Book One of Ekphrases is the third book of poetry by Saad Ali. It's the first installment in his anthology of ekphrases.
On this occasion, the poems are born out of Ali's interpretations of the artworks (paintings) of various Western (European and American) artists-from past and present. The poems are not merely descriptions or elaborations of the themes, messages, subjects and objects of and in the paintings, but rather his poetic discourse is much more engaging in that it is an embodiment of the stories within stories of human stories-manifesting as the consequence of an interaction between (the minds of) a philosopher-poet and an artist.
Also, the main components of Ali's poetic discourse i.e. contemplation and satire become prominent-embodying reflections on the fundamental questions of why, what, how, when, where, and who vis-à-vis existence and being (in general) and, more specifically, the human condition(s). Here, the instances of the phenomena of love, hate, fear, courage, nostalgia, remorse, redemption et cetera have been invoked-even at the subjective level.
As always, the book is an invitation to all for both an individual and a collective contemplative and reflective odyssey. So that we may be able to interpret and comprehend the intricacies and niceties of existence and human life in a better (and/or different) way.
