What Exactly is Ekphrasis?

In this workshop, Virginia Bell, Co-Editor of RHINO Poetry , will lead participants in drafting their own ekphrastic poems with original prompts. Bell will read a few poems from her new book, Lifting Child from the Ground, Turning Around (Glass Lyre Press 2025), and tell the story of how ekphrasis became the thread that binds her collection.

The word “ekphrasis” is from the Greek for “description” or a “recounting” and was originally used to train students of rhetoric. Today, poets who practice ekphrasis don’t merely describe art but react to, debate, or challenge it, or use art as a springboard to explore memory, emotions, ideas, and social/political events.

The workshop will take place from 6:00-7:30 PM. Attendees are encouraged to come early for a pre-event Happy Hour at the MiniBar from 5:30-6:00 PM.

All participants will receive a copy of Bell's new poetry collection.

Virginia Bell is the author of Lifting Child from the Ground, Turning Around (Glass Lyre Press 2024) and From the Belly (Sibling Rivalry Press 2012). She won NELLE Magazine’s Nonfiction Prize in 2020, and her poetry won Honorable Mention in the 2019 RiverSedge Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in New City Magazine, Five Points, Denver Quarterly, Hypertext, Kettle Blue Review, Fifth Wednesday Journal, Spoon River Poetry Review, and other journals and anthologies. Bell is Co-Editor of RHINO Poetry and teaches at Loyola University Chicago and DePaul University.

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