Girl Reading a Letter A trustworthy table Bearing a Turkish rug; A rug crumpled under An esteemed Chinese bowl; A blue-and-white bowl which Discharges Dutch produce; Ripe apples and peaches, Maybe an orchard quince: All of this is shown by An open drape, one formed From blue-azurite with Lead-tin yellow and green, Beyond which a cultured Pomona reads pictures In words, not her face seen In an open window. The viewer, who arrives To witness this scene, must Do so from directly Behind the table where There is little leg room. Roving eyes must move in A fixed head. The still-life Is a calm diversion. Through bright dots of raised paint-- Jots of white that rim fruits With day’s shine, and flecks, dabs, Specks of stain that catch clean Rays as they fall on rind-- A hand with a firm touch Makes its true mark and gives All due praise to life’s light. Mind’s pointillé centres A detailed spectacle Of urbane proportions That brings the long branches Of global trade into The clear interior Life of a woman whose Coined thoughts have properties. Here is an intellect Reading, after what dark Emotion uplifted The rug, to shape a hill That from its motion set A landslide thundering, Until it subsided Into a changed still-life. There is no need to stare With x-ray sight into Painted plaster to find The out-dated Cupid That Vermeer rescinded. Everything exists In Psyche, in the room’s Intense modernity. This is a painting for Anyone who has felt How light from a letter Might blossom and extend A close embrace; how words Which have travelled, as far As the journeying Word, Can make a hand steadfast. Like the half-cut peach, in The bowl’s shadow, which hints At speech stirring within The Virgin’s kept silence, A letter brings a voice That speaks out, in private, And offers the soul its Sweet annunciation. Andrew Howdle Andrew Howdle is a retired teacher and drama consultant living and writing in Leeds, United Kingdom. He has published work in Singapore Unbound, was the winner of their 2018 poetry competition, and in Impossible Archetype. His latest poetry has been included in Lovejets (2019), edited by Raymond Luczak, tributes to Walt Whitman. Currently, he spends his time drawing the male human figure, writing poetry and criticism, and attempting to play Chopin.
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The Suitcase The grandmother of my grandmother dredges mud from the bottom of the pond. A silvered arc of moon hides behind clouds blown by the mouth God. The grass shrieks hurry as she lurches home. The mud, heavy in a bucket, stinks of decay. Pogroms thunder across the land, search for thin bones of Jewish men, the unwilling flesh of Jewish girls. Her mother and brother dead, father vanished, only her younger sister left. The grandmother of my grandmother kneels before a cold hearth, chants ancient words of miracles, sculpts mud into a suitcase. Stuffs it with her mother’s candlesticks, a few coins, her sister’s doll, their tattered clothes, gathers remnants of food to share-- turnips, bruised apples, bread so old it’s become stone. Quickly, quickly she snaps to her sister, while it is still cold, before the rains, before the mud softens, melts. Before footprints mark a trail, before belongings spill beneath birches, before they are found by the roar of hunters. The voices of her dead moan songs of warning. Angels flit, drench the air with half-formed prayers. Valerie Bacharach Valerie Bacharach’s poetry has appeared in publications including Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Pittsburgh City Paper, Pittsburgh Quarterly, US 1 Worksheets, The Tishman Review, Topology Magazine, Poetica, The Ekphrastic Review, and Voices from the Attic. She is a member of Carlow University’s Madwomen in the Attic workshops. Her first chapbook, Fireweed, was published in August 2018 by Main Street Rag. She lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and is currently pursuing her MFA in poetry at Carlow University. State of Eternity Here, god is wrapped in aluminum foil, crinkled and pressed into a decorative flourish with one laboured palm. Born in a rented garage, this divine way is lit with spent bulbs in metallic coats that shine unplugged. Hubcaps, perhaps split from a moving wheel, panned out on the side of a road next to a drained Big Gulp, a curl of loose wire and a handful of asphalt pebble strays are found and mounted like 5 o’clock suns. Spent Kleenex boxes, each tissue already parceled out in service to some wet woe, make the throne. One holy container always full. Suzanne Fernandez Gray Suzanne Fernandez Gray is a writer living in the Bluegrass region of Kentucky. Her work has appeared in several publications including Fourth Genre,McSweeney’s Internet Tendency and Solstice Literary Magazine, where her essay “Bridge of Cards” won the 2017 Nonfiction Award. