Sugaring the Snow with Poetry

Ekphrasis is the literary device of depicting a visual work with a verbal description. A new anthology, Ensnaring the Moment: On the Intersection of Poetry and Photography, gathers the ekphrastic poetry of more than 100 poets writing specifically in response to photographs. Edited by art critic Leah Ollman, this collection treats poems as gateways into images, and images as doorways into memory. In the poem “Things that Lose by Being Photographed” by Rebecca Lindenberg succinctly conjures a winter scene with moonlight sugaring snow, two people dancing slowly, and a penny-colored dog shifting paws in the cold—a moment captured in a photograph that becomes a tender meditation on ordinary beauty. This poem is shared with permission of the poet. This is part of a complete episode.