Triptych: an Elegy author's note: Shortly after the death of my dear friend I found myself unable to describe the depth of this loss, unable to write much of anything. As I struggled to write an elegy, I knew that the best way for me to honour him was to imagine his stories as told through a mural. As a cultural journalist and artist-scholar, he lived a life full of stories that could be told through ekphrastic works. “Triptych” gave me a framework for circling into the poem. When all of us wrote love poems you wrote about a city of angels, the view from a loft, a new city in the Mojave with its own angel dressed in blue. You took every chance to bend the rules until you created small poems embedded in city maps or shaped like newspaper stories, or images with names that were poems unto themselves. Always the journalist and photographer. Always, why can’t it be done? Even so, once we talked about what would happen if you wrote yourself into your work. I don’t know if you even could, but your poet-heart returned to Riverside whenever we talked. Someday when you were less busy, you said, you would write the story of a first kiss in the orange groves. I will write your poem for you. No, I will make a mural - a triptych - and we will paint it in this desert that you loved. The first panel: It will start outside your home as someone in the neighbourhood is fixing their car and your favourite music is playing. Your mother is cooking, your father is near. You are drawing in the living room, and everything is still a beginning. The second panel: You find yourself in a grove of oranges under the stars. There is starlight on white blossoms so fragrant you are taken aback by the knowledge of leaving soon. In the distance you see a skyline lit by the same stars, and there is more beauty than you can ever capture with your camera or pen. It’s then that you remember the grove. The third panel: When the blossoms take hold the mural ends with you among rows of oranges everywhere, spilling to the ground. Such sweet abundance that the fruit on the boughs are too heavy for the trees to keep it all to themselves. Angela M. Brommel editor's note: The photograph shown was selected by the editor to illustrate the poem, which features an imagined artwork. Angela M. Brommel, is a Nevada writer with Iowa roots. She is the author of the Plutonium & Platinum Blonde (Serving House Books, 2018), and her poetry has been featured in The Best American Poetry Blog, the North American Review, The Literary Review-TLR Share, and Sweet: A Literary Confection, among many other journals, anthologies, and art exhibitions. Her full-length poetry collection, Mojave in July, is forthcoming from Tolsun Books. She is the Executive Director of the Office of Arts & Culture, as well as part-time faculty in Humanities, at Nevada State College. You can also find her at The Citron Review as Editor-in-Chief.
0 Comments
Cezanne's Table "Cezanne's The Basket of Apples is full of what appear to be 'mistakes' but are actually artistic choices...." Quizlet: Art Chapter 4 Flash Cards Nothing could be simpler or more enticing. A nice snack set out on a wooden table: a basket of apples, a bottle of wine, a plate of cookies (or biscuits?) piled on a plate. Of course, some apples have rolled out of the basket, (tilted, you note, balanced precariously on the table) onto the tablecloth, which hangs over the edge of the table you belatedly discover is strangely made. (Are there apples on the floor?) The wine is corked and there's no corkscrew-- not one you can see. And how did those biscuits (or cookies?) get stacked like that, with the top two standing up, as if to rudely reprove modern architecture. You start to see where needful things are missing from the table besides the corkscrew-- like a wineglass, a chair. The fruit on the far right of the table looks like a pear, not so round, more stable than its cousins. But how could fruit have rolled from the basket onto the table and come to stud a cloth that sometimes hangs above them in artfully chosen, orchestrated folds like a sea of frozen whitecaps? And what keeps the basket from sliding until it's flat on the table? Someone has arranged this scene- and not to invoke eating or drinking. One slight motion would suffice to make the basket slide down, knock over the full bottle which will smash the biscuits, fall off the table, and crash to the floor among stray apples, shattering to shards like a glass bud: blood-dark wine will spill. This