A work of art has often inspired a poem, like The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh, which sparked Anne Sexton’s poem of the same name; and likewise, a poem can inspire an artwork, as with Charles Demuth’s The Figure 5 in Gold, motivated by William Carlos Williams’ poem The Great Figure.

But, it is often the case that the artist and the poet are the same person. A few artist/poets of variety include William Blake, Marsden Hartley, Francis Picabia, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Chinese painters of the Song Dynasty. Movements of Western art and literature, including the Pre-Raphaelites, Dada, and Surrealism also have embraced the artist/poet as an inspired partnering.

In this spirit of creative duality, please join the Mid-Manhattan Library Art Collection on Monday, April 27, at 6:30 PM, as we celebrate Poem in Your Pocket Day with an images and poetry read by artists and poets Stephen Spretnjak, Johannes VanDerBeek, Geoffrey Young, and Bill Zavtasky.