SNS | 11-30-24
Join us online for an evening of literary performance and open mic reading
Featuring: Annelyse Gelman & Arthur Kayzakian
Theme: Ekphrasis
(scroll down for writing prompt)
Hosted By: Hollie Hardy
Saturday, November 30, 2024
6:00pm Pacific Time
(8:00pm Central time)
Online Event
Free Admission
Sign Up in Advance to Get on the Open Mic List
The theme is optional | Time limit is not optional
Please plan ahead and keep your reading to 3 MINUTES MAX
Scroll down for monthly writing prompt
Join Event on Zoom
Meeting ID: 892 5382 4176
Passcode: 479424
Author Bios
Annelyse Gelman‘s most recent book, Vexations (University of Chicago Press, 2023), won the 2022 James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets and was longlisted for the National Book Award. Gelman is also the author of the poetry collection Everyone I Love Is a Stranger to Someone (Write Bloody, 2014), and the experimental pop EP About Repulsion (Fonograf Editions, 2019), as well as the artist’s book POOL (Neck Press, 2020). Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, BOMB Magazine, the PEN Poetry Series, The Iowa Review, American Poetry Review, and elsewhere.
Learn more: https://annelysegelman.com/
Arthur Kayzakian is the finalist for the 2023 Kate Tufts Award, and the winner of the 2021 inaugural Black Lawrence Immigrant Writing Series for his collection, The Book of Redacted Paintings, which was also selected as a finalist for the 2021 Philip Levine Prize for Poetry. He is the recipient of the 2023 creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He is also the winner of the Open Chapbook Competition for My Burning City. He is a contributing editor at Poetry International and a recipient of the Minas Savvas Fellowship. He serves as the Poetry Chair for the International Armenian Literary Alliance (IALA). His work has appeared in publications such as The Adroit Journal, Portland Review, Chicago Review, Cincinnati Review, The Southern Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and Witness Magazine. Learn more: https://www.artkay.org/
Write with Friends! Register for The Write-In!
LET’S WORK ON THE THEME TOGETHER!
Join me the week before SNS, on Saturday afternoon, November 23, for the monthly Write-In, a generative online workshop with Hollie Hardy.
Write-In Details/ Sign Up
November Writing Prompt: Ekphrasis
Ekphrasis is a literary response to a real or imagined work of art. It might be descriptive, interpretive, inventive, narrative, tangental, historical. It could be a painting, drawing, sculpture, mosaic, tapestry, or even dance.
Your challenge this month is to write an ekphrastic poem, story, or mixed-genre prose piece inspired by or in reaction to a work of art (3-minutes or less).
SOME IDEAS:
If you can, go to a museum or gallery and find something to fall in love with, otherwise, choose something from an art book, a magazine, a newspaper, an old photograph, or anything you can find online, maybe browse Google Images of art, look up artists on Instagram, or choose a piece of art in your home, or a local café, some graffiti in your neighborhood, a mosaic on a trash can, a sculpture in the cemetery, a dance you attended and vividly recall or watch on YouTube, whatever you want. It could be famous or unknown. It could be political or not. Literal or metaphorical.
Describe, narrate, or invent a life beyond the image.
As ever, the theme is optional—an invitation, not a requirement; feel free to interpret loosely or ignore. Below are some poems on our theme to inspire you.
FOR INSPIRATION
Anna Walinska by Arthur Kayzakian
in honor of the long-lost but ultimately found Portrait of Anna Walinska by Arshile Gorky (1937)
Vexations (excerpt) by Annelyse Gelman
short sample of her book-length poem which includes an ekphrastic description of a painting by Balthus titled "Thérèse on a Bench-Seat (1939)
French Chocolates by Ellen Bass
with apologies to Open Window, Collioure, by Matisse (1905)
inspired by Rhea Adri’s untitled painting (2015)
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus by William Carlos Williams
after "The Fall of Icarus," painting by Pieter Bruegel (c. 1525-69)
y Keith S. Wilson
after “Café-Concert at Les Ambassadeurs,” by Edgar Degas (1876–77)
Write More: If you like the SNS writing prompts, consider signing up for my subscription service, Praxis Poetry: Weekly Prompts for Poets. Learn more and sign up for inspiration, accountability, and community!