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Ekphrastic Poetry Workshop Series

Three Saturday Sessions CANCELLED

September 19, September 26 and October 3,  10 a.m. -12 p.m.
October 17, 7 p.m. public reading

Learn the art of ekphrastic poetry (poems that respond to art) with Kathleen Cerveny, who was the Poet Laureate of Cleveland Heights from 2013-14 and recently published a chapbook, Coming to Terms, from Night Ballet Press.

Ekphrastacy heights Writes literary programPoets have long used their reactions to works of art as the impetus for ekphrastic poems; poems stimulated by a work of art. While the Greek term ekphrasis translates simply as ‘a vivid description’ of a thing, the long-established tradition of ekphrastic poetry opens the door to a wide range of creative approaches for poets to engage with a work of art in another medium. You may know John Keats’ famous “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” More current is Anne Sexton’s poem “Starry Night’ responding to Vincent Van Gogh’s famous painting of the same name.

The setting for this intimate workshop is the Heights Arts Gallery in Cleveland Heights. There will be three Saturday workshop sessions, with a culminating performance of the finished poems the following week. Participants will also benefit from attending Heights Arts’ Ekphrastasy gallery talk and poetry reading on October 1.

The first session will introduce participants to a range of ekphrastic poems, offer a writing exercise to get the creative juices flowing, provide time to explore the exhibition of contemporary art in the Gallery and begin to craft poems. The second and third workshops will be in-depth critiquing sessions. Participants will be expected to work on revisions of their poems between workshops. The week following the end of the workshop there will be a public, evening performance of the finished poems in the gallery. All activities will take place in the Heights Arts Gallery in Cleveland Heights. Space is limited so that each participant can have the benefit of a thorough critique.

About the Workshop Leader

Kathleen Cerveny230x310Kathleen Cerveny is a poet and visual artist (BFA, Cleveland Institute of Art, MFA, Stonecoast Creative Writing Program, University of Southern Maine). She was the 2013-14 Poet Laureate of Cleveland Heights, and its Haiku Champion (2009-10). Her poems have appeared in the Southern New Hampshire University Journal: Amoskeag, the e-journal: Shaking Like a Mountain, and in anthologies published by Pudding House Press and elsewhere. Her chapbook, Coming to Terms, was recently published by Night Ballet Press, and a poem of Kathleen’s was selected for inclusion in the Future Cycle Press anthology; Poems for Malala Yousafzai.

Workshop fee for all four sessions:

$90 | $75 Heights Arts members
REGISTER HERE

 

A collaborative program between Heights Arts and Literary Cleveland

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