Other Worlds: Contemporary Ekphrastic Poetry

This one-day Creative Writing symposium will explore contemporary approaches to ekphrasis, an interdisciplinary practice involving poetry and visual/non-textual art forms.

While ekphrastic poems have typically consisted of responses to visual artworks like paintings and sculptures (e.g., W. H. Auden’s ‘Musée des Beaux Arts’, Rita Dove’s ‘The Venus of Willendorf’), ekphrasis can encompass poetry inspired by many other kinds of art forms, such as films, television programmes, video games, music, theatre and dance performances, and more. This symposium will consider how poets interact with non-textual works in a variety of experimental ways.

The day will consist of panels and Q&A discussions that combine the critical and the creative, with poets giving presentations on their approaches to ekphrasis as well as reading from their own work. Speakers include Emily Berry, Janine Bradbury, Anthony V. Capildeo, Alycia Pirmohamed, Padraig Regan, and Kandace Siobhan Walker.

This symposium is part of a programme of events produced by the Contemporary Cultures of Writing Research Group at the Open University. It is supported by OpenARC, the Open University Arts Research Centre. With additional support from the Department of English and Creative Writing at the Open University and the Institute of English Studies, the University of London.

Venue: Senate House, University of London, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU. Ground Floor, Room G37.
When: Wednesday 29th May, 10.30am – 3.30pm (arrival and complimentary refreshments from 10:00am)

There is a £10 symposium fee. The day includes complimentary lunch and refreshments. 

Speakers:

Kandace Siobhan Walker is a writer and artist of Jamaican-Canadian, Saltwater Geechee and Welsh heritage. She writes fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, and creates moving-image and installation works. She is the author of Cowboy (CHEERIO, 2023) and Kaleido (Bad Betty Press, 2022).

Alycia Pirmohamed is the author of the collection Another Way to Split Water (Polygon, 2022, and YesYes Books, 2022). Her nonfiction debut, A Beautiful and Vital Place, won the Nan Shepherd Prize for nature writing and is forthcoming with Canongate. She currently teaches on the Creative Writing Master’s at the University of Cambridge.

Janine Bradbury is a poet and critic. She is a Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Writing and Culture at the University of York. She was a recipient of a 2020 Poetry London Mentoring Prize, a finalist for the 2022 Aurora Prize for Writing, and was shortlisted for the 2020 Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition.

Emily Berry is a poet, writer, and editor living in London. She is the author of three books of poems published by Faber and Faber – Dear Boy (2013), Stranger, Baby (2017), and Unexhausted Time (2022) – and a co-writer of The Breakfast Bible (Bloomsbury, 2013), a compendium of breakfasts.

Trinidadian Scottish writer Anthony V. Capildeo FRSL is Writer in Residence at the University of York. Recent books include A Happiness (Intergraphia, 2022) and Polkadot Wounds (Carcanet, forthcoming July 2024). 

Padraig Regan's debut collection, Some Integrity (Carcanet, 2022), won the Clarissa Luard Award and was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. 

For the full programme and details, please visit the symposium web page.