Domenick Pilla reading at Poets Walk 2018
Hudson Valley MOCA, in partnership with Studio Theater in Exile, will present Writing the Walls 2019, an afternoon of poetry readings, workshops, and conversations celebrating the interplay of visual art and the written word. At this event, a selection of poems and theatrical presentations that interpret pieces from the exhibition Death is Irrelevant will premiere at the 13th annual Writing the Walls Poets’ Walk.
From April to July 2019, selected compositions are displayed beside the artwork they were inspired by.
The schedule for Writing the Walls is as follows:
2:00 - 2:15—Introductory reading with Donna Barkman
2:15 - 3:15—A conversation with Death is Irrelevant artist Rona Pondick and Hudson Valley MOCA co-founder Livia Straus examine the status of women in art, from the excitement of the 80’s to the art world today
3:15 - 3:45—Lecture with poet Nicholas Powers illustrating the integration of art and poetry
3:45 - 4:45—13th Annual Writing the Walls Poets’ Walk
4:45 - 5:00—Reception and refreshments
5:00 - 6:00—Slam poetry workshop with Nicholas Powers
HOURS:
2:00 - 6:00 PM
COST:
$10 Members
$15 General admission
About Writing the Walls
13 years ago, Writing the Walls manifested as the brainchild of Studio Theater in Exile Artistic Director Mara Mills and Hudson Valley MOCA Co-Founder Livia Straus. Since then, it has successfully used visual arts as a conduit for literary inspiration, with its founders committed to engaging a diverse community of creatives and audiences. Writing the Walls welcomes poets and playwrights of all ages and abilities.
About Studio Theater in Exile
The mission of Studio Theater in Exile is to bring the arts and the community together by working with underrepresented playwrights and performers, and producing original works in community venues such as: community centers, museums, libraries, storefronts, and galleries. A hallmark of their work is collaboration with visual artists.
About the Speakers:
As a writer/actor, Donna Barkman has had her solo plays, “Hand-Me-Downs: Scenes from a Life with a Little Help from Antigone and Mother Goose” and “Sticks and Stones and Women’s Bones” produced in New York City and environs. Her poetry has appeared in Chautauqua, Boston Literary Review, String Poet, Per Contra, Pennsylvania English, Trivia: Voices of Feminism and others, as well as in anthologies: Adrienne Rich: a Tribute Anthology, Echolocations, A Gilded Frame, Tic Toc, and others. Her poetry has twice won a James Nicholson Political Poetry Prize, First Prize and Runner-Up, as well as the Common Ground Poetry Runner-up Award and the Editor’s Choice Award from Kind of a Hurricane Press.
Rona Pondick was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1952. She studied at Yale University School of Art and received her MFA in 1977. She lives and works in New York City. Since 1984 she has had over 45 solo exhibitions of her work in museums and galleries nationally and internationally,
Nicholas Powers is a poet, journalist and professor. His books, The Ground Below Zero and Theater of War, was published by Upset Press. He has written for The Indypendent, Alternet and The Village Voice. He has spoken and read all over the country. He teaches literature at SUNY Old Westbury and co-hosts the long running New York City College Poetry Slam at the Nuyorican Café.