Who: Kwame Dawes, Brittle Paper’s 2022 Literary Person of the Year, and Professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
What: There is a great deal to be learned about the making of poems by studying with some care the admitted conversations that poets and writers have with other forms of art. An ancient practice that has come to represent this dialogue has been the ekphrastic poem, written in response to visual art. Using a series of examples of ekphrastic poems by several poets, this talk will explore lessons that can be learned about the making of poems, the use of allusion, and the enriching power of artistic conversations and the opportunities that they offer writers.
