Event Registration

Please join Jennifer Grotz for a talk entitled "Poets on Paintings, Take 2." Building on Professor Antonia Losano’s presentation last spring, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference director and poet Jennifer Grotz will revisit the topic of ekphrastic poetry, this time primarily taking a poet’s, rather than a scholar’s, perspective. She will present a case study of a Caravaggio painting, The Conversion of Paul, looking at poems addressing it written first by British poet Thom Gunn, and then by American poets Stanley Plumly and his student Paul Otremba, and, finally, reading her own ekphrastic poem on the painting. This deep dive will provide opportunities to amplify many of Professor Losano’s observations but also extend the understanding of the ekphrastic to include artistic strategies, connection, and conversation over time.