National Poetry Month Ekphrastic Project!

April is National Poetry Month

Poster “designed by twelfth grader Bao Lu from Edward R. Murrow High School in Brooklyn, New York, who was the winner of the 2021 National Poetry Month Poster Contest.” - Poets.org See more about Bao’s win at this link.

Poster “designed by twelfth grader Bao Lu from Edward R. Murrow High School in Brooklyn, New York, who was the winner of the 2021 National Poetry Month Poster Contest.” - Poets.org See more about Bao’s win at this link.

Friends, April is National Poetry Month. Not only that, this particular April, 2021, is National Poetry Month’s 25th Anniversary!

Why does that matter to a film photography collective? Because a picture is worth 1000 words, because our images are poetry, because life itself can be poetry. It also matters because supporting each other is something artists in general do, and many of us get all giggly giddy over the prospect of collaborations.

So thirty of us decided to invite thirty writers to participate in an interdisciplinary bonanza! The poets who generously agreed to play along were each given a photograph, randomly assigned, with no information besides the image, to respond to in words.

iPhone shot by Amy Jasek. Check out Melanie Faith’s other books here - she has a book on Photography for Writers!

iPhone shot by Amy Jasek. Check out Melanie Faith’s other books here - she has a book on Photography for Writers!

HOW DID IT TURN OUT??

We think it’s amazing, and we are thrilled to share it with you! Watch this space: starting April 1st, one photo / poem pair will be shared here on our website, plus on our Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter each day. In May, we will share the project here on our blog in a more retrospective way.

Consider yourself officially invited to our month long ekphrastic film photographic word wizard party!

We - the photographers and the writers - can’t wait to show you what we made!

Amy Jasek

Photography is a family tradition. I was raised in the darkroom, and on the fine art work of photographers like Edward Weston, Diane Arbus, and Ansel Adams. My father took me photographing with him regularly and taught me how to look at light. He gave me my first camera (an Olympus RC); I made my first black and white print (standing on a stool!) at the age of 7. There are some gaps in the timeline of my photographic journey, enforced upon it by life in general, but film and cameras are one of the few things that have remained constant every step of the way. For me, photography is all about moments and truth. I like to work in black and white so that I can highlight those two things. The truth, form, and simplicity of the moment is presented; I feel that removing the color from the scene brings these things out. I believe street photography is a little window into the heart and soul of a place, a time, and the people in it. These days I tend more toward street portraits and interaction with my subjects, but my drive for capturing the candid moment remains the same.