This program combines words and images in celebration of the poetry of William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) and the photography of Alen MacWeeney (b. 1939). Many of MacWeeney’s photographs on view in the exhibition ‘Looking at the Stars’: Irish Art at the University of Notre Dame are from his Under the Influence project, in which the photographer created images of Irish people, places, and spaces that resonate with the poetry of Yeats. Neither illustrations nor interpretations of the poems, the photographs reflect a way of seeing Irish subject matter through a lens shaped by Yeats’ words. In his publication of this series, MacWeeney paired each photograph with a stanza of Yeats’ poetry. During this program, we will read those poems aloud together (the aural quality of words was significant to Yeats’s compositions) alongside the photographs.
Copies of poems will be provided. This program is free and open to all, no matter if you are new to Yeats’s poetry and MacWeeney’s photography or returning to familiar words and images.
Originally published at conductorshare.nd.edu.