Booking and details
RegisterDates Wed, Apr 29, 2026, at 4:30pm
Venue Learning Lab - East
Tickets $20
Duration 90 minutes
“There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance,” Ophelia says in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. “And there is pansies, that’s for thoughts.” In this workshop, we’ll provide materials and inspiration for creating an artistic collage that references the symbolic meanings of flowers found in Ophelia’s famous speech and other poetic texts, from Emily Dickinson to Audre Lorde.
Artist Fellow Hannah Baker Saltmarsh and collaborative partner Sarah Antine will present a brief lesson on the use of flowers as a symbolic language. Participants will then have time to playfully experiment with a wide array of mixed media art and materials, texts, and floral symbolism to create their own visual collage poems.
Children are welcome to accompany adult participants free of charge. An age-appropriate collage activity will be separately provided for them.
About the artists
Hannah Baker Saltmarsh
Hannah Baker Saltmarsh earned her MFA from the University of Maryland, College Park and her PhD from the University of York (UK). She is an assistant professor of English at Hampton University and lives with her family, including three children, in Virginia. Her first book of poems, Hysterical Water, was published by the University of Georgia Press, and features archival research of women’s cookbooks consulted at the Folger. She has published poetry in The Threepenny Review, Feminist Studies, AGNI, Prairie Schooner, The Mom Egg Review, The Kenyon Review, and other journals.
Sarah Antine
Sarah Antine received an MFA in poetry from Hunter College in 2004 and has shared her poetry and fiction through various publications including Glint Literary Journal, The Journal, The Ekphrastic Review, Light Ekphrastic, The Mom Egg Review, Big City Lit, TERcets Podcast, Bridges, Lilith Magazine, pms:poemmemoirstory, the Anthology: Torah: A Women’s Commentary, Consequence and others. She makes handsewn mixed media poetry quilts and presented at AWP#23 sharing Ekphrastic poetry.
About Folger Institute
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