table warns us like a trap: everything is in balance until someone tries to move. Lyn Coffin Lyn Coffin has published more than thirty volumes of poetry and prose, most notably The First Honeymoon (Iron Twine Press), a collection of her short fiction, and her poetic translation of Shota Rustaveli's 12th century epic (Poezia Press.) Lyn has twice been a Wordsworth Poet in Seattle. Her poetry has won an National Endowment for the Humanities award and a Michigan Council for the Arts grant. She has taught at several American Universities, (Michigan, Detroit, Washington), as well as in Malaysia and Georgia. Widely praised translations include Standing on Earth, by Mohsen Emadi, (PhonemeMedia Press), translated from Iranian, with the author’s collaboration (9/2016) and The Adventures of a Boy Named Piccolo (Salamura), by Archil Sulakauri, translated from Georgian with Veronica Muskheli. Fountain last night you asked if I would take a sip from your fountain, tempting me to taste the union of porcelain bodies you cracked my ivory shell, hard boiled I’m yoked and scrambling, I thought I believed in truth and beauty until I asked, is R. Mutt your lover? no longer able to savour the way delicate flavours coalesce on the tongue, my throat is parched, I go for a drink it smells of rotten eggs and the only thing I can taste is toilet water Noah Westfall Noah Westfall recently graduated from Santa Clara University with a degree in philosophy. He enjoys reading and writing poetry as a medium for self reflection. He will be pursuing a Masters in public health and hopes to continue engaging with poetry. Paseo de a tres (1914) de August Macke Otro agente ha llegado, y la identidad es el pasaporte difícil de esconder. Tomó de la sangre aún derramada en los rosales, limpió su rostro y en sus ojos cansados estabas tú, tatuada sobre un fondo blanco. Deja abiertas las ventanas que dan al jardín para que las hojas vuelen y caigan como cuando no hay nada qué decir. Recuerda que en el último cuerpo hubo culpa y los gatos rasgaron el óleo. Las hormigas guardaron algo de los cadáveres, aquello que servirá para invierno. Y tú, regresaste a besar mi pecho. Pero muchacha, tengo la nostalgia de un vientre vacío, y tus hormigas se angustian mientras camino, esperando que mi cuerpo caiga sobre las rutas abandonadas. Es fácil para ti arrastrarme hacia tu bosque, hundirme en la firmeza de los huesos de tus muertos, herirme entre los rosales. Sin embargo, me levantas. No me quieres para las moscas. Ericka Ghersi Promenade (1914) by August Macke Another agent has arrived, and his identity is the passport hard to hide. He drank the blood still wet on the rosebushes and wiped his face. His weary eyes mirrored you, tattooed on a white background. Keep the windows overlooking the garden open so that the leaves fly and fall like when there's nothing to say. Remember that there was guilt in the last body and the cats ripped the oil painting apart. The ants kept something from the dead bodies, something that would be useful in winter. And you came back to kiss my chest. But girl, I feel nostalgic like an empty womb, and your ants get upset while I walk, they wait for my body to fall on the abandoned roads. It's easy for you to drag me to your woods, hide me in the hard bones of your dead, hurt me in the rosebushes. But you pick me up. You don't want to leave me for the flies. Ericka Ghersi (translated by Toshiya Kamei) This poem first appeared in Parthenon West Review. Born in Peru, Ericka Ghersi obtained her PhD from the University of Florida. She currently lives in Gainesville, Florida, where she is an Associate Professor at Santa Fe College. She is the author of the poetry collections Zenobia y el anciano (1994) and Contra la ausencia (2002). Her poems have also appeared in the bilingual anthology La Canasta. Toshiya Kamei holds an MFA in Literary Translation from the University of Arkansas. His translations include Liliana Blum's The Curse of Eve and Other Stories (2008), Naoko Awa's The Fox's Window and Other Stories (2010), Espido Freire's Irlanda (2011), and Selfa Chew's Silent Herons (2012). Other translations have appeared in The Global Game (2008), Sudden Fiction Latino (2010), and My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me (2010). Ekphrastic Writing Challenge: Władysław Podkowiński
