Some artists paint pictures; poets construct word images—and a select few, known as ekphrastic poets, find inspiration from the artist’s work.
One such writer is the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Jorie Graham, who will read and reflect upon selected works from her poetry during Poetry in the Museum, sponsored by Case Western Reserve University’s Baker-Nord Center for Humanities and the Cleveland Museum of Art. The free, public event is set in the Donna and James Reid Gallery of European Art at the museum on Sunday, Oct. 30, 1:30-3:30 p.m. A book signing follows the readings.
During the celebration of poetry, Graham also will announce winners of the poetry contest inspired by works in the museum’s collections. The contest winners will be present to read their works near the art that inspired their words.
Graham, the Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard and former Chancellor of the American Academy of Poets, has written a number of poetry books: Sea Change (2008), Never (2002), Swarm (2000) and The Dream of the Unified Field: Selected Poems 1974-1994 (the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winner). Almost every volume of Graham’s work contains a poem inspired by an artist and their work.
She has been the recipient of a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship and a Morton Dauwen Zabel Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
Poetry in the Museum is supported by a grant from Cuyahoga Arts and Culture, as well from the university’s Helen Buchman Sharnoff Endowment for Poetry.
For more information, contact Maggie Kaminski in the Baker-Nord Center at 216.368.2242 or visit case.edu/humanities.