8.23.2014

A little over a month ago, I had the honor of participating in a very unique event, Ekphrastacy, an evening that combined both art and poetry.

Heights Arts, located in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, is a community arts space that seeks new ways to engage residents in the community with artists of all types.

Ekphrastacy is a play on the word ekphrasis, which is a literary description of or commentary on a visual work of art. Heights Arts invites visual artists to display their work in an exhibition and then invites regional poets to come view the work and write a poem, one inspired by one of the displayed works of art.

For the final evening of the exhibit, both the artists and the poets were invited to speak to the community about their work. This free event allows the community to come in and hear the stories and inspirations of the featured artists; after which, the poets each got up in turn and read their inspired pieces.

This particular exhibition, entitled Space Divided, contained work from artists Drew King, David Masters and Nicole Schneider. In response to what I saw, I wrote four pieces of poetry.

You can read any of those poems or learn more about the artists by selecting a link below.