A poetry master class, which is free and open to the public, is being offered at 6pm on Tuesday, March 9, 2021. Entitled Speaking of Art: Poetry & Ekphrasis, the program will be an interactive session on poetry and art presented by multi-award-winning poet, Vassar College Professor Paul Kane, PhD. The zoom access link is HERE!

Rooted in Ancient Greece, “ekphrasis is a literary description of art.” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary) “Ekphrasis stages an encounter between representations in two mediums, one visual and one verbal,” further explains Oregon State University Professor Rebecca Olson. Consequently, this is truly interdisciplinary. And that can be fun as well as very creative.

No prior knowledge of poetry or art is necessary to attend. However, by the end of the session you will have a working concept of ekphrasis.

Dr. Kane has a well-planned program that will lead to us trying our hands at writing poems about works of art. During the session, he will ask us questions:
* What do we see when we look at art?
* How do we describe in writing what we see?
* What are some of the approaches we might take in ekphrasis?
* Can we imagine works of art that don’t exist?
* Can there be works of art about poems?

As examples of this process, Dr. Kane will provide in PowerPoint images of artworks and complementary poems together. He will facilitate discussion of several approaches that are possible in ekphrasis.

Then, with the groundwork having been laid, images of artworks not shown before will be presented and participants will be asked to write in response to the visuals.

In preparation, information including an explanation of the meaning of ekphrasis is available for the asking for the participants. Email cultural@sunyorange.edu.

Paul Kane is an American poet, critic, and scholar. He is also considered an Australian poet. He has published, as author or editor, twenty books and numerous essays, reviews, and poems in various literary and scholarly periodicals. He has been the recipient of numerous prestigious awards for his work including Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Bogliasco Foundation, the Schweitzer Prize Preceptor in Poetics at New York University; and a Fulbright Award. He holds BA, MPhil, MA, PhD degrees from Yale University; an MA from the University of Melbourne; and an honorary doctorate from La Trobe University, Australia. He has been a professor of English, at Vassar College since 1990.

photo credit: Vincent Manzi