John Greiner is a writer and visual artist living in New York City.  He was educated at the New School for Social Research. Greiner's work has appeared in Antiphon, Sand Journal, Otoliths, Survision, Sein und Werden, Empty Mirror, Sensitive Skin, Unarmed, Street Value and numerous other magazines. His books of poetry include In An Attic Palace Beneath a Slaughtered Sky (Arteidolia Press), Circuit (Whiskey City Press), Turnstile Burlesque (Crisis Chronicles Press) and Bodega Roses (Good Cop/Bad Cop Press). He is a recent 2nd place recipient of the James Tate Award and his upcoming chapbook, Clouded Saints and Kinky Shadows will be published by SurVision Press in the coming months. He has worked at the Met in the security department for the last 11 years.

Describe your ekphrastic process. Do you have a favorite prompt or way in?

I’ve always loved to be around paintings since I was a small child and on occasion my parents would take me to the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh.  I loved to get lost in the paintings, not looking for any story, but rather to get lost in the mood that they created in me.  My ekphrastic process of getting in is to stop in front of a particular work of art and get lost in it and, once consumed in it, begin to write. 

What attracts you to a work for ekphrasis? How do you know you’ve got a good subject?

I feel that I have a good subject when the work of art absorbs my imagination into its core, when everything else around me drops away and I am able to come closer to the essence of the piece, of what the art is saying irrespective of its concrete history.  It is a matter of the mood that it creates and where it takes my mind.

What’s your favorite part of the Met? 

My favorite part of the Met is the first floor of the Lehman Wing.  It is one of the more relaxed parts of the museum with beautiful artwork that many people don’t come to because they don’t realize that there are galleries behind the walls.  I particularly liked it in the past when El Greco’s Christ Carrying the Cross was there (now it is on the 2nd Floor).  Botticelli’s The Annunciation is in the Lehman Collection.  It’s such a stunning piece.  The Lehman Wing offers a place for deeper contemplation of the art than many other parts of the museum. 

You work in security at the Met. What do you wish more people knew about the guards?

The Met security staff is an extremely diverse group of people.  A large portion of the people in the security department are working artists and have a very in depth and practical knowledge of various artistic disciplines, as well as a strong historical knowledge of them.  They have decided to work at the Met because they have a love for the objects that surround them, but the job is also something that they can do and turn off when they leave so that they are able to return to their own work with the influence of the art that surrounds them in their psyche.  There is a vast wellspring of artistic knowledge and passion in the security staff that can be of a great benefit to the visitors and which is far more interesting to tap into than just functional knowledge. 

Do you have a favorite ekphrastic poem?

W.H. Auden's “Musee des Beaux Arts” would be my favorite ekphrastic poem.  It is so subtle and beautiful in the contrast of the mundane with the extraordinary. Auden captures the existential dilemmas of the motion of life in its ordinariness and lack of regard for the epic action while heralding Icarus’s death in everyday proportions.  The grace of Auden’s rhythms and the nuance of his thoughts in this poem are breathtaking. 

What excites you about the Metphrastics project? 

I work at the Met.  I am surrounded by some of the greatest works of art that the human race has created and I have used them for inspiration.  It is by a wonderful and serendipitous chance that I am able to be involved in the Metphrastics project which is dedicated to an artistic part of my own life, which is critical.  How could I not be excited by this opportunity?