After the Move, I will dance with Monet in the empty room, dance as if the painting needs a host, needs an out from the white walls blank with old holes, holes attempted to be filled with dancing arm throws, heart sobs, amateur paint strokes onto blank sheets of paper, paper clean as bleach I would pour in the sink to rid stains from a night with mulled wine, laughs, wine-soaked oranges toppling out mouths. We’ve saved the oranges too long. They mold fuzzy white now, white as walls with too much sad en e r g y Emmaline Bristow Emmaline Bristow grew up in Helena, Montana and attended the University of Montana for her Bachelors in English with emphasis in creative writing and literature. She also obtained her Masters of Fine Arts in poetry from Drew University. Emmaline’s writing centres around place and memory and how the two affect her identity. She has had work published in Fatal Flaw, Z Publishing and Vasterian among other journals, and she currently resides in Missoula, Montana where she works in communications for her local government.
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The Best Microfiction 2021 The annual Best Microfiction is the microfiction Bible. This yearly anthology, edited by Meg Pokrass and Gary Fincke, is eagerly awaited by small story addicts everywhere. This year’s guest judge is Amber Sparks. Full disclosure: 2020 was the first year that The Ekphrastic Review submitted nominations to Best Microfiction. (View all of our nominations here.) And we are just over the moon that one of our nominations was chosen to be part of the anthology! Many congratulations to Cyndi MacMillan for “When Alice Became the Rabbit.” https://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic-journal/when-alice-became-the-rabbit-by-cyndi-macmillan Cyndi’s story was inspired by an artwork I had posted on Facebook, Marchesa Rabbit. We are absolutely thrilled for Cyndi and for all the great writers who are putting The Ekphrastic Review on the microfiction map! Although the rest of the wonderful stories in this collection do not identify as ekphrastic writing, ekphrastic afficionados can learn quite a bit about their craft from the best microfiction writers. These stories are highly imagist in nature, and the art and craft of writing is absolutely essential when working with so few words. Each of these magnificent stories paints a picture, and when we have difficulty finding the words to express something we find in art, we can discover the inspiration to do so by carefully studying the variety of ways in which microfiction masters approach their tales. In “It’s 5 AM-ish, and My Father Tells Me a Story From His Time in Singapore,” Exodus Oktavia Brownlow immerses us immediately into the picture. “I am riding along with my father in a too-dirty pickup truck,” the story starts. Then, “It is 5 am-ish in the morning, and the sky is just beginning to become.” Small stories are often as focused as Edward Hopper paintings, diving into a specific moment of life, freeze framing a setting, a scene, and the emotional drama at its centre. Microfiction is also not a separate genre from poetry, as far as I’m concerned. The best of it doesn’t shy away from adjectives, adverbs, or any other kinds of perfectly wonderful words.. Rather, it selects such details deliberately and deliciously. In this same story, we have “cantaloupe cream” to show us the dawn. In “Half Moon Bay,” by K-Ming Chang, we have “the sea baring its black teeth.” In Angela Readman’s “Some Roses Only Need Pepsi,” we have petals that are smoky and oranges that are smoggy. Francine Witte introduces us to a spirit with a “white ghosty sex hand” (“A Fingernail is Nothing”). Cathy Ulrich takes us into the tumble of toboggan with her when she says, “fall away into the white and white and white.” (“And I Still Remember How Your Hands Were So Much Larger Than Mine.”) Much of the joy of a microfiction collection like this is in the variety, the sheer quantity of the quality. There is a robust pleasure in opening an anthology of poetry or short stories by diverse authors. You can dip in and sample, relish a piece, revisit it later, and turn the page for another delight. It is a similar kind of joy to opening an assortment of luxury chocolate truffles. These microfiction stories are small and stunning, especially delectable when chosen at random. Any page will jar you into a different headspace, give you a window into another world. When you flip to another page, like those books where you find your fortune at random where you turn, you will find another complete world in a tiny, perfect piece of literature. Congratulations to every one of these amazing writers. Congratulations again to Cyndi MacMillan. Don’t miss this year’s Best Microfiction anthology. It will soon be in bookstores worldwide, or you can sign up at Pelekinesis Publishing to be notified when it’s ready to order. http://pelekinesis.com/catalog/best_microfiction-2021.html The challenge responses for After the Storm are up! Click here.
