This essay proposes to treat map descriptions as ekphrases by conceptualizing them as verbal representations of another sign system, a sign system that is not wholly non-verbal yet different enough to provide the intermedial friction necessary for ekphrasis. In addition, it puts forth a basic functional typology of cartographic ekphrasis via an analysis of two poems, Elizabeth Bishop's 'The Map' and Eavan Boland's' That the Science of Cartography is Limited'. It argues that, against the backdrop of a transparent use of maps in everyday life, ekphrasis renders maps opaque and foregrounds their mediality. The two poems represent opposed yet complementary ways of achieving this: in the former, the map is the territory insofar as it is granted an autonomous, aesthetic status and creates its own world; in the latter, the map is not the territory insofar as the text highlights the discrepancy between map and territory, creating an experience of space and place in the poem that cannot be mapped.
