These Women Artists
Kay Sage painted this weird picture called The Answer is No Yoko Ono wrote YES on a high ceiling for some weird reason These damn these weird these women artists Yes No What’s the question anyway The answer is who the hell knows Tricia Marcella Cimera This poem was written as part of the 20 Poem Challenge. Tricia Marcella Cimera will forever be an obsessed reader and lover of words. Look for her work in these diverse places: Buddhist Poetry Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Foliate Oak, Fox Adoption, Hedgerow, I Am Not A Silent Poet, Mad Swirl, Silver Birch Press, Stepping Stones, Yellow Chair Review, and elsewhere. She has a micro collection of water-themed poems called THE SEA AND A RIVER on the Origami Poems Project website. Tricia believes there’s no place like her own backyard and has traveled the world (including Graceland). She lives with her husband and family of animals in Illinois / in a town called St. Charles / by a river named Fox. The Broken World
Now that you have come to sort things out, I am more confused than ever. All hell breaks loose in midnight and it’s been years since I heard midnight knocking at my door- I’ve made my life so tidy squished it crammed it stuffed it with law and order. I intended to keep the crashing winds at bay, as if lists and yoga, or sorted silverware, could possibly protect me from the gods of the sea. I never know if the roads will bring you home, and today the miles are written in your eyes, the things you’ve seen, the things you’ve tried to hide, and you are wearing the sun and the rain and the road and the endless prairie skies. (If you can give it, I can take it ‘Cause if this heart is gonna break it’s gonna take a lot to break it.) (I’m broken like a promise, shattered like a dream.) You are a storm that blows through here galloping wild horses, part human, but something else, something wilder, unrestrained. It doesn’t matter: every time you break my heart, I will grow another one for you to smash and treasure the hours in which it falls apart, just to have something from you. I can’t stop you from climbing across my roof and into my window if you need to get to me. Otherwise, I don’t even know if you are dead or alive. Now, the great unknown, again. You disappear as you arrive, without words, without reason. Do you remember? Once you said, you would do anything for me, anything at all, you’d walk 1000 miles for me, you said, and the ferocity of your conviction took me aback, how love blazed in your eyes, for me. It was a promise you kept, arriving from the east like rain on my roof. But I had said, no, don’t you remember? I don’t want it, I told you. I won’t ask that. You know all I’ll ever ask of you is to put your pipe down for me. Leave it down I beg you, leave it down. I will never, ever ask another thing. Now as ever, your company is easy, and holding you is comfortable, familiar sorrow. You ask about my work, and about my meetings. And whether I’ve found anyone. My fingertips trail your scars, fading rope at your throat, feathers on your wrists. Now, as if there were no years between us, and no grief, we sprawl across the floor with Johnny Cash on repeat, and it’s an apt soundtrack for all that we have seen, for the people we have been. And yours is a lonely road, my most beloved friend, but you’ve never questioned why I keep your heart with me as best I can. Even so, I told you. It was how tenderly you tended to my injuries, how you tried to save me. The air here is filmy and surreal, emptied of you, soapy and edged with grief. I can’t fix the broken world. It is you who could, you who fixed my sink and my bicycle when you hitchhiked into town. It’s only 2000 miles, you said, repacking your backpack. I’m clean now, woman, I’ll make it west, don’t worry. Lorette C. Luzajic Originally published at Hood, and in The Lords of George Street, by the author, Mixed Up Media Editions, 2016. Editor's note: pretty please share this link on your Facebook page and other social media- help us get the word out to artists! The Ekphrastic Review is an online journal of "writing and art on art and writing." We have attracted and inspired incredible writing prompted by visual art. We also feature art "on writing" and have showcased paintings based on literature including classical and religious mythology; art with text; and art that literally shows people reading. Art history is a wealth of visual work illustrating and interpreting literature, and art in every culture around the world is naturally based on stories of mythology and spirituality. We are committed to showcasing living artists. One direction we want to grow in is to exhibit work from and engage deeper with practicing artists. We encourage submissions from contemporary artists. So far we have received very few and want this to change! Guidelines for Art Submissions to The Ekphrastic Review Attach one to five small jpegs clearly titled, or supply links directly to the work being submitted. All artwork featured in Ekphrastic must be "art on writing." This can mean: -a literal illustration of a book, play, scene from a story -an abstract interpretation, interrogation, or impression of a story or a literary theme -an artwork about a writer -art inspired by a poem -art inspired by or interpreting a lyric or the whole song -artwork that is inspired by classical mythology and any mythologies from any culture around the world -artwork showing scenes from or inspired by sacred stories: Judeo-Christian themes are the backbone of art history in western civilization and we encourage contemporary interpretations to add to this rich legacy, and we are also interested in artwork inspired by the sacred stories of other cultures -artwork that features words, or text, or letters, or writing -artwork that shows books or people reading -artwork that interprets "writing" in any way not explicitly mentioned -painting, sculpture, photography, collage, installation, drawing, pastels, mixed media- any visual artform is welcome -we want to see diverse styles: abstract, still life, expressionist, impressionist, figurative, illustration, photography, cartoon, graphic poem, comic- there are no limits if the work fits the required subject matter -we encourage submissions from all artists, anywhere in the world Please include a brief write up, from a sentence or two to a few paragraphs at most, about how the piece or your work in general are informed and inspired by text, writing, literature, or religious and mythological stories. Please include a brief biography. Lorette at ekphrastic@outlook.com Her Horse Fair Hung