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing and an MA in Art History. You can find her at www.SuzanneFernandezGray.com. Three Women Walking Why should I wait to talk to you, old women? I am on my way to possibility. I remember what it was to feel like the spring in a tiger's paws. See how confident she is! I don't waste my time with her; she never listens. Listen, I could save you from so much. But only if you ask. The conversation never changes; only the faces: goddesses given to time. Sanda Moore Coleman Sanda Moore Coleman has been a writer and editor for more than 25 years, and a lifelong lover of art. She currently writes and voices theatre commentary for her local NPR radio station, KMUW, in Wichita, KS. The Great Wave Off Kanagawa I do not want to intrude where I do not belong; however, I have to follow an urge, a great tidal wave, I call Love. I must discover and re-learn the world before it changes again, forming larger and larger into a tsunami. If I hurry and take my time, I can paint with new love. Everywhere I will go, I will notice what is happening and what is not happening. In the silence or among the crisp noises, in the drowning light or pitching waves of darkness, I must find out what is important and what is insignificant. I have to see the unseen, hear the voiceless, embracing sweltering colour and light within Love, and experience the calmness afterwards. Love is heading towards Mount Fuji, shoved back by uncontrollable waves. I cannot control the wind, or the way the world goes from dark to light and back again, or the amount of time a snail crawls across a leaf. How quickly the washes of colour change the sky; and still, it looks as clear as water! Mount Fuji cannot do anything about the weather, either. The world knows changes can be good, bad, or indifferent. Some invisible paintbrush is moving the color of waves. During the violence of waves, there is no sound before, too much sound during, then silence after ships are broken into pieces, floating like plum petals on a stilled pond. My hand sketches this scene. Love tilts along with the sun setting into the ocean. The sky cries for help and mercy. Ships are caught and released, caught and released, caught and released. Waves toss boats as leaves. The sun never sets on dew in a plum blossom. Martin Willitts Jr Martin Willitts Jr has 24 chapbooks including the winner of the Turtle Island Quarterly Editor’s Choice Award, The Wire Fence Holding Back the World (Flowstone Press, 2017), plus 11 full-length collections including The Uncertain Lover, (Dos Madres Press, 2018) and Coming Home Celebration (FutureCycle Press, 2019). He is an editor for The Comstock Review. The Ekphrastic Review has a brand new Book Shelf program.
If you have an ekphrastic book or book that contains three or more ekphrastic works, you can list it on our Ekphrastic Book Shelf for $25 a year. Contributors to the Review may also promote their books on our Contributor Book Shelf. Click here to learn more or to list yours! It is our hope that this feature will mutually benefit The Ekphrastic Review and writers, at a very reasonable cost. Please show your love for ekphrastic writing and our writers by browsing the book shelves and buying our writers' books. When Aštart Sings A star drops by, where she is consecrated—in Tyre, Where the ever-vigilant tales of honour inscribe the history of a land of epics. For them, from them, she returns, emerging, like a Phoenix nostalgic for life, rising with the crimson coquelicots-- which, like Adonis, kiss life in every drop of death. As she arises, they wait for the ariose vision. There is a divine, diffused, profuse scent of glory hovering above the crowds of the human Sea, upon the stretched fingers of longing voices reaching out to her, in breathless unison, among the tremoring waves of a thundering ground. When Aštart sings, She cries—and beams, facing Dido, Striking heart, chord, and harpsichord, as the moon finds its reflection in the radiance of her smile. The serenity of her soulful face and resonating essence, reach out to all in euphony like the first golden threads of dawn. And she sings… As a tender breeze whistles out of her woodwind being blowing flute-breath along the vibes of an ancient lyre and the melody of the grandest lute. She sings… With conversing eyes and a sighted voice, endowing all With a fortune of tune, for tunes Are the pulse of an indelible vision she dreams into life. She sings… For glory, for love, for hope, for victory… As her grand, free soul unleashes in a spinning gust, Engulfing all in her presence, Moving the gentle leaves of