Joan Kantor, Poet
Welcome to my Word Paintings
My work is highly visual. I often engage the written word in a dialogue with visual art – my own, or another artist’s creation. Writing, for me, is painting with words. Therefore, I speak of my poems as “Word Paintings”.
Nature, people, the arts, travel, and the news – all of these inspire my work.
I invite you to engage and discover …
a new perspective,
an original interpretation,
an emotional journey.
About Joan's Work
There is much power in simplicity, and in my poetry, I work to capture moments of emotion and awareness, with clarity and directness.
My work intentionally plays to the senses, especially the visual, with color, texture and even the placement of words on the page. Rhythm, sound, alliteration and internal rhyme all play an important part in the process.
I find my inspiration in personal experiences, others’ stories, my travels, the news, and especially in the worlds of nature and art. I am first and foremost a “passionate observer”, and I take great pleasure in sharing the inspired results of my observations.
Though most of my poetry stands by itself, I’d like to share samples from two paired Word and Art projects I’m currently working on.
Dual Impressions
Original Photos & Poems
Photos rarely capture the essence of what I see or feel.
Therefore, I often choose to subtly or sometimes dramatically alter images. It’s a delicate back and forth process of editing both photo and words to achieve my goal of them enhancing one another. Here is a sampling of my poem-photo pairings, which I call Dual Impressions.
A Few Ekphrastic* Poems
*Inspired by Art
My passion for visual art is as powerful as my love of the written word. In the following sampling of poems, inspired by art, I’ve used both my imagination and knowledge about the individual artists to create my own stories.
I like to think the artists would understand.
Books by Joan Kantor
Fading into Focus
A memoir about a mother, a daughter, Alzheimers, and a changing relationship.
Filling in the Black
A journey through The South to better understand the Black experience
Shadow Sounds
Poems about childhood, family (private and public), nature and art.
Her
Children
A collaboration between word artist Joan Kantor and quilt artist Linda Anderson.
Too Close for Comfort
Gives a voice to the marginalized.
Holding It Together
An inspiring memoir of survival.
The Magic of Moments
A reminder to take even the briefest moments of time to experience nature.