curious large print in a gold frame in Nanna's bungalow front room. Massive muscled horse flesh barely controlled by small men. "Dad kept horses to pull his milk cart. Not milk bottles then, son. Silver churns collected from farms he and me trotted down terrace streets. Lasses would carry the milk home in porcelain jugs and such. He adored your mam. Fetched a little pony and cart for her. We went to horse fairs regular. Milk business were inherited by Uncle Jim when we moved Into town from farm. He modernised horses into a van. Business didn't last long." Paul Brookes Paul Brookes has performed in poetry performance group "Rats for Love" and is included in their "Rats for Love: The Book" Bristol Broadsides, 1989. His first chapbook "The Fabulous Invention Of Barnsley" by Dearne Community Arts, 1993. He has read his work on BBC Radio Bristol and had a creative writing workshop for sixth formers broadcast on BBC Radio Five Live. When the World Comes Home She was a ribbed luscious pippin of a girl, new-pressed from dust to diamond. Some things get burnt. A black bear trundled and the path steamed with morning. The soft paws dug and we licked water from leaves. At night new lights fell to the ground like apple flowers. A branch was tight with speaking thread. Green sap from a clipped stem stained our mouths with sun. Behind us mirrored blades reflected cities made of smoke and flame. The ocean crusted with salt. We bore children who toiled and fought in the dark earth, built towers of departure. We listened to the fine dust settling and cradled our ribs in our hands. Abra Bertman The poem, “When the World Comes Home,” is a collaboration with jazz pianist Franz Von Chossy, and appears in the liner notes of the CD of the same name. Abra Bertman lives in Amsterdam where she teaches English literature at the International School of Amsterdam. Recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in WomenArts Quarterly Journal, The Citron Review, Rust + Moth, Paper Nautilus, Absinthe Poetry Review The Inflectionist Review and Spry Literary Journal, among others. Abra was nominated for the Best of the Net Award in 2016. Mea Culpa
It has been on my list of things to do for months, and yet I have failed, and missed the deadline for Pushcart nominations. I feel absolutely sick about this. While I don't give up hope in a miracle donor, grant, or lottery in the future, it is probably a pipe dream to think I can ever pay you wonderful writers. So far Ekphrastic has been given a total of $10 in the year and a half run. For this reason, I am committed instead to doing what I can to encourage writers, promote creativity, and most importantly, creative recognition. This year is my first ever nominating for prizes; I was able to do so for Best of the Net but somehow messed up the dates and thought the deadline for Pushcarts was the end of the year. I am usually on the other side of the fence, not this one- I am the same as you, the writer, and know too well how much goes into writing, submitting, organizing submissions, reading, corresponding, waiting, promoting, and never getting paid. We all understand that poetry is not commercial, and even though we wish it was, it never has been, for the most part, and so we write for love. This fact makes it all the more important to me to mark creative achievement and to promote the reading of our writers. I am sorry I missed this chance to reward at least some of our many, many incredible writers with recognition, readers, and a nomination nod on their C.V. Please forgive me as we carry on and move forward. I am grateful to all of you for making The Ekphrastic Review into such a remarkable talent pool, and for all of the support and friendship and networking that comes out of it for all of us. I believe we have a great thing going, and it's just the beginning. Lorette Nude
The questions you ask are too intimate. When did you lose your virginity Why did you have the hysterectomy As if you could get to me through losses. Your fingers, aching for the canvas of my body in a pitiless light that cannot reimagine itself into tenderness. Sarah Nichols Previously published in the chapbook The Country of No (Finishing Line Press, 2012). Sarah Nichols is a co-editor of Thank You for Swallowing, an online journal of feminist protest poetry. She is the author of three chapbooks, including She May Be a Saint (Hermeneutic Chaos Press, 2016), and Edie (Whispering): Poems from Grey Gardens (Dancing Girl Press, 2015). Her work has also appeared in Yellow Chair Review, Rogue Agent, and Noble/Gas Qtrly. Surrealisms series- Lorette C. Luzajic
Eerie, strange, irreverent, poetic- this series of more than 100 surreal vignettes is now available in limited edition 5x7" prints. Prints come matted with 8x10" acid free archival quality matte in black or white, your choice, with foamboard backing. You can display them as is, or conveniently pop them into 8x10" frame. Choose one for $30 or five for $100. View selection: http://www.mixedupmedia.ca/surrealism-photography-collage-prints.html You can purchase through Paypal or email, or through Etsy. Click this link for one print. Click this link for one print. Hail to Thee, Blithe Spirit*
In Memory of Percy Bysshe Shelley Your heart still burns within your poems, but would not burn upon the pyre. Like you, it chose to rail at Fate, to cling to earth as you desired. Alarie Tennille *From “To a Skylark” by Shelley This poem was written as part of the 20 Poem Challenge. Alarie Tennille was born and raised in Portsmouth, Virginia, and graduated from the University of Virginia in the first class admitting women. She became fascinated by fine art at an early age, even though she had to go to the World Book Encyclopedia to find it. Today she visits museums everywhere she travels and spends time at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, where her husband is a volunteer guide. Alarie’s poetry book, Running Counterclockwise, contains many ekphrastic poems. Please visit her at alariepoet.com. |
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