Ann Fisher-Wirth, Ph.D., (left) and Maude Schuyler ClayPoet Ann Fisher-Wirth, Ph.D., and photographer Maude Schuyler Clay will tell how they learned to combine their art forms during a lecture, “The Art of Collaboration: Poetry and Photography,” 2-4:30 p.m. Feb. 25 in AEIVA. Fisher-Worth and Clay, who worked together on “Mississippi,” a book of poems and photographs, will discuss ways to collaborate successfully and work hands-on with attendees on writing projects.
“In this workshop, we’ll be experimenting with ekphrasis — that is, writing in response to visual art — as a way of finding perceptions or voices in ourselves that we are not consciously aware of,” Fisher-Wirth said. “We'll be working with some of Maude's photographs, just as I did in creating the poems for our collaborative book ‘Mississippi.’ And depending on how much time we have, we have some other fun ideas, as well.”
The pair also will read from their work as part of the BACHE Writers’ Series 3 p.m. Feb. 26 in the Hulsey Center for the Arts. BACHE, the Birmingham Area Consortium for Higher Education, is a partnership among the greater Birmingham area’s five four-year colleges and universities, including UAB, Miles College, Samford University, the University of Montevallo and Birmingham-Southern College.
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"In this workshop, we’ll be experimenting with ekphrasis — that is, writing in response to visual art — as a way of finding perceptions or voices in ourselves that we are not consciously aware of." |
Fisher-Wirth, professor of English at the University of Mississippi and director of the interdisciplinary minor in environmental studies, has authored five poetry collections in addition to “Mississippi,” including “The Bones of Winter Birds” and “Dream Cabinet. She also co-edited the “The Ecopoetry Anthology,” a collection of contemporary American poetry about nature and the environment. She was the 2017 poet-in-residence at Randolph College and has been a Fulbright Senior Scholar in both Switzerland and Sweden.
Clay was born and raised in the Mississippi Delta, where she still lives and works; her books include “Delta Land,” “Delta Dogs” and “Mississippi History.” She was photography editor for quarterly literary magazine Oxford American from 1999 to 2004, and her work is held in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., and the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, among others.
