This research project aims to investigate the relationships between image/picture and word in contemporary Italian poetry from the 1950s to the present day. The main point of view of the research is the technique of ekphrasis, traditionally located between visuality and verbality. These are the main objectives of the project: a history of ekphrasis, a new intermedial definition, an analysis of the ekphrastic text and the ekphrastic object and their functions, an investigation of the main ekphrastic relationship between text, visual object and reader-viewer.