An investigation into the connection between art and poetry, Sunlight on the River features the world’s great poets interpreting the world’s great art, illuminating our appreciation of both.

This volume features poems by writers who turned to paintings for their inspiration, as well as paintings by artists who based their works on poems. This thrilling collection includes Rossetti’s haunting sonnet based on Botticelli’s Primavera; Wallace Stevens’s The Man with the Blue Guitar, a masterful meditation on an iconic painting by Picasso; William Carlos Williams’s joyous interpretations of scenes by Breughel; and Adrienne Rich lending a compassionate voice to the subject of Edwin Romanzo Elmer’s The Mourning Chair.

The MFA’s Curator of Photography Dr. Allison Moore will join us as our special guest. She specializes in poetry and contemporary African art and photography, exploring postcolonial, feminist, and aesthetic theories. She earned her MFA in Writing (Poetry) in 2020 from Pacific University; a Ph.D. in Art History from The Graduate Center, CUNY;  an MA in Liberal Studies from Northwestern University, and her AB from Smith College. She recently curated the MFA special exhibition, Copper, Silver, Salt, Ink: The Chemistry of Photography’s Enduring Desires.

This online event is free, but registration is required. Limited to 50 participants.