Join us for biweekly ekphrastic writing challenges. See why so many writers are hooked on ekphrastic! We feature some of the most accomplished influential poets writing today, and we also welcome emerging or first time writers and those who simply want to experience art in a deeper way or try something creative. Thank you to everyone who participated in our last writing challenge featuring the work of Cristobal Rojas, which ends today at midnight. Accepted responses for the Rojas challenge will be published on July 19, 2019. Thank you to Janette Schafer who is our guest editor for the Rojas challenge. The prompt this time is Frenzy, by Władysław Podkowiński. Deadline is July 26, 2019. The Rules 1. Use this visual art prompt as a springboard for your writing. It can be a poem or short prose (fiction or nonfiction.) You can research the artwork or artist and use your discoveries to fuel your writing, or you can let the image alone provoke your imagination. 2. Write as many poems and stories as you like. Send only your best works or final draft, not everything. Please copy and paste your submission into the body of the email, even if you include an attachment such as Word or PDF. 3. Have fun. 4. USE THIS EMAIL ONLY. Send your work to ekphrasticchallenge@gmail.com. Challenge submissions sent to the other inboxes will most likely be lost as those are read in chronological order of receipt, weeks or longer behind, and are not seen at all by guest editors. They will be discarded. Sorry. 5.Include WLADYSLAW PODKOWINSKI WRITING CHALLENGE in the subject line in all caps please. 6. Include your name and a brief bio. If you do not include your bio, it will not be included with your work, if accepted. Even if you have already written for The Ekphrastic Review or submitted other works and your bio is "on file" you must include it in your challenge submission. Do not send it after acceptance or later; it will not be added to your poem. Guest editors may not be familiar with your bio or have access to archives. We are sorry about these technicalities, but have found that following up, requesting, adding, and changing later takes too much time and is very confusing. 7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 8. Deadline is midnight, July 26, 2019. 9. Please do not send revisions, corrections, or changes to your poetry or your biography after the fact. If it's not ready yet, hang on to it until it is. 10. Selected submissions will be published together, with the prompt, one week after the deadline. 11. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges! Drinks, Then Dinner Red wine, with a touch of smoke and berry. The first-date drink of choice so confidence won’t buckle. But too much wine, you begin to scry. Cut-out buildings and jacarandas frame the night. From the rooftop parking space in the valley, fumbling with her seat belt, he leans across her lap, it clicks, sending an electric shock that makes her knees buckle. Just moments after his feet touch the cold floor. He rises Left foot Right foot Stepping into one pant leg then the other. He lights a cigarette, casually ascending into the man who bought drinks then dinner, and then descending until the unevenness of breath and desire tastes of red ochre. Angela M. Brommel Angela M. Brommel, is a Nevada writer with Iowa roots. She is the author of the Plutonium & Platinum Blonde (Serving House Books, 2018), and her poetry has been featured in The Best American Poetry Blog, the North American Review, The Literary Review-TLR Share, and Sweet: A Literary Confection, among many other journals, anthologies, and art exhibitions. Her full-length poetry collection, Mojave in July, is forthcoming from Tolsun Books. She is the Executive Director of the Office of Arts & Culture, as well as part-time faculty in Humanities, at Nevada State College. You can also find her at The Citron Review as Editor-in-Chief. Vivir Libre o Morir you lie tilted naked cleansed bloodied water teems with life unplugged drained painted free agua libre spirits ripple torn reflections agony ghosts toes ghosts almost-phantom limb heartbeats tap jaggeddesirejealous of lissom dancers fuck the creatures fuck the birds fuck Diego de Rivera Ceinwen E Cariad Haydon Ceinwen writes short stories and poetry. She is widely published in web magazines and in print anthologies. She was Highly Commended in the Blue Nib Chapbook Competition [Spring 2018], won the Hedgehog Press Poetry Competition ‘Songs to Learn and Sing’. [August 2018] and was shortlisted for the Neatly Folded Paper Pamphlet Competition, Hedgehog Press [October 2018]. