Ekphrastic Poetry Writing Workshop with Camille Guthrie

Join nationally recognized poet, Camille Guthrie, for an evening of reading and discussing ekphrastic poems. Ekphrasis is a classic genre, or a literary device, in which one medium of art describes another to define its essence and reveal its meaning. The first example of ekphrasis is the description of the shield of Achilles from Homer’s Iliad. A very popular genre, ekphrastic poetry simultaneously enhances its source, the original artwork, and takes on a life of its own through its vivid description. In this writing workshop, we will examine several examples of ekphrastic poetry: poems from John Keats, Mina Loy, and Robert Hayden. Participants will be given writing prompts to write ekphrastic poems, if they like, based on artworks from the Bennington Museum.

Participants will be emailed the poems in advance of the class, and will be provided with several samples of artwork form Bennington Museum’s collection that may be used as inspiration for the poems, although writers are also welcome to choose their own.  Completed poems may be emailed to the instructor and with permission may be shared with the rest of the class.

About the instructor:

Camille Guthrie’s new book Diamonds is forthcoming from BOA Editions in fall 2021. She is the author of three books of poetry: Articulated Lair: Poems for Louise Bourgeois (2013), In Captivity (2006), and The Master Thief (2000), all published by Subpress. Her poems have appeared in such journals as At Length, Boston Review, The Iowa Review, The New Republic, Poem-A-Day, Tin House, as well as in several anthologies including the Best of American Poetry 2019 & 2020 (Scribner) and Art & Artists: Poems (Everyman’s Library). The Director of the Undergraduate Writing Initiatives at Bennington College, she has been awarded fellowships from the MacDowell Colony and the Yaddo Foundation, and she holds an MFA from Brown University and a BA from Vassar College.

Members: $20

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