being into harmonious dance, Whirling, wheeling, softly, swiftly, to the allegro of the hurricane. And she sings… Roula-Maria Dib Dr. Roula-Maria Dib is a professor, researcher, and writer interested in the intersections of literature and psychology. She has written and published on canonical writers (such as Miguel de Cervantes, Hilda Doolittle, W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot, and James Joyce), psychoanalysts (mainly Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung), and artists (Vincent Van Gogh, Wyndham Lewis, Salvador Dali, Agnolo Bronzino, Sandro Botticelli, and others). Dr. Dib is a member of the T.S. Eliot Society of the UK, Literary London, The International Association of Jungian Studies, The Jungian Society of Scholarly Studies, and the British Association of Modernist Studies, and has presented papers on modernist studies at numerous universities in Europe. Her poems, essays, and articles have appeared in journals such as The Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism (ARAS), Non Credo, Agenda, The Oxford Culture Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Two Thirds North, and the Journal of Wyndham Lewis Studies. She is currently working on her book, Jungian Metaphor in Modernist Literature. She is the editor of Indelible, a journal of arts at the American University of Dubai. American Flamingos, Canada, 2008 There are five of us here, gathered around a feeding station, in front of a mural. There are five of us here, gathered around a feeding station, in front of a mural, on which are painted five more. There are five of us here, gathered around a feeding station, in front of a mural, on which are painted five more of us in different poses. There are five of us here, gathered around a feeding station, in front of a mural, on which are painted five more of us in different poses; one drinking, another preening. There are five of us here, gathered around a feeding station, in front of a mural, on which are painted five more of us in different poses; one drinking, another preening, one looking as bored as we are. There are five of us here, gathered around a feeding station, in front of a mural, on which are painted five more of us in different poses; one drinking, another preening, one looking as bored as we are, another partly hidden by foliage. There are five of us here, gathered around a feeding station, in front of a mural, on which are painted five more of us in different poses; one drinking, another preening, one looking as bored as we are, another partly hidden by foliage, and one, just one, preparing to fly. Gordon Meade Gordon Meade is a Scottish poet based in the East Neuk of Fife. He divides his time between his own writing and developing creative writing courses for vulnerable people in a variety of settings. His most recent collection, The Year of the Crab, a poetic exploration of the diagnosis and early treatment of cancer, was published in 2017, by Cultured Llama Publishing in Kent. Ekphrastic Interview with Joseph Stanton The Ekphrastic Review is honoured to talk with Joseph Stanton about his new book, Moving Pictures. Joseph is a poet, professor at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, and art historian who has an extensive body of ekphrastic poetry. He has contributed many poems to our journal, including some, like this one on Frank Stella's Brooklyn Bridge painting, that appear in Moving Pictures. He is inspired by diverse imagery, arts, and themes. Be sure to order your copy of his book by clicking the cover above. I read the collection from front to back immediately, then kept my copy handy to dip into a few at a time. Many thanks to Joseph for sharing his talent, expertise, and knowledge with us. ** Moving Pictures: poems by Joseph Stanton Shanti Arts Publishing, 2019 ** TER: How did you become interested in ekphrastic writing? Joseph Stanton: I started my academic life as a literary person and have never ceased to be that, but eventually I fell in love with art and art history. Even before I became an art historian, I found myself writing, in 1975, a poem inspired by an Edward Hopper painting. When that poem won a contest the possibilities of poetry writing as a response to art was evident to me. I was encouraged to continue in that vein by my discovery of great ekphrastic poems by others. Classics by W. H. Auden, William Carlos Williams, W. D. Snodgrass, and many others were for me demonstrations of how good ekphrastic poetry could be. An especially important influence for me were the art-inspired poems of Richard Howard. Howard remains, I think, the master of the modern dramatic monologue. In my continuing study of the traditions of ekphrasis, I found myself