Co-presented by St. Paul's Parish
IMAGE AND POETRY:
THE SACRAMENTAL IMAGINATION
Saturday, December 6, 10:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Pastries/coffee 9:45 AM, light lunch reception after
DiGiovanni Hall, St. Paul's Parish, Harvard Square
Paul Mariani
Boston College
The distinguished poet and literary critic Paul Mariani invites us to begin the Advent season by sharing the beauty of poetry paired with visual art, in meditation and conversation. Beginning with “The Windhover” by Gerard Manley Hopkins, he will read from his own poetry in relation to the art of Winslow Homer, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Fra Angelico, Caravaggio, Van Gogh, and Picasso. This workshop explores the close, integral relation between the image and the written word, and the ways they shape a distinctively ‘sacramental’ imagination. Q&A and conversation throughout. Lunch provided after the workshop.
Co-sponsored by the Ratzinger Memorial Society
FREE & OPEN TO ALL
IN PERSON ONLY
Philipp Veit, The Arts Being Introduced to Germany by Christianity, fresco mounted on canvas, c. 1834-1836, Städel Museum, Germany
PAUL MARIANI
Paul Mariani taught from 2000 until his retirement in 2016 at Boston College, where he served as University Chair in English, and from 1968-2000 at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is the author of nine poetry collections including most recently All That Will Be New (2022); Ordinary Time (2020); and Epitaphs for the Journey (2012). His criticism includes The Mystery of It All: The Vocation of Poetry in the Twilight of Modernity (2019); Thirty Days: On Retreat with the Exercises of St. Ignatius (2002); and God and the Imagination: On Poets, Poetry, and the Ineffable (2002), as well as biographies of Gerard Manley Hopkins, Hart Crane, and William Carlos Williams. He has also served as poetry editor of America Magazine. Honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the John Ciardi Award for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry, and the Flannery O’Connor Lifetime Achievement Award from Loyola University Chicago. Mariani received his PhD from the City University of New York (CUNY).
