Luminations: Selections from an Ekphrastic Poetry Project

Last fall, poet Dominika Wrozynski, Program Director of the Hudson Valley Writers Center, curated an ekphrastic writing project in collaboration with Carla De Landri and Rev. Patricia Calahan of the Union Church of Pocantico Hills. Ten poets from the region, including Dominika herself, toured the historical church and responded to the stained-glass windows of Henri Matisse and Marc Chagall that adorn it. Historical context of the two artists’ lives, as well as the building of the church and the commissioning of the windows by the Rockefeller family, was provided by docent Linda Knapp of Historic Hudson Valley (tours are offered to the public from May to December). The project, titled Luminations: Writing the Windows, culminated in a community reading of the poems in situ, surrounded by the windows that inspired them. The reading was held on November 1st, Dia de Los Muertos, as ICE raids intensified in Chicago.

The Westchester Review presents the following selection of those poems, along with reflections by each poet about the project itself, as interviewed by TWR’s Michael Quattrone. Thank you to the Union Church of Pocantico Hills for permission to publish images of the stained-glass windows, as photographed by Gregory Perry.

Quattrone sat down with Dominika Wrozynski on February 13th, to discuss the project, and her other work, in greater detail. Read that conversation below.

Poetry & Interviews

Ann Bookman
~ I Beg You, Listen

Marion Brown
~ The Master’s Work

Marilyn A. Johnson
~ To Our Vandal

Margo Taft Stever
~ Every Painter is Born Somewhere

Phylisha Villanueva
~ At the Meeting Place

Kathryn Weld
~ Eve Comments on Chagall(s) Depictions of Herself

Dominika Wrozynski
~ Where Two or Three Gather in My Name, There Am I with Them

LUMINATIONS