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Want to spend time with unicorns, jewels, tombs, and all things medieval? Ever look at a painting and find yourself spinning an epic story behind it? If that’s you, join us in our Poetry at The Met Cloisters workshop! In this special workshop in collaboration with the Met Cloisters, we’ll be creating our own ekphrastic poetry. This big word is simpler than it looks. Ekphrastic means “description” in Greek, and so our ekphrastic poetry will be vivid descriptions of paintings, statues, tapestries, and other works of art at this iconic site. Every week we’ll make our way through the park to The Met Cloisters, taking in our surroundings, sketching, looking closely at art, and expressing all it sparks in our imaginations through writing. The class will end with a super exciting reading at The Met Cloisters!

This workshop is for writers who feel familiar with the basics of character, setting, plot, and description, and want to continue to grow. Each of the four weeks we’ll tackle a different writing exercise, which will improve our techniques, develop our voice, and inspire our imaginations. But it’s not as serious as it sounds! This workshop is mostly to have fun together with Kate talking about writing, our lives, and the world, and whatever else comes up in the room. You are the curriculum — just bring your whole self!

Please note — the first two sessions are in person, the last two are virtual.

In this workshop, students will see that approaching writing playfully has very serious results. Using ideas and techniques we encounter reading master poets such as Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes, May Swenson, and Wislawa Szymborska, our writing will be inspired by language games, traditional forms, and imitation-of and response-to master poems.

We welcome everyone to join in the fun, from the reluctant writer to the experienced poet - you will find joy, magic, and mystery playing with words.