experimenting in a wide variety of ways. One instance of this is a poem I wrote in the supposed voice of Henri Matisse, in which I had that great painter laughingly dispute Snodgrass’ poetic interpretation of The Red Studio. I gave that odd poem the title “Matisse Responds to Snodgrass: A Poem about a Poem about a Painting.” When I read that poem these days, I acknowledge that a case can be made in favour of Snodgrass’ interpretation, despite my poem’s dismissal of it. Meanings and interpretations in ekphrasis are never final. Everything is always up for grabs. An ekphrastic poem’s first obligation is to be a successful poem. Although I think a poem can, indeed, be right about an artwork (and should try very hard to be), the strength of the truth of a poem’s interpretation of an artwork is only one of its dimensions. As I continue to study art, I continue to write poetry, and, although I also write much poetry that is not ekphrastic, I keep coming back to writing poems inspired by art. TER: In your professional opinion, as an art history professor and an acclaimed writer, what are the benefits of ekphrastic writing? How do they differ from the benefits of writing in general? Joseph Stanton: The benefit of writing in response to a work of art is that the experiences one has with works of art are of intrinsic value. Artistic performance can be a profoundly insightful response to artistic performance. What a wonderful thing it is to capture an artistic experience for oneself and possibly for the readers of one’s poem! It needs to be said that works of art inspired by other works of art are, in no sense, secondary. Artistic experience is as primary as any other experience. If I write in response to a painting, that poem is just as primary as when I write in response to a thing I see in the street, a relationship I have with another person, or what I think about when I look at a tree or an abandoned Buick. Writing can be a great good no matter what the subject. Ekphrastic writing is not inherently better than other forms of writing, but it has it has special attractions for those who like to do it. My background has been deeply interdisciplinary. I have always felt that there are special satisfactions to be had when the arts speak to one other. I have greatly enjoyed those few instances where artists and musicians have responded to my poems. The providing of visual images for literary works is an ancient and distinguished endeavour. One of my scholarly fields is the study of book illustration with a special emphasis on the children’s picture book. Of course, when we talk about picture books we might be dealing with collaboration between writer and artist. I hold artistic collaboration in high esteem. TER: How do you choose an artwork to write poetry about? Joseph Stanton: Such decisions are often difficult. If I am fascinated by a particular artwork, I will begin the process of studying it. Often I will spend many weeks looking at that work and other works by that artist. Sometimes a strategy for the writing of an ekphrastic poem will come to me quickly, but that is usually not the case. Because I teach art history, I live with my thoughts about artworks in multiple ways. I demand of myself that I prepare thoroughly for the task of ekphrasis. Often my procedure is to read and/or reread everything I can find related to the artist and the particular artwork. Most of the research does not end up in the poem; sometimes none of it does. For instance, I might read seven books on Cézanne and end up with a seventeen-line poem. The excesses that do not end up in the poems have been, I assume, enrichments to my teaching. In my role as an art historian, no amount of information or reflection on artworks is wasted. It is all grist for the mill. My areas as a scholar obviously influence my choices of artworks to write poems about. I have taught courses on American art, modern art in Europe, nineteenth-century art in Europe, popular culture, book illustration, and cinema. I have also taught a survey course on “global” art. Within the global sphere the arts of Japan have been particularly important to me. I should point out that failure to complete a poem is not always a bad thing. I do not succeed in writing a satisfactory poem every time I try. If I do not finish a poem to my satisfaction, it ends up abandoned in a file. That can be frustrating if I have dedicated lots of time to researching and drafting the piece, but, if the poem does not work out, it has to be abandoned. Every once in a while I will rediscover pieces I have given up on and then find ways to complete them. Writing is seldom easy. TER: What is the biggest challenge, in your experience, about the ekphrastic writing