As we await the decisions of our judges in our Bird Watching contest, we are now working on another ekphrastic writing contest! We have gathered an intriguing collection of artworks, and the theme this time is Women Artists. Artists throughout history in many different cultures faced immense obstacles, and women even more so. Few female painters or sculptors have been acknowledged by history or books, and yet we have a rich legacy of creativity if we dig between the lines to find gold. The subject was so exciting that I got carried away. It was my intention to select 30 to 40 prompts to inspire your ekphrastic writing practice, but ended up with 60. Many more were left on the cutting room floor. I hope each artwork will lead you to study more works by the featured artists, to learn about their lives and work and the worlds they lived in. Use your ebook of 60 artworks as a reference and a book of writing prompts, now and forever. Purchase before the contest deadline also qualifies you to enter up to ten poems or stories. Selected entries will be published in The Ekphrastic Review, in a series of special showcases. We are absolutely delighted to have Alarie Tennille as our guest judge. Alarie is a long-time contributor to the journal, a consultant for our prize nominations, a winner of our Fantastic Ekphrastic Award for her outstanding contributions to the journal and to ekphrastic literature, and a widely published and loved poet. Alarie will choose a first place winner and two runners up from the published selections. The first place entry will receive $100 and each runner up will receive $50. Winners may be flash fiction, creative nonfiction, or poetry. Your purchase of our ebooks has made it possible for us to offer cash prizes in these new contests at The Ekphrastic Review. Your support also helps with the time, maintenance, web and other expenses, and promotion of this journal. We can't thank you enough. RULES 1. Click on button below to get your ebook of sixty prompts by women artists. Anyone is welcome to enter. 2. Write from any or all of the artwork prompts. You may submit up to ten pieces. 3. Please submit all of your entries in one email. Wait until you have your complete entry to send. 4. You may write poetry, flash fiction, or creative nonfiction, or a combination, up to 1000 words each. 5. Deadline is July 7, 2021. 6. Send your entry to theekphrasticreview@gmail.com. In subject line, put WOMEN ARTISTS CONTEST. 7. We hate to censor your creativity and will try to accommodate experimental formatting, but be aware that flush left formats work best for the web. Complicated formats or spacing is difficult or impossible to reproduce faithfully. 8. Your work must be inspired by the prompts in the book. They can incorporate a description of the art or connect to the artwork's history or subject matter, or to the artist biography, or they can use the art as a point of departure for imagination, memory, correlation, etc. In other words, the writing can be about the art or about anything else the art triggers you to dream up. 9. The Ekphrastic Review will publish selected works in special showcases from the entries. Of these selections, guest judge Alarie Tennille will choose her favourites. The judge's decisions are final. 10. The winners will receive $100 CAD for first place and $50 each of two runners up. Winners will be paid by PayPal. 11. Winners will be chosen and announced by the end of July 2021. 12. Please include a third person biography up to 100 words. 13. Please use copy and paste in body of email, or a word document. You may include a PDF to show formatting and italics, but please include it in addition to your copy and paste or word document. 13. Good luck and have fun! edit. Cave Man, by D.D. Renforth A story of a bearded man, deep analysis, and a meeting with a tiger. https://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic-journal/cave-man-by-dd-renforth ** Houdini Explodes From the Depths, Laughing, by Margaret Benbow You cannot enslave a tiger, the spirit of it. https://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic-journal/houdini-explodes-from-the-depths-laughing-by-margaret-benbow ** The Red Monk, by D.D. Renforth Monks, divine manifestations, and a remark concerning tigers. https://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic-journal/the-red-monk-by-dd-renforth ** Oh, Jerusalem! by Jane Dougherty The essence of tigers. https://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic-journal/jenn-zed-ekphrastic-challenge-responses-poetry ** Dialogue, by Wendy T. Carlisle A poem inspired by Pieter Weltevrede's "Shiva." (Shiva sitting on "--- what's left of his tiger ---") https://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic-journal/dialogue-by-wendy-t-carlisle ** Tolima-Region Gold Breastplate by Devon Balwit A wordplay, including fearsome tigers. https://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic-journal/gold-breastplate-colombia-ekphrastic-writing-challenge-responses ** Mr. Critic, by Adam Reger Situated in a gallery in Brooklyn. The character A giving the "tiger eyes." https://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic-journal/mr-critic-by-adam-reger ** Blue Rider, by Brooks Riley A story inspired by Franz Marc's Tower of Blue Horses, including a reference to Franz Marc's tiger