Natalie Sirett and Natalie Shaw, Medusa & her Sisters
Medusa & her Sisters is a book made in a collaboration between artist Natalie Sirett, poet and editor Natalie Shaw and fourteen contemporary women poets. Exploring the myth of the snake-haired Medusa and her Sisters, both artist and poets find resonances with contemporary issues of body-shaming and objectification.
Natalie Sirett is a multimedia artist, interested in us, our stories, our icons. As an examination of the negative feminine in our culture, Medusa & Her Sisters reflects a recurring theme in her work. Natalie has exhibited widely in the UK and internationally. Most recently at the National Portrait Gallery, London and The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
Natalie Shaw is a poet whose work has been described by the TLS as 'wonderfully bananas' and as 'highly anarchic' by Neil Astley. Oh be quiet was published by Against the Grain and Dirty Martini is out in January 2023 with Broken Sleep.
Jane Yeh, Ekphrasis of TV, Film, and Musical Performances
In addition to writing poems based on still works of visual art (such as paintings or sculptures), Jane Yeh’s practice includes writing ekphrastic poetry inspired by TV programmes, films, and musical performances. She will read from and discuss some of her work in this area, which also explores ideas around identity, artifice, gender and representation.
Jane Yeh’s collection Discipline (Carcanet, 2019) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. She was named a Next Generation poet by the PBS for her collection The Ninjas (Carcanet, 2012), and her first collection, Marabou (Carcanet, 2005), was shortlisted for the Forward, Whitbread, and Aldeburgh poetry prizes. A Lecturer in Creative Writing at the Open University, she was a mentor for the 2021 Ledbury Poetry Critics programme.
Part of the Ekphrasis, Creating Space for Art and Literature seminar series:
Ekphrasis in contemporary literature is usually understood as a poetic description of a work of art. This series of seminars will explore how artists and writers use images and texts from ancient and modern sources to create new works which speak to our time.