process? Joseph Stanton: The biggest challenge for me in all forms of poetry writing is revision, but that can also be a source of pleasure. TER: Tell me about some of your favourite artists. What qualities attract you most? Joseph Stanton: I am attracted to many artists and many forms of art. There are a variety of reasons why I have written poems in response to certain artists. There are many artists that I greatly admire that I have not even tried to write about. My poetry-writing inclinations tend toward sequences. Once I get started on a sequence, I will attempt to carry it forward. One of my specialties as an art historian has been Winslow Homer. Although I have written a number of articles on Homer, I have, until recently, not been able to write poems about his works. Now that a Homer sequence has finally gotten underway, it is likely that I will be able to write more poems under his influence. There are many qualities that attract me to particular artworks. Sometimes I am attracted to the narrative possibilities. Sometimes I am fascinated by the mysterious nature of the work. Sometimes I am intrigued by what the work suggests about the mind and the life of the artist. Sometimes I just want to attempt to capture something essential about the work. TER: The poetry in your new book, Moving Pictures, responds to paintings of really diverse styles, from Gustave Caillebotte to Paul Klee to Jacob Lawrence. Has ekphrastic writing contributed to your range of interests and appreciation of art, or was it the other way around? Joseph Stanton: My artistic interests are diverse. My poems are, in certain respects, an index of my interests. There are also other factors. I may want to write about works in a particular museum. That may lead me to certain works. In the case of Jacob Lawrence, the painting of his to which I responded is one of the greatest of all baseball paintings. My sequence on baseball paintings that spreads over two books, Things Seen as well as Moving Pictures, led me to undertake Jacob Lawrence’s Strike. TER: The title of the book, Moving Pictures, is a double entendre that is played out inside the book with ekphrastic poems on visual art and ekphrastic poems on cinema. How are the two arts connected? Should they be considered together, or remain seen as distinct arts from each other? Joseph Stanton: The circumstance that a major section of that book contains cinema-inspired poems is certainly part of the reason for the title. My basic point, however, is that all the artworks addressed in that book are “moving.” I was moved by them; that’s why I wrote in response to them. Of course, there are other aspects to “moving.” I loved that Christine Cote in her excellent design for the book was able to place a detail from Winslow Homer’s Snap the Whip on the cover. That painting presents us with movement of a very striking and important sort. The arts are, of course, all very different from one another. A movie is a very different thing from a painting, but both forms of art are worthy of ekphrastic consideration. In my three collections of art-inspired poetry I have addressed a variety of sorts of works. In all three books, poems inspired by paintings dominate, but other sorts of artworks also have prominence. Imaginary Museum: Poems on Art (1999) includes poems provoked by paintings, movies, fairy tales, picture books, and noh plays. In Things Seen (2016) there are poems on paintings, noh plays, and fairy tales. In Moving Pictures (2019), as already discussed, we have paintings and movies. When I teach my “Starting with Art” workshops, I always encourage participants to consider writing under the influence of any sort of artistic work that interests them. By the way, my poems inspired by musical works have not found their way into any of my books, not because I do not like those poems, but because they did not seem to fit the books. TER: In what other ways does this book differ from your previous collections of ekphrastic poetry? Joseph Stanton: One of the exciting things about Moving Pictures is that many of the artworks are reproduced on pages facing the poems. I have often wished for that, and it is wonderful that Shanti Arts Books was willing and able to make that happen. Although we were lacking in the deep pockets that would have enabled us to purchase reproduction rights for more recent works, the presence of reproductions of works in the public domain is a satisfying development. Again, I am grateful to Christine Cote for her design work on this volume. TER: It has been said that Edward Hopper is the artist most written about by poets. There are many volumes of ekphrastic writing by single authors as well as anthologies that reflect on his paintings. You