painting. https://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic-journal/ekphrastic-writing-responses-franz-marc ** If it is a Genyornis, by Rose Mary Boehm A story of cave paintings, including a reference to a carnivorous marsupial that was called the "Tasmanian tiger" because of its striped lower back. https://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic-journal/ekphrastic-bird-watching-contest-flash-fiction-finalists ** Spirit of the Dead Watching, by Tyson West A jogger in skimpy orange clothes could be viewed as a horror of the forest, a tiger. https://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic-journal/spirit-of-the-dead-watching-by-tyson-west ** Paula Puolakka (born August 18, 1982) is a Beat poet, writer, and MA (History of Science and Ideas.) In 2017, her first book of poems, "Näkymättömän naisen isku" (Mediapinta: Tampere) was published to celebrate Finland's 100 years of independence. In 2018, her second book of poems "TESTAMENTTI: joutsenlaulu turhuuden turuilta" was published. Also, in 2017, her three short novels "CAIN," "The Garden of Eden", and "ADAM" were published by the UK-based Michael Terence Publishing: she was using the pseudonym Paula St. Paul. In December 2020, her academic article was published by the university and science magazine Hybris (Tampere University) to celebrate her Master's thesis of 2012 and the academic legacy of Mr. Kaczynski and Mr. Wittgenstein. In April 2021, she won the second prize in the "Lahti, the European Green Capital 2021" writing competition. Her story celebrated "Teddy." Also, erbacce-press (UK) chose her poems to be on the 100 long-list (out of the thirteen thousand + submissions) out of which they will choose the winners of the erbacce-prize in May/June 2021. Call For Throwback Lists There are almost six years worth of writing at The Ekphrastic Review. With daily or more posts of poetry, fiction, and prose for most of that history, we have a wealth of talent to show off. We encourage readers to explore our archives by month and year in the sidebar. Click on a random selection and read through our history. Our Throwback Thursday features highlights of writing from our past, chosen on purpose or chosen randomly. You’ll get the chance to discover past contributors, work you missed, or responses to older ekphrastic challenges. Would you like to be a guest editor for a Throwback Thursday? Pick up to 10 favourite or random posts from the archives of The Ekphrastic Review. Use the format you see above: title, name of author, a sentence or two about your choice, and the link. Include a bio and if you wish, a note to readers about the Review, your relationship to the journal, ekphrastic writing in general, or any other relevant subject. Put THROWBACK THURSDAYS in the subject line and send to theekphrasticreview@gmail.com. Let's have some fun with this- along with your picks, send a vintage photo of yourself too! The First Complete Dissection of the Human Cerebrospinal Nervous System, by B. Fulton Jennes5/20/2021 The First Complete Dissection of the Human Cerebrospinal Nervous System, Or: Did Harriet Cole Foresee That Death Would Not End the Ways the World Would Ravish the Temple of Her? With no evidence that the scrubwoman bequeathed her body to him, questions remain how Dr. Weaver procured Harriet Cole's cadaver. Rufus B. Weaver laid Harriet out on a bed of cold steel, smoothed back her hair, then took up hammer and chisel, chipped away her stubborn skull, careful to preserve the brown eyes still attached to their optic nerves, slivered away brown flesh, red muscle, tendon, bone, brandished a fine needle to tease each nerve from the plaited spinal cord that once bent over buckets and brooms in the good doctor’s lab, shrouded each ghostly thread of her in damp winding cloths until at last the unseen network of Harriet’s aliveness-- fully flayed—could be sheathed in white lead paint, splayed like the roots of a tree ripped from soil, then tacked to a blackboard, pin by pin by pin. As students flit before Harriet’s lidless eyes outside the busy college bookstore, one pauses to survey the useless art, the fringed hobgoblin with looped fingers and toes, tree-like whiskers, cartoon eyeballs, glockenspiel ribs, trails of white tears—then she hurries on, pondering the pastor’s reading last Sunday, the one where Ezekiel breathes life into the long-dead Israelites, a vast army rising from the Valley of Dry Bones. B. Fulton Jennes Learn more about this story, here. The Poet Laureate of Ridgefield, Connecticut, B. Fulton Jennes serves as poet-in-residence for the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum. Her poems have or will appear in The Comstock Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Night Heron Barks, Connecticut River Journal, ArtAscent, Tar River Poetry, Stone Canoe, Naugatuck River Journal, Frost Meadow Review, and other publications, and her poem “Lessons of a Cruel Tide” was awarded first place in the Writer’s Digest Annual Competition in the rhyming poetry category. Jennes’s chapbook, Blinded Birds, will be published by Finishing Line Press in the fall of 2021. She lives in the wooded ridges of a small Connecticut town. Infinity Pool (an Ekphrastic Villanelle) The sun averts its gaze from this décor– cerulean pools impressed on nylon shades. Yet here, in paradise, we want for more. Greenhouse emissions burn us to our core, but luxury’s temptation rarely fades; the