IMF 51721 Poetry: Ekphrastic Poetry W

Instructor

David Maduli

Class Type 

Workshop

Course Description

The line between visual art and writing is a wonderfully blurred thing. Traditional ekphrasis is the art of description: what does this painting look like in words? Writers across time and genre have confronted art with language. In this course we’ll be reading, writing, and exploring ekphrastic poetry in a deeper, more individual sense: how can we face, respond to, and interpret a piece of visual art using words? What conversation can we have with it? In what way(s) is our literary response dependent on perception? We’ll be examining an array of visual art (paintings, sculpture, etc.) and writing in response to each, and we’ll be reading multiple examples of ekphrastic poetry, classical and contemporary, to broaden our understanding of its possibilities.

Textbook

Juan Luna’s Revolver
Author: Luisa A. Igloria
Univ of Notre Dame Press, 2009
ISBN: 9780268031787

Secrets from the Center of the World
Joy Harjo
ISBN: 9780816511136

Standing on the Verge and Maggot Brain
Author: Adrian Matejka
Third Man Books, 2021
ISBN: 9781734842296

Bellocq’s Ophelia
Author: Natasha Trethewey
Graywolf Press, 2002
ISBN: 9781555973599