Nighthawks I was going to explain why I’m repelled by children who have been taught to say all the right things about Edward Hopper’s night café—some paintings need to be earned and this is one of them— but here, instead, are three stanzas about Iceland. It is shimmering and fresh and yes. Trout leap in the lakes. They are stippled and as hard as ice. The summer is hinged and cracked. It fills postcards with blue lupine, purple and invasive. Beside the sea and the volcano, a door opens and I am only steps away from where a woman in a red dress is waiting for something. It is late. The café is about to close. The man beside her has looked at his watch. The light, triangular and green, has spilled into the street. It will never be entirely dark. On the coast of Iceland, it will never be entirely the way it was. Root out the lupine and something equally glorious will arrive to take its place. Let the bell of the indigenous bluebell clang. Let women never look back. Ray Hudson While most of my writing deals with Alaska history and ethnography, poetry is my first love. Moments Rightly Placed: An Aleutian Memoir was followed by a couple of histories & ethnographies and then a YA novel, Ivory and Paper: Adventures In and Out of Time, appeared from somewhere. I’m now at work on a book about Unangan grass basketry. I live in Vermont.
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Mama’s Orchid girl, just look at that flower all green and yellow swimming together spilling over the edge like rainbow sherbet mama made in july and spooned into glass cups that slipped from our sticky hands crashing on the black and white linoleum she laid when too old to bear children. just look at those petals fringed in lavender a feather boa she tossed over her shoulder cascading down a satin back saturday nights as daddy dipped her to radio blues with us praying for long legs and to stay up past nine when ella and billie brought it on home. never cared for real orchids those hothouse types too busy being fussed over still don't bloom like that purple flower mama loved to wear on her birthday and afterward stored it in the icebox till petals turned brown. Chella Courington Chella Courington is a writer and teacher whose poetry and fiction appear in numerous anthologies and journals including Spillway, Los Angeles Review, and Lavender Review. Her flash novella, Adele and Tom: The Portrait of a Marriage (Breaking Rules Publishing), was published in February. Originally from the Appalachian South, Courington lives in California. 19th Century Bison Extermination They thundered like, well, thunder over bluestem and sandstone rolling over prairie bulldozed by glaciers a few minutes before by steel plows a few minutes later They thundered like thousand drumbeats a herd murmuration skeining, patterning, over unpatterned plains They thundered like steam engines converging on the the stockyards of Abilene miles of railway cars loaded with fertilizer crushed from their previous skulls They thundered like Oklahoma frackquakes drillers desperate for a few dollars more shoving shale aside to harvest rotting Jurassic plankton from inland oceans that splashed here just an hour before They thundered while they ran They ran while they could Their time was glorious Running like thunder Skyler Lovelace Skyler Lovelace is an artist working in Wichita, Kansas. Her poems have been published in several print and online publications, including Poetry Magazine, Cutbank, The Laurel Review, and River City Poetry. Recently she provided cover art for Albert Goldbarth's Between Waking and Sleeping, published by Lost Horse Press. The Goddamned Gospel According to Nina Simone Enshrouded fog lingers upon the station Radiating amber - burgundy- verdant vibes I’m gonna lay my head down on some lonesome railroad line Encaved light emits from within the soundless tunnel Merely another damned locomotive - not divine revelation Derailed once again upon the narrow path of redemption Collision - Concourse - Confusion Something about an uncertain journey & a hand basket Upon a road paved with certain intentions Staccato’d Nina Simone lingers on previously laid tracks Sermonizing once more - temptation upon the lips Eat forbidden fruit - it’s mighty sweet - it’s quite a treat Scrap booking another exotic Bosch landscape When the conductor statically announces All hell-bound - - cue to the far left please Terrence Sykes Terrence Sykes was born and raised in the rural coal mining area of Virginia. This isolation brings the theme of remembrance to his creations, whether real or imagined. Other interests include cooking, gardening, heirloom vegetable research & foraging wild edibles. His poetry - photography - flash fiction has been published in Bangladesh ,Canada, Ireland, India, Mauritius, Pakistan, Scotland, Spain and the USA. The Mountain Thirty-six and then a hundred times the printmaker inscribed that mountain, torn away and always driven back again (thirty-six and then a hundred times) to the inscrutable volcano, blissful, full of seductiveness and reticence-- while it, in the apparel of its profile, did not hold back its own magnificence: bursting forth a thousand times each day, allowing each uniquely different night to fall away, as if all were too tight, consuming every image straightaway, improving on itself from shape to shape, detached, remote, and taking no position-- at once turned knowing, like an apparition, and rising into view through every gap. Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Susan McLean Der Berg Sechsunddreißig Mal und hundert Mal hat der Maler jenen Berg geschrieben, weggerissen, wieder hingetrieben (sechsunddreißig Mal und hundert Mal) zu dem unbegreiflichen Vulkane, selig, voll Versuchung, ohne Rat, - während der mit Umriss Angetane seiner Herrlichkeit nicht Einhalt tat: tausendmal aus allen Tagen tauchend, Nächte ohne gleichen von sich ab fallen lassend, alle wie zu knapp; jedes Bild im Augenblick verbrauchend, von Gestalt gesteigert zu Gestalt, teilnahmslos und weit und ohne Meinung -, um auf einmal wissend, wie Erscheinung, sich zu heben hinter jedem Spalt. Rainer Maria Rilke Literal translation: The Mountain Thirty-six times and a hundred times the artist inscribed that mountain, torn away, driven back again (thirty-six times and a hundred times) to the unknowable volcano, beatific, full of temptation, without advice-- while it, clothed in its outline, kept back nothing of its magnificence: emerging a thousand times every day, allowing nights without equal to fall away from it, as if all were too tight; consuming each image in the blink of an eye, improving from shape to shape, indifferent and distant and without opinion-- only to become knowing suddenly, like an apparition, raising itself up behind every gap. Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Susan McLean Susan McLean has published translations of Latin, French, and German poetry in Arion, Transference, Subtropics, and elsewhere. Her book of translations of the Latin poet Martial, Selected Epigrams (U. of Wisconsin P, 2014), was a finalist for the PEN Center USA Translation Award. Her own books of poetry include The Best Disguise and The Whetstone Misses the Knife. Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) was born in Prague, but lived all over Europe. His German poems are known for their lyricism. He worked for a while as Auguste Rodin’s secretary and was much influenced by artists and works of art that he saw. To celebrate five years online at The Ekphrastic Review, we are creating a digital anthology of poems about artwork all over the world! The Ekphrastic Review has published thousands of poems and stories by over 1000 incredible writers, all inspired by art. We have published famous poets and first time writers, students and teachers, professors and prisoners. We have worked with classrooms for young writers, senior citizen centres, recovery programs, and inmates to encourage ekphrastic writing for everyone. We have published ekphrastic poems in Spanish, Portuguese, German, Urdu, and Indonesian. We have run countless challenges, bringing uniquely curated prompts to your ekphrastic practice. Thank you to everyone for your readership, your talents, and your love. It has been fantastic! Together we have created something very special. This anthology will be our first one! Your copy of the ebook The Ekphrastic World: 60 Prompts From Around the Globe, is a collection of carefully curated artworks from artists from America, Canada, Egypt, Iraq, Turkey, India, Vietnam, Cameroon, and the whole wide world. Lorette digs deep into her passion for global art history to bring you a diverse range of voices and styles that will inspire your ekphrastic practice. Your purchase of The Ekphrastic World brings you the 60 prompts from which we will create the poems for the upcoming anthology. This is a fundraising initiative for The Ekphrastic Review, which has never charged reading fees or cheapened the literary content of our online pages with awful ads for junk no one wants. Your purchase of this ebook qualifies you to submit up to 15 poems or five stories, for consideration for the anthology. (All submissions must be from the prompts in The Ekphrastic World.) (Someone asked if they could submit more than 15 poems if they purchase more than one copy of The Ekphrastic World. I hadn't thought about it, but I don't see any reason why not, so if you are prolifically inspired, go for it!) THANK YOU. By purchasing this ebook you are providing much needed support to the Review, and we are so grateful. Submission deadline is November 1. You'll find everything you need to know about where to send them in the ebook. Get your copy of The Ekphrastic World here. 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. The prompt this time is The Marchesa Casati, by Augustus John. Deadline is September 4, 2020. 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 you wrote down. (Please note, experimental formats are difficult to publish online. We will consider them but they present technical difficulties with web software that may not be easily resolved.) 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 JOHN WRITING CHALLENGE in the subject line. 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, September 4, 2020. 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! 12. Please share this prompt with your writing groups, Facebook groups, social media circles, and anywhere else you can. The simple act of sharing brings readers to The Ekphrastic Review, and that is the best way to support the poets and writers on our pages! All of Lorette's signature squares are currently on megasale.
Shipping is free! There are more than 150 squares to look through. https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/LorettesArt The Ekphrastic Review editor, Lorette C. Luzajic, is also an award winning artist whose works have appeared widely in galleries, museums, hotels, restaurants, banks, nightclubs, laundromats, and doctor's offices. Her art has been in the Berlin Metro, on a 20 foot billboard in New Orleans, in a magazine ad campaign for a Madrid-based luxury jewelry brand, and as a prop on reality TV. Her work has been collected in over 25 countries, including America, Canada, Japan, France, Israel, Mexico, Tunisia, Belgium, Estonia, Austria, Australia, Germany, Italy, and beyond. Her work often incorporates poetry, music, cinema, art history, popular culture, and her travels. Thank you for your support! Entering the House of Awe La Grotte Ornée de Pech Merle where 25,000 years ago, someone used moss, coloured ochre, sticks of charcoal, and a herd of spotted horses appeared, galloping across the plains of a cave wall. Working in the flicker of rush light, the artist outlined in black, filled in with brown or red. Always in motion, these ponies thunder across the rock face, fresh as if they were drawn yesterday. Was the painter surprised by what emerged? Would she be amazed to know that they’re still here, cantering in the dark? She ground red ochre to a fine powder with mortar and pestle, then placed her hand on the cold stone, picked up a hollow bone, and blew. What remains is a negative, the opposite of the plaster casts our children brought home from nursery school. The horses are dappled by stenciled dots and finger prints dipped in colour. I think I can hear them snort, feel their grassy breath, and then I realize it’s the touch of your hand brushing mine, or someone blowing pigment in the dark. Barbara Crooker This poem has previously appeared in Some Glad Morning (Pitt Poetry Series, University of Pittsburgh Poetry Press, 2019). Ode to a Bruise Life is a fold in a flower, a shroud of animation, a naked pout reaching in with the colour of a womb. What lies in the centre? A continuance, a beginning of an iris opening to compose a prismatic fountainhead, the incantation of a scarlet labium where dawn makes itself known, previously unpublished, blank verse, a bruise with its roach black engorged pigments offering the kernel of breath and awe. This divine lily, fashioned via wanderlust by the dint of a puzzle-box cannot be pressed in a brochure of perished reverence. Grant Tarbard This poem is from This is the Carousel Mother Warned You About, the poet's upcoming pamphlet from Three Drops Press. Grant Tarbard is the author of Loneliness is the Machine that Drives the World (Platypus Press) and Rosary of Ghosts (Indigo Dreams). His new pamphlet This is the Carousel Mother Warned You About (Three Drops Press), and his new collection dog (Gatehouse Press), will be out this year. |
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