2023 Summer Workshops

Art inspires. From Homer to Natasha Trethewey, from William Blake to Mark Doty, from Rilke to Szymborska, poets have long been engaging with visual art. Ekphrasis can investigate the creative act, politicize and contextualize visual art, and provide a wellspring of inspiration. In this generative workshop, we’ll read, discuss, write, and workshop ekphrastic poems. We’ll look at broadsides and other collaborations that bring together image and text as a genre of their own.
This class will run in conjunction with artist Daniel Heyman’s printmaking workshop and, in the spirit of Broadsided Press (www.broadsidedpress.org), his students will be invited to respond to poems from the workshop. Then we’ll flip the tables. Poetry students will have an opportunity to spend one day learning how to carve their poems into a linoblock for printing. Come explore the intersections of visual and written art and create your own broadside.
Biography
Elizabeth Bradfield is the author of five collections, most recently Toward Antarctica and Theorem, a collaboration with artist Antonia Contro. Cascadia: A Field Guide Through Art, Ecology and Poetry will be published in 2023. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Poetry, and her honors include the Audre Lorde Prize and a Stegner Fellowship. Founder of Broadsided Press, Bradfield works as a naturalist/guide and teaches creative writing at Brandeis University. www.ebradfield.com