Online – Storied Objects and Ekphrasis with Lester Batiste

This online workshop for youth poets (ages 13-19) will introduce students to the Ekphrastic poetic idea which will help us reflect on, harmonize, remember, and move through particular points of American history centering visual objects. By exploring the poetry of Nikki Finney, Sasha Pimentel, Kimberly Reyes, and John Keats, students will get a taste of different types of ekphrasis based on pictures, paintings, sculptures, short films, and other forms of visual art. This workshop will culminate in poets creating their own ekphrastic pieces based on the Smithsonian Folklife Festival of Sacred Object Collection. Students will provide a narrative for their visual artworks in order to turn the visual into the verbal or create a poem.

Lester A. Batiste is a savage writer in living color who writes for political, social, economic change and Black futures. Born in Chicago, IL, he holds an MFA from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast writing program, and an M.S.Ed. from the University of Pennsylvania. Influenced by Gwendolyn Brooks, Carl Sandburg, and Toni Morrison, Lester strives to weave traditional forms and techniques with the vibrancy of African American experience and speech. Rich details are enhanced by the musical tones from Lester’s childhood on the Southside of Chicago to his present on the Northside of Minneapolis. Lester’s work has appeared in print in The Stone House Anthology (2014), the Southern Griot Journal (2012), Tulane Review (2017), A Garden of Black Joy (2020), and digitally in the Brushfire Literary and Arts Journal (2020), Hidden Peak Press (2022), The Indianapolis Review (2023), and The Bitchin’ Kitsch (2023). In 2025, he received the BIPOC Emerging Writer award from Blue Earth Review. Lester’s debut poetry collection, Angel and Night’s Youngest, is forthcoming with the Black Spring Press Group (UK).

This workshop is part of Voices Forward, a poetry and public humanities initiative for emerging youth poets (ages 13-19) from across Minnesota. Poets will explore the Smithsonian Folklife Festival’s themes: Remembering Together, Harmonizing Together, Moving Together, and Building Together.

By the People: Conversations Beyond 250 is a series of community-driven programs created by humanities councils in collaboration with local partners. The initiative was developed by the Federation of State Humanities Councils and the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.

Registration

This event is free, however registration is required.

Registration Questions: registrations@mnhum.org

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