Winter Writers Reading Series: Free Workshop with Wisconsin Poet Laureate Brenda Cardenás

Since 2011 Shake Rag Alley has provided residencies to award-winning Wisconsin writers, offering time and space to create. In 2026, we’re partnering with Wisconsin People & Ideas, the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission through the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters, Arts + Literature Laboratory, and the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets.

Writers stay in Shake Rag Alley’s historic lodging facilities surrounded by the creative community of Mineral Point. Visiting writers participate in community outreach activities, including readings, workshops, and school visits as part of the Winter Writers Reading Series.

Join us at Rountree Gallery, 120 W. Main St., Platteville on March 18 6-8pm for a Ekphrasis: Writing Inspired by Visual Art presented by:

• Brenda Cardenás
• Wisconsin Poet Laureate

One artistic form can inspire another, creating profound connections, often in eye-opening and fortuitous ways. In this writing workshop, you will learn about various approaches poets take to the mode of ekphrasis—poetry inspired by visual art. Then, with the art in the Roundtree Gallery exhibits at your disposal and using prompts to guide you, you will write poems in response to works of visual art that inspire, intrigue, puzzle, or move you. We will work toward creating a third space where the poem and art together are something more or different than their parts—something, perhaps, unexpected!

Learn more by visiting the Winter Writers Reading Series event page