Ekphrasis as evidence: forensic rhetoric in contemporary documentary poetry

Abstract

Contemporary lyric series deploy many strategies from forensic (courtroom) rhetoric to persuade their readers that an injustice has taken place. Ekphrasis is one of the primary overlapping strategies in both forensic rhetoric and the lyric, documenting what cannot be seen, what has been lost, or framing an object to serve persuasive ends. Returning to ancient definitions of ekphrasis as any kind of vivid description expands ekphrasis’s scope from a “verbal representation of visual representation” to include descriptions of people and events. This article reads ekphrastic descriptions of violence against female bodies in recent poems by Natasha Trethewey, Tyehimba Jess, and Maggie Nelson to demonstrate how poets use the evidentiary function of ekphrasis. Documentary poets treat ekphrasis as a form of testimony, simultaneously subjective and factual. This article shows how ekphrasis straddles the boundary between the world as a material reality and our conceptions of it, inhabiting the liminal space where interpretation and ethical formation transpire. By composing imaginative ekphraseis of unavailable evidence, documentary poets challenge the hegemonic powers of the archive and empower us to imagine “what the body can say.” By positioning ekphrasis within the frame of forensic rhetoric, documentary poetry transforms the reader into a witness.