Bellocq's Ophelia

Bellocq’s Ophelia is an example of ekphrasis, poetry inspired by art. Trethewey weaves her narrative around several photos from E.J. Bellocq’s Storyville Portraits. I linked the last poem in the book “Vignette” to the cover art, though several others appear to make direct reference to over individual photographs from Storyville: “Bellocq’s Ophelia,” “Photograph of a Bawd Drinking Raleigh Rye,” “Blue Book,” “Portrait #1,” “Portrait #2.” These poems make direct reference to photographs from the 1911-1912s, though only “Bellocq’s Ophelia” and “Vignette,” the poems that open and end the book, note that they are “from a photograph by E.J. Bellocq, circa 1912” (3, 47). Descriptive lines from the non-attributed poems like “Portrait #2”—“I pose nude for this photograph, awkward / one arm folded behind my back, the other limp at my side”—are similar enough to lines in “Vignette”—“She wears / white, a rhinestone choker, fur, / her dark crown of hair”—that I inferred that the author had used a real photo of Bellocq’s as inspiration (42, 47). Trethewey blends her narrative so well that it is difficult to separate the poems describing an actual picture from those describing images that might be the of author’s invention.

It is difficult to distinguish what is based in historical fact and what is the author’s imagination because she creates a narrative for the photos but intertwines historical references. In “March 1911” the speaker makes an allusion to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire (March 25, 1911): “In the paper today, tragedy / in New York City – a clothing factory, so many women / dying in a fire. The place they worked, locked up tight, became a tomb” and “I read that some chose a last moment of flight, / leaping nine stories to their deaths. Other stayed / inside, perhaps to burn clean in the fire’s embrace” (22). The speaker could have mentioned the name of the factory and cemented the disaster as a historical reference for the reader, but chose to be somewhat obscure—the majority of readers would probably recognize and be able to put a name to the incident. Other historically correct objects are mentioned in passing, like the Kodak camera and book American Highways and Byways. These references to time and culture-appropriate situations and objects make the poems read more like nonfiction.

I noticed a tendency on the part of the poet to cover up other important information like the name of the factory fire. Certain names in the poem are withheld from the reader: “Miss J—” (8), “Countess P—” (11). I’m not sure why the poet conceals the identity of certain persons, unless it is to provide a sense of realistic concern that revealing those people would lead to their arrest for indecent behavior. The mixture of forthright details and concealed information works because of the overall method of disclosing facts and story through a private letter format. Presumably the details the person (Constance) receiving the letter needs to know, she is already familiar with (names, places, situations). Because the reader is looking in from the outside of the conversation, he/she is necessarily less familiar with the allusions and hidden identities.