2024 Triad Contest

Theme Category

This year’s theme category is ekphrastic poetry, which is poetry inspired by the visual arts. We are collaborating with the Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM) by encouraging poets to write poems about works in their permanent “narrative” collection area.

If you are interested in submitting an ekphrastic poem to the 2024 Triad Contest, please follow these steps:

1. Go to the narrative collection area on their website at https://collection.mam.org/themes/narrative.php

2. Select an artwork. These works “tell a story with subjects ranging from epic battles and eventful journeys to everyday scenes. Sources of inspiration include history, literature, mythology, religion, and direct observation of the world.”

3. Notice that the first page of artwork contains only images 1 to 20 of the 144 images available. Click 2, 3, 4, etc. to view more works in this collection area.

4. Once you find an artwork, you can enlarge the image by clicking on it. Clicking on the image will also give you more information, including if the art is currently available for view, useful if you are interested and able to view the actual artwork. If you cannot go to the museum, the information will give you a starting point for research.

5. Please include the name of the artwork, artist’s name, and page number in your title or subtitle so the judge and/or Triad chairpersons can find it if they would like.

The excellent workshop Barbara Crooker presented for WFOP “The Art of Writing About Art” is available for playback on our workshop page if you would like ideas for getting started with this kind of writing.