This free workshop led by author and creative writing director Iain Haley Pollock built upon Kristine Mays’ exhibition “Rich Soil,” in the Jay Estate Gardens. Pollock offered the sculptures as an inspiration to explore ekphrastic poetry. The root of the Greek word ekphrasis means “to describe” or “to tell over.” Contemporary ekphrastic poems often seek to “retell” a piece of visual art in ways that make connections to the poet’s experience and emotional life, and thereby laying bare some deeper truth in the piece of art.
The workshop began in the gardens observing and describing Mays’s sculpture installation before moving indoors to look at examples of ekphrastic poems from Rainer Marie Rilke and Matthew Olzmann. After learning these examples, workshop participants will write poems of their own based on a piece or collection of pieces in “Rich Soil.” The workshop was open to poets of all levels. A poetry workshop in Spring 2025 is planned
Thank you to Dave Donelson for sharing his poem here.
Photos by Kim Crichlow