Poets and Patrons August Workshop

August 23, 2014 - POETS AND PATRONS CRITIQUING WORKSHOP: EKPHRASTIC POETRY – writing poems about other art
forms
Led By Donna Vorreyer and Cynthia Gallagher.
Ekphrastic poems are poems
written about works of art,
paintings, sculpture, or photo-
graphs. Most definitions include
poems about architecture, films,
novels, symphonies, operas,
and other arts as well. You can
find a large number of examples
of Ekphrastic poems side-by-side
with the works of art that inspired
them at http://valerie6.myweb.uga.edu/ekphrasticpoetry.html.
Donna Vorreyer’s collection, A House of Many Windows, is available from Sundress Publications. Her work has appeared in many journals including Rhino, Redactions, Lablettter, Linebreak, Cider Press Review, Stirring, Sweet, wicked alice, and Weave. Her fifth chapbook, We Build Houses of Our Bodies was released in late 2013 by Dancing Girl Press and her second full-length manuscript Washed with Hymns and Singing is slated for release in 2016.
Cynthia Gallaher is listed on Chicago Public Library's "Top 10 Requested Chicago Poets." Her most recently published chapbook "Omnivore Odes: Poems About Food, Herbs and Spices" was published by Finishing Line Press (2013). She holds a degree in the History of Art and Architecture from UIC and is working on a new manuscript "Leaning Tower of Touhy and Other Ekphrastic Poems."

Join us for this Poets & Patrons Workshop Saturday, August 23, at 1:00 p.m. in Room 6N (on the third floor of the Harold Washington Library at 400 S. State Street.) NOTE: THIS ROOM IS ON THE THIRD FLOOR. LIBRARY STAFF MEMBERS MAY NOT BE ABLE TO TELL YOU WERE WE ARE MEETING..
Some members will gather at Panera’s on the southeast corner of State and Congress (diagonally across the street from the library) between 11:30 and noon, to eat lunch or drink a cup of coffee or tea and socialize before the meeting. You are welcome to join us there.

Donna Vorreyer and Cynthia Gallagher

"Landscape with the Fall of Icarus"
William Carlos Williams (1962)
According to Brueghel when Icarus fell
it was spring
a farmer was ploughing his field
the whole pageantry
of the year was awake tingling near
the edge of the sea concerned
with itself
sweating in the sun that melted
the wings' wax
unsignificantly off the coast there was
a splash quite unnoticed this was
Icarus drowning
Upcoming Workshops:
October 25 at the Hinsdale Public Library: reading of winning poems from our annual contest, and a workshop on Haiku, led by Charlotte Digregorio.
Write! Chicago Workshop:
August 14, Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum
Contact Caroline Johnson at twinkscat@aol.com or 708-839-1699 for more information.

The optional assignment for August is to write an ekphrastic poem, i.e., a poem inspired by a painting or another creative work. The poem can be free or formal verse. Poems submitted in advance will be critiqued at the meeting, if the author is present. You are always free to ignore the assignment and submit another kind of poem instead.
Members may mail their poems to Wilda Morris, 499 Falcon Ridge Way, Bolingbrook IL 60440, by August 13, or (preferably) email them to wildamorris@ameritech.net by August 17 (put P & P in the subject line). If mailing, send a check for $5 per poem submitted ($10 for non-members), made out to Poets & Patrons. (Non-members may attend a couple of meetings before deciding to join. Or send $20 for 2014 membership and $5 with a poem for critique). If you email your poem(s) bring your check to the workshop or mail it to Beth Staas at 1634 Barnsdale Road, LaGrange Park IL 60526. E-mail questions (or late poems) to Wilda. If you do not get a reply to an e-mailed poem, call Wilda at 630/739-2983 to be sure your poem was received. You may send a maximum of two poems for critique; the fee must be paid for each poem submitted.