To celebrate and conclude another season of The Painted Word, we offer a reading of ekphrastic poetry—verse written in response to works of visual art. The ancient Greeks taught ekphrasis as a way to share the emotional experience and content of an object through detailed descriptive writing. In later centuries, ekphrasis was used to create vivid descriptions of works of art. The Painted Word invites students and community members to write original poems describing or inspired by the wide range of visual art on view in the Museum’s galleries. Writers of selected poems will be invited to read at The Painted Word on April 18, and their poems will be printed in a booklet available at the Museum.