One artistic form can inspire another, creating profound connections, often in eye-opening and fortuitous ways. In this writing workshop led by Brenda Cárdenas, Poet Laureate of Wisconsin, you will learn about various approaches poets take to the mode of ekphrasis--poems that converse or correspond with, interpret, or “riff off” of visual art. Then, with the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art’s permanent collection at your disposal and using prompts to guide you, you will write poems in response to works of visual art that inspire, intrigue, puzzle, or move you. We will work toward creating a third space where the poem and art together are something more or different than their parts—something, perhaps, unexpected!
This workshop is free and open to writers of all experience levels.
Registration is required, and the workshop is limited to 15 participants.
Register here.
Parking is available in the Visitor Lot immediately north of the Sculpture Park for a fee during the week (before 4:30 p.m.). Free two-hour parking is available in the Eddy Street Commons Parking Garage or along Angela Blvd. After 4:30 p.m. and on weekends, parking is free and available in any non-gated campus lot. If traveling via South Bend Transpo, take the No.7 bus and use the Eddy St. Commons stop.
About the instructor:
Brenda Cárdenas has published ekphrastic poems in her two books, Trace (Red Hen Press, 2023) and Boomerang (Bilingual Press, 2009), as well as in literary magazines and anthologies, most recently in Latino Poetry: The Library of America Anthology. Cárdenas is also co-editor of two anthologies, including Resist Much/Obey Little: Inaugural Poems to the Resistance (Spuyten Duyvil Press, 2017). She co-designed and co-taught the inaugural master workshop for PINTURA: PALABRA, a multi-year Letras Latinas initiative in partnership with the Smithsonian American Art Museum. She is Professor Emerita of English at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, where she taught undergraduate and graduate classes and seminars on poetry and the visual arts.
Cárdenas’s campus visit launches “Poets & Art: Ekphrasis at the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art,” a multi-year partnership between the Museum and Letras Latinas, the literary initiative of the University’s Institute for Latino Studies (ILS). This workshop will be preceded by a reading and talk on ekphrastic writing in the Museum on Wednesday, September 24th. Between the reading and workshop, Cárdenas will spend two days at the Museum observing, reflecting, and writing a new ekphrastic poem inspired by an artwork on display.
Originally published at raclinmurphymuseum.nd.edu.