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Newcastle University, UK (2017). She believes everyone’s voice counts. Another Dirty War When I look at cellophane across this man’s bloodied mouth, nose, his grimace shrink-wrapped-- I can’t breathe. How had it come to this? What a price for speaking out. What woe surely we will never know. Breathe. A Dirty War, the people whispered openly. A life sentence repression choke-holding. But suffocate another? Stab them? A spider web, yes. In the late-seventies Argentine opponents lost their children— innocents scooped up for adoption by a country’s barren nobility. Where were you when it ended, in ’83? My baby, just two then. I feel undone. Inhale. What could I have done? Thirty-plus years taken from mothers, widows. Never again. A dirty era long ago. A time so foreign. We speak out, speak up, speak loud. Breathe a sigh. This cannot happen now. Margo Davis Twice nominated for a Pushcart, Margo’s poems have appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, Ocotillo Review, What Rough Beast, The Fourth River, The Houston Chronicle and Slipstream. Recent anthology publications include Enchantment of the Ordinary and Echoes of the Cordillera. The Man With a Pipe Here's the thing about the man with the pipe. Wherever he went, he took with him bits and pieces of places he had been and times he had been there. He would walk down Rue Lafayette at the same time every day clothed in slabs of architectural detail, swatches of dark red wallpaper from Miss Stein's drawing room, a waistcoat he had put on the day before and perhaps another he had put on that morning. He wore all of these things like a coat he could have changed every day. But he never changed anything he wore. He only accreted layers of past days. All of us on the street were afraid of him at first. The places and times he wore seemed to move in and out of our time, disappearing and reappearing like puffs of smoke. Very unsettling. But here's the thing. After we moved past our fear and curiosity, the man with the pipe seemed like us. Weren't we all nothing more than the layers of all our days? After a while the men would tip their hats and say "Bon jour, mon ami" and the ladies would smile and curtsy and the man with the pipe would remove his many hats and bow far more deeply than he should have, making his many waistcoats creak with the effort. Of all his accoutrements only his pipe obeyed the laws of its own existence. Smoke would rise from it for as long as the flame lasted and when it went out, all his planes of time and space would shimmer and vibrate and it seemed he might disappear before our eyes. Then he would reload the pipe with fine Latakia tobacco, strike a wooden match against the sole of his shoe and light it again and again he would be restored. But then one day, his supply of tobacco ran out. He stood on the corner in front of the patisserie, patting his many pockets but finding no tobacco. His image faded into many columns of smoke, rising and whirling into nothingness like little tornadoes spinning out and dissipating into the air. His pipe fell to the ground. The people on the street gathered around to look at the pipe. Where did the man go? The dark-eyed man with the cap took the pipe in his hands and raised it toward the Parisian sky. We knew then that we had not seen the last of the man with the pipe. Paul Holler Paul Holler's stories, articles and interviews with noted authors have previously appeared or is forthcoming in The MacGuffin, Flash, The Ekphrastic Review, Freshwater Literary Journal, Eclectica and other other journals and anthologies. Circe Invidiosa The painting tasted like sin, Like lust, and deep unknowable oceans. It felt like a fresh heart Torn from a chest clutched in your hands Still beating and bleeding and warm. It sounded like echoing screams lost in the darkness of a soul, The hatred of a murderer’s hissing breath, And the soundlessness of death. Emma Deimling This author tends to go off on tangents in her work and likes to try to write the world as aesthetically pleasing as she believes it to be but always ends up with too many adjectives and not enough reality. She is currently attempting to get a degree in English Literature at the Ohio State University and has two cats and a raccoon named Peaches. |
The Ekphrastic Review
COOKIES/PRIVACY
This site uses cookies to deliver your best navigation experience this time and next. Continuing here means you consent to cookies. Thank you. Join us on Facebook:
Tickled Pink Contest
April 2024
|