Poetry vs Photographs

In Bellocq’s Ophelia, Trethewey uses a combination of photography and poetry to get her message across. The poetry can be found in the form of letters, diary entries and vignettes. Not only is there a connection between poetry and photography, but there is also a complementary relationship between the two evident in Bellocq’s photography, as well as Trethewey’s Bellocq’s Ophelia.

First off, poems, just like photographs, “accord value to their subjects”(Rindge and Leahy 2). Both can take the simplest and least meaningful subjects, and still manage to make them into something beautiful. Thus, both photographs and poems can also be manipulated, not only by the photographers, but also by the subject or object of the photograph, and made so that they hide the truth. For example a lingerie photo shoot of a woman smiling as if everything in her life was perfect would be a photo that could definitely be hiding something. Likewise, a poem describing this woman in the picture as beautiful and happy would definitely be missing a lot as well. What type of struggles did this woman really go through? It is this type of poetry and photography “by which the subjects [of the photographs] are held forever in silence,” for the truth is not revealed (Rindge and Leahy). I believe that Bellocq’s goal instead, was to make the hidden truth in his subject’s personalities and struggles obvious and present in each of his photographs. Trethewey chooses to latch on to this truth that Bellocq portrays in his photographs, and develop it. Trethewey not only develops the struggles faced by a prostitute Ophelia, but also the struggles caused by race. The ability of poetry to be manipulated in a beneficial way is shown when Trethewey brings her own past into the photograph highlighting the struggles caused by race in the 19th and 20th century. Ophelia attempts to run away from her race as “she walks the[se] streets/ a white woman” (Trethewey, 7). Thus, Bellocq, and ultimately Trethewey’s use of photographs and poetry provide an opportunity for “female voicing” and the voicing of race, rather than “silence” (Rindge and Leahy).

As Trethewey emphasizes, “the camera’s angle will be a wider-angle lens, and I’ll be able to include more” (369). It is here where the complementary relationship between the photographs and poetry is evident. What allows Trethewey to reach that “wider-angle lens” is her use of poetry. The poetry brings the photos to life. Just as the photographs are a moment preserved from history, Trethewey lets her poetry give a voice to this moment, and reveal the unseen. Trethewey further connects photography and poetry, by giving the visual structure of each poem significance. Many of the poems appear to resemble letters with dates, while others includes addresses that serve as additional hints. Furthermore, as Rindge and Leahy emphasize, the white spaces between couplets in many of Trethewey’s poems visually give Ophelia time to formulate her thoughts. As a result, each poem almost becomes a photograph within itself.