Events
News, Readings, and Collaborations
Praise for Chroma
Art in verse
"In her new collection of poetry “Chroma” (Shanti), Sharon Tracey responds to 47 works of art by women artists whose work spans five centuries and 25 countries. In these ekphrastic poems, she is an astute and sensitive reader of paintings. She acts as a sort of visual translator, creating atmosphere and image, making us alert to the relationships at play: viewer with viewed, poet with painting with painter. Her language is fresh and lush. She writes of “paper-flat fields, pearled”; a waterfall is a “lithological myth-maker.” And it’s beautiful to the ear. Listen: “the shapes I love: / ligulate, spikelet, awn. / On the kitchen wall I hang / the sheath and blade.” The collection is broken into four “galleries” which move through time and place, with responses to Agnes Martin and Etel Adnan, and a number of lesser known artists, some of whom are still painting today. And there is wisdom here, too, about the act of not just of looking at a painting, but of looking: “upon entering / a painting: come look, let / something go.” Tracey, who lives in Western Mass, reminds us of the pleasure of pouring oneself into a painting, of what it is to commune with artist, art, and self."
—Nina MacLaughlin, Globe Correspondent
Boston Globe, New England Literary News
From The Ekphrastic Review
A Conversation with Sharon Tracey: Interview by Libby Maxey
Upcoming Reading April 6, 2021
Featured Reader, Straw Dog Writers Night Out
Collaborative Poetry & Art
I am a contributing poet to Look Again, A Collaborative Print and Poetry Project by artist and printmaker Julie Lapping Rivera. You can view Julie's artwork and the poems of contributing poets here.
Past Readings
2020 30 Poems in November Virtual Reading, Center for New Americans
2020 Silkworm 13 Virtual Reading, Florence Poets Society
2019 Arts & Poetry Biennial Reading: From Seed to Fruition, Northampton, Forbes Library
2019 30 Poems in November Reading/Center for New Americans (CNA), Smith College
2019 Silkworm 12 Reading, Lily Library, Northampton
2019 Mom Egg Review Reading, Poets House, New York City
2018 30 Poems in November Reading/CNA), Smith College
2018 Silkworm 11 Reading, Lily Library, Florence
2018 Compass Roads Reading, The Book Mill, Montague
2018 Compass Roads Reading, Senior Center, Northampton
2017 30 Poems in November Reading/CNA), Smith College
2017 Silkworm 10 Reading, Lily Library, Florence
2017 Featured Reader, Straw Dog Writers Night Out, Northampton
2017 Book Launch, What I Remember Most is Everything, Northampton
2016 Silkworm 9 Reading, Lily Library, Florence
2016 30 Poems in November Reading/CNA, Smith College
2015 30 Poems in November Reading /CNA, Smith College