Archaeology of Forgotten Narratives

Award winning poet Donald Levering will present poems inspired by the works of David Olivant (on display at the Strata Gallery August 4 through September 1). Levering will discuss the process of writing poetry from art in general and for these specific works. Olivant will be present to offer perspectives on the interchange between his art and Levering’s poems. The poet and artist will respond to audience questions.

Ekphrastic poetry, that is, poetry on works of art, goes back at least as far as Homer’s fanciful description of Achilles’ Shield in The Iliad. Among the more famous ekphrastic poems are Keats Ode on a Grecian Urn and Auden’s poem on Vermeer’s Fall of Icarus. More recent ekphrastics are Kevin Young’s take on Basquait’s“Cadillac Moon and Mary Jo Bang’s poem on Bruce Pearson’s abstract painting, Rock and Roll is Dead The Novel is Dead, God is Dead, Painting is Dead.

Levering has written numerous ekphrastic poems and has taught workshops on the subject both online and in person. Of David Olivant’s paintings, he says, “I find them immediately stimulating to writing poetry. Their complex of images act on multiple levels at once—psychological, sociological, personal. Gazing at them, I feel compelled to make parallel narratives in verse.”

The notions of levels and parallels in David Olivant’s work is echoed in the critic Mark Van Proyen’s comment that Olivant’s paintings “invite their viewers to adopt the mindset of the archeologist who sifts through diverse iconographic clues to recover a forgotten and possibly suppressed narrative.”