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Ekphrastic Poetry Workshop through Art

Learn about the ekphrasis poetry writing tradition with a hands-on workshop led by Writer-in-Residence Michael Mirolla, centered on the ‘Of a Place’ featured Dunlop Art Gallery exhibition.

This is an in-person program. Registration is required. 

An ekphrastic poem is a vivid description of a scene or work of art.

About the workshop:
Dunlop Art Gallery staff will provide a guided tour of the Of a Place featured exhibition, followed by a presentation by Regina Public Library’s 2024-25 Writer-in-Residence Michael Mirolla on the ekphrasis writing tradition. You’ll be encouraged to select a work from the exhibit to write a poem about. Participants are invited to send your completed poem(s) to Michael for him to critique via a follow-up email or in-person appointment.

About the exhibition: The Of a Place exhibition runs February 8 to June 4, 2025 at the Dunlop Art Gallery (Sherwood Village Branch).
Curated by Wendy Peart, the works in this exhibition are recent acquisitions to the Regina Public Library Permanent Collection and the SK Arts Permanent Collection, and are made by artists who have a connection to the Prairies. Evident in all the work, are the artists’ deep and profound relationships to family, culture, land, home, and community, which is achieved through various methods, materials, and strategies. Through playful, wry, serious, introspective, hopeful, joyous and critical approaches, the artists examine how they are situated within and what they envision for their communities. Most importantly, the works feature the powerful contribution that individual personal identities bring to the richness of a particular place.
Featuring Audi Atcheynum, Catherine Blackburn, Daphne Boyer, Carole Epp, Patrick Fernandez, Torrie Ironstar, Dani LaValley, Kevin McKenzie, Bailey Randell-Monsebroten, and DJ Tapaquon.

About Michael Mirolla: The author of more than two dozen novels, plays, film scripts, and short story and poetry collections, Michael Mirolla’s publications include a novella, The Last News Vendor, winner of the 2020 Hamilton Literary Award, as well as three Bressani Prizes: the novel Berlin; the poetry collection The House on 14th Avenue; and the short story collection Lessons in Relationship Dyads. His latest poetry collection, At the End of the World, was short-listed for the 2022 Hamilton Literary Award and took second prize for the Di Cicco Poetry Award. His latest short story collection Becker’s Universe & Other Stories was published in the spring of 2024 (Black Moss Press). In the fall of 2019, Michael served a three-month writers residency at the Historic Joy Kogawa House in Vancouver where he worked on the first draft of a novel, The Second Law of Thermodynamics. A symposium on Michael’s writing was held in Toronto on May 25, 2023. In September of 2023, Michael took part in a writers residency in Olot, Catalonia. While there, he polished a novella, How About This …?, which is scheduled for publication in September 2025 (At Bay Press). In July 2024, Michael participated in a month-long writers residency in Barcelona. 

Apart from his writing, Michael works as an editor and is the publisher and editor-in-chief of Guernica Editions, a Canadian literary book publisher. Born in Italy and growing up in Montreal, with side trips to Glen Robertson (ON), Gboko (Nigeria), Mount Forest (ON), Toronto, Oakville and Hamilton, Michael now makes his home outside the town of Gananoque in the Thousand Islands area of Ontario.

If you'd like to book a one on one appointment with Michael outside of this time, please email wir@reginalibrary.ca or call 306-777-6202.

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