have quite a number of them in your book, too. Tell me about Hopper’s work and why it has inspired more poetry than most other artists have. Joseph Stanton: I could write many pages in answer to this question. For all the ways Hopper’s works seem to tell us about the world at large and America in particular, it is well to keep in mind how frequently Hopper declared in his various remarks that his works were self-expressive captures of his own inner self, that what he wanted was “to do myself.” Asked to explain why he gravitated to certain subjects, he explained, “I do not exactly know, unless it is that I believe them to be the best mediums for a synthesis of my inner experience.” Though Hopper’s works reflect his inner experience, they remain mysterious and do not resolve easily into simplistic stories. Hopper images are, I think, provocative to ekphrastic poets because they present scenes frozen in place that seem to have multivarious narrative implications and meanings, while at the same time being beautiful works of art. We need to remember that Hopper loved stage plays and movies. Forms of theatrical and cinematic drama influenced him in many large and small ways. It is interesting, too, that many dramatists and filmmakers have, in turn, been influenced by Hopper. My fullest statement on the subject of narrative implications in the works of Hopper can be found in an article I contributed to the journal Soundings in 1994. That article, “On Edge: Edward Hopper’s Narrative Stillness,” can be accessed online through JStor. TER: If time, money, geography, and other considerations were nonexistent, what kind of ekphrasis-related project would you work on as your magnum opus? Joseph Stanton: I can think of several answers to that question. With regard to a largely new project I would welcome the opportunity to work on a collection inspired by the artists and writers of the Hudson River School. I would like to write two interrelated sequences: a collection of ekphrastic poems provoked by Hudson River artworks and a collection of nature poems inspired by the Hudson River sites. If I could combine writer’s retreats to various wooded regions with a tour of some of the relevant museums, I think I could produce something new and worthwhile. At the centre of it all would be Thomas Cole, of course, but there would also be many other of the usual suspects. Another dream of mine concerns Winslow Homer. I plan to continue writing poems inspired by his works, and it would be exciting if my Homer pieces could add up to an entire collection with reproductions facing the poems. I have Edward Hopper desires, too. I would love for all my Hopper poems that are presently spread out over three books to be included in one volume with reproductions for many of the paintings provided. (interview with Lorette C. Luzajic) Flores de la Noche (1918) de Paul Klee Estás en el jardín del gran cuadro, eres alta y en tu piel se han posado hormigas. Estás echada sobre azahares y desde tu vientre la nube que elegiste gira y ya no ves su perfil, pero su cuerpo es aún perfecto, un girasol invertido en la noche que cruza el puente de la luna negra. Voltea la mirada, muchacha. Ve y hiere la hierba, que no sea la luz la que interfiera, sino el cielo. Sube rápidamente muchacha al castillo rojo y lánzate hacia el fondo del cuadro para tocar sus imperceptibles espacios en blanco que se descubren en tu movimiento torpe. Una vez allí, recoge a las hormigas que reposan a las orillas del río y llévalas al jardín, allí circularán por los charcos de la noche. Finalmente, corre hacia fuera, pero no voltees, muchacha porque los golpes que vienen de adentro podrían agobiar tu andar en el camino que no has de volver a ver. Ericka Ghersi Blossoms in the Night (1918) by Paul Klee You're in the garden of the large painting, you're tall and on your skin ants have settled. You're lying among lemon blossoms. From your womb the cloud you chose turns and you don't see its profile anymore, but its body is still perfect, an up-side-down sunflower in the night that crosses the bridge of the black moon. Turn around, girl. Go and hurt the grass. Don't let the light meddle, but the sky. Climb up to the red castle, girl and hurl yourself toward the bottom of the painting to touch its imperceptible spaces found in your awkward movement. Once there, pick up the ants resting on the riverbanks and take them to the garden. There they'll go around the puddles of the night. Finally, run outside, but don't look back, girl because the blows that come from inside could wear out your gait on the path that you won't see again. 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). |
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