literature

Statement dc:rights

• © The Author

Identifier

https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/402

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarscompass.vcu.edu:etd-1401