sun averts its gaze from this décor. Pink neon paint jobs decorate the shore: flamingo roads, abandoned soul parades… yet, here in paradise we want for more. More sex, more wealth, more idols to adore, anointed gloss of silicone brocades; the sun averts its gaze from this décor of polyurethane and ethnic war. Our temple doors enhanced with colonnades, yet, here in paradise, we want for more while nature waits, bitter revenge in store for selfish waste of gifted promenades. The sun averts its gaze from this décor yet here, in paradise. We want for more. Renzo Del Castillo Renzo Del Castillo was born in Lima, Peru. He came over to the United States as a child in order to further his education. Mr. Del Castillo graduated from the University of Florida with a B.A. in English specializing in Victorian Literature and an M.A. in Mass Communications specializing in Intercultural Communications. He has spent the last 10 years working in the healthcare industry as an IT professional. Mr. Del Castillo is an aspiring poet, essayist, and author; he has been published in Literary Yard and The Acentos Review with upcoming publications in Uppagus and the Scarlet Leaf Review. His Instagram handle is @elrenz. Learn more about artist Anastasia Samoylova's Flood Zone project here. Claes Oldenburg: Alphabet in the Form of a Good Humor Bar (1970) Dad had done construction work for an art dealer who offered the lithograph in lieu of payment. My parents didn’t know or care much about the drawing, but the pastel pinks and light blues matched the house. Now all these years later, I get a new frame for it, hang it behind the couch, notice how the popsicle resembles a brain, each frozen letter a memory, melting away. Clint Margrave This poem was written in response to Alphabet in the Form of a Good Humor Bar. Click here to view it. Clint Margrave is the author of the novel Lying Bastard (Run Amok Books, 2020), and the poetry collections, Salute the Wreckage, The Early Death of Men, and Visitor (Forthcoming) all from NYQ Books. His work has appeared in The Threepenny Review, Rattle, Cimarron Review, Ambit (UK), Verse Daily, and The Writer’s Almanac, among others. He lives in Los Angeles, CA. On The Whaling Museum Sea Glass Ocean by MJ Levy Dickson Beneath suspended bones that rise how fitting now an ocean lies as shards of wayward seeming glass that shaped or tumbled smoothly pass for those that ground in bottom sand adrift in journeys years have spanned will find their way to shores unknown evolved to seem as jeweled stone symbolic of intentioned force eroding and renewing course recorded as eternity that consciousness will live to see as wonder nature will expose and art has rendered in repose. Portly Bard Old man. Ekphrastic fan. Prefers to craft with sole intent of verse becoming complement... ...and by such homage being lent... ideally also compliment. ** Like Sea Glass: A Hand Full of Light, Echo or Shadow Medium: Handmade glass shapes https://nha.org/ “…In this enchanted mood, thy spirit ebbs away to whence it came; becomes diffused through time and space...” Herman Melville Like Sea Glass: A Hand Full of Light is inspired by sea glass found on beaches around the globe. The project pairs beauty with message, visceral experience with an opportunity for reflection, and a new way to define, enjoy, and observe beauty. The installation provides a counterpoint to a culture in which emotions are intellectualized and verbalized – yet not available to everyone in these forms. Encompassing thought and meaning visually, tactilely, and aurally, the installation offers a bridge by which diverse audiences can experience the unexpressed. This interactive installation echoes the harmony between the head of the whale and the bow of the whaleboat. To honour and remember this whale is a reminder of his massive beauty and grace. MJ Levy Dickson www.mjlevydickson.com Hercules and the Hydra Slaughtering your wife and sons gets you atonement in the form of 12 labours. Even though you were out of your head at the time, your body’s always primed for the work of forgiveness. And I get it—you’re the strongest, sorriest, most furious guy out there, but who goes off to fight the hydra in the nude? Nine fanged heads, two growing back for every one you chop off, until your kin says, Let’s cauterize the necks. Whew—good thinking, kid. But in this pose, one foot planted firmly, the other raised, you draw back a powerful arm wielding a club, the beast wound ‘round your knee. This must have been before the whole branding idea, because bashing the heads is a fool’s errand. But you look super determined, like, I’m beyond pissed and don’t try to tell me nothin’. Like you found a mouse in the garage and you’re just reacting with a shovel, a broom, whatever’s handy. Intelligence and forethought are not your strengths, but rash, brute force in your birthday suit? Shoot, I’m your Hercules. Amy Debrecht Amy Debrecht received her Master of Fine Arts in poetry writing from the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Her poems and reviews have appeared in Salt Hill, Poet Lore, Sou’wester, Natural Bridge, Flint Hills Review, and Pleiades. She previously read submissions and served on the board for River Styx. Currently, she volunteers with Cinema St. Louis, curating shorts for the St. Louis International Film Festival. |
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