Register for awesome Craft Talks + Workshops and Cool Stuff here!
*60% of proceeds go directly toward supporting PACT facilitators and artists.
*40% supports future PACT programming and contributor compensation.
PACT PRESENTS:
Ekphrasis as Meditation & Discovery:
“Be present in the seeing.”–Kwame Dawes
In this generative poetry workshop, you will experience many ways poets are “present in the seeing” as they converse with artwork and artists. This conversing, or “ekphrasis” is an exercise in description, but more than that, it’s an exercise in perception and imagination. How might a poem engage with another art form to discover something new in the seeing?
Mark Doty writes, “Poems use every technique in their toolkit to make language behave more like paint or music, so that shape and rhythm, the weight and music and color of words, all represent a perceptual experience and at the same time are an experience.”
Together we’ll explore a variety of specific approaches to converse with art and write into something you don’t already know.
The workshop includes a craft talk, generative writing time, and an invitation to share an excerpt of something you’ve begun writing.
CLASS + REGISTRATION DETAILS:
DATE: Sunday, Aug. 30th
TIME: 1:00–2:30 PM PDT
$40 (standard) / $30 / $20 sliding scalePlease send payment via Venmo:
@PACTDeskSet
*
Poets Engaging with Other Arts
A CRAFT TALK RECORDING on Ekphrastic Poetry with Melissa McKinstry
“Move back, Miss, behind the line, you’re too close to the painting.” –– Ama Codjoe
Ekphrasis was originally an exercise in vivid description. We’ll read from a rich array of contemporary poets who cross “the line” to see what––and how––they discover beyond description.
Mark Doty wrote, “We think that to find ourselves we need turn inward…But ‘I’ is just as much to be found in the world…Say what you see and you experience yourself through your style of seeing and saying.”
In this Craft Talk you’ll explore a variety of specific approaches to converse with the art and write into something you don’t already know.
✨ PURCHASE the RECORDING and generate new work at your own pace.✨
Please send payment via Venmo: @PACTDeskSet
(include your full name + email in the notes)
$40 (standard) / $30 / $20 sliding scale
*
About your Facilitator:
Melissa McKinstry hosts poetry and jazz events and curates a Poet Tree in San Diego. Her poetry
appears in many journals including Beloit, Adroit, and Best New Poets, and was selected for the 2025
New Ohio Review Literary Prize and a 2026 Pushcart Prize. The inaugural writer-in-residence at the
Millay House Rockland, she currently serves on their Board and on the Alumni Council for Pacific University’s MFA program.
✨ PACT Stickers Just Dropped ✨
Limited Edition
Designed by our brilliant Art Editor Verena Raban, these limited-edition designs are only around for this season—so once they’re gone, they’re gone! Waterproof, cool-kid proof, and ready for your laptop, water bottle, or wherever your writing life lives.
$5 each (on sale from $6) or all three for $12.
Support PACT + keep the craft conversations going.
