'[M]aking pictures with words': Liz Lochhead's Ekphrastic Writing and Collaborative Practice

Abstract:Liz Lochhead began writing while studying at the Glasgow School of Art from 1965 to 1970. By the time she graduated with a Diploma in Art in 1970, over half of the poems in her first collection, Memo for Spring (1972), had been written. For Lochhead, writing provided the means to conjure a vivid visual image that she felt less able to produce in drawing and painting. What initially presented itself as a conflict at art school becomes a co-existence of literary and artistic modes of expression in subsequent work. Since Memo for Spring, Lochhead has published seven major poetry collections and several plays, but her beginnings in fine art are apparent throughout her corpus. In The Colour of Black and White (2003), Lochhead collaborates with Scottish artist Willie Rodger (1930–2018), whose lino and woodcuts accompany Lochhead's poems. Throughout the collection, she pays homage to a number of artists and a range of media. This essay will discuss Lochhead's collaboration and engagement with other artists, with reference to examples from across her oeuvre. In doing so, it will cast new light on the importance of the visual arts for Lochhead's writing and highlight previously unexplored connections between Lochhead and her contemporaries.