Ekphrastic Approaches in Twenty-First Century Poetry

Ekphrastic Approaches in Twenty-First-Century Poetry brings together poets and academics from around the world exploring the evolving practice of ekphrasis in the twenty-first century. With discussion of diverse media, the authors explore ways in which contemporary ekphrasis has evolved, embracing media such as film, music, dance, and the built environment. Against a backdrop of digital image saturation and expanding definitions of art, this collection investigates how contemporary poets respond to visual and material culture while engaging deeply with theory and practice. This text offers a timely, nuanced look at ekphrasis as both critical inquiry and creative method suitable for readers and academics working in the field of poetry and creative writing.

Amina Alyal has published co-edited academic collections including Victorian Cultures of Liminality (Cambridge Scholars, 2018), and Classical and Contemporary Mythic Identities (Edwin Mellen, 2009), and creative writing collections including Everyone’s a Seed (Yaffle Press, 2026) and Tasseomancy: Creative Responses to AI (The Tea Set, 2024). She has published two solo poetry collections and several collaborative collections. She writes theatre reviews and programme notes. Based at Leeds Trinity University, she has co-written and performed for words and music with Oz Hardwick and Karl Baxter, Kaminari UK, the Japanese drumming group, and Leeds Lieder.

Oz Hardwick is an international award-winning poet, and Professor of Creative Writing at Leeds Trinity University. He has published “maybe fifteen?” full collections and chapbooks, most recently Retrofuturism for the Dispossessed (Hedgehog Poetry Press, 2024), as well as countless individual poems in journals and anthologies. With Anne Caldwell he edited The Valley Press Anthology of Prose Poetry (Valley Press, 2019) and Prose Poetry in Theory and Practice (Routledge, 2022); and with Cassandra Atherton he edited Dancing About Architecture and Other Ekphrastic Maneuvers (MadHat Press, 2024).