Whether or not ekphrastic poetry suits me?

Recently I came across a Natasha Tretheway interview where the interviewer asked Natasha what she saw "...as the dangers and benefits of writing ekphrastically..." in her work.

She noted that it gives her something concrete to start with — "but care" she said "must be exercised not to misread the image."

That means, I expect, to see all images within their historical context.

I pick up Women Artists in the 20th and 21st Century, open the book and randomly select an artist. In this case it is Martha Rosler. Her work and all art , she says, exists "politically, or to be more exact ideologically—from the crudest mass-media product to the utterly esoteric praxis of the art world."

Context: everything is political. So that's the lens I use to look at one of her pieces.

I select a photo of a woman leaning against the wall in what appears to be a subway station. She looks forlorn, worn out. Behind her and half covered by her body is a poster with the words: A Drawing lesson. To the right is another poster: At first glance it's political, but then I realize that it's advertising a movie. The words —What Do You Do When Justice Fails cross the top and beneath the words a woman's face.

she sells
knock downs
to people who put clothes
on lay away and wait
for the day the numbers
fall right
tonight she'll
eat leftovers
and wonder if she
should buy a ticket