The Ekphrastic Review
  • Ekphrastic Journal
  • About
  • Give
    • Merch
  • Book Shelf
    • Ekphrastic Book Shelf
    • Contributors' Book Shelf
  • Ebooks
  • Submit
  • Prizes
  • Ekphrastic Writing Challenges
    • Challenge Archives
  • TERcets Podcast
  • Writers
  • Contact

​Untitled (Purple Petunia), by Jen Stewart Fueston

9/29/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
Untitled (Purple Petunia), by Georgia O'Keeffe (USA). 1925.
​Untitled (Purple Petunia)
 
                             "Nothing is less real than realism... details are confusing. It is only by selection,
                              by elimination, by emphasis, that we get at the real meaning of things."
                                                                                                                                        Georgia O'Keeffe
 
 
The petunia is beheaded, fills the canvas edge
to edge. Interlacing pear-shaped petals kaleidoscope
 
around three, or maybe four, small pale blue dots
that demarcate a centre. The colour is the plum of those
 
taken from the icebox (so sweet  and so cold). A plum
for tasting where it lies sprawling on a rumpled
 
sheet. I know the psychobabble of O'Keeffe's flowers,
how hearing it at first in college, I was angry, so
​
I looked away. It seemed a nasty thing to do, interpreting
a woman's close attention to a thing equal to
 
pubescent navel gazing. For years, I couldn't see
amidst the rumors, the sexy callas, O'Keeffe's defiant
 
wrinkled arms. Before all that, there was this plum
petunia, plucked and given all her thought, alone
 
in its asking, look. Surrounding noises curtained off,
it becomes an open face, a cup of sweetness over-ripe
 
just some moments from decay. Spackle speculation
over top, it sloughs it off, continuing to be nothing
 
other than only what it is.

Jen Stewart Fueston


Jen Stewart Fueston lives in Longmont, Colorado. Her work has appeared recently in Ruminate, Mom Egg Review and Pilgrimage, and is forthcoming in The Windhover, Whale Road Review, and others. Her first chapbook, Visitations, was published in 2015. She has taught writing at the University of Colorado, Boulder, as well as internationally in Hungary, Turkey, and Lithuania. You can find her online at www.jenstewartfueston.com and on twitter @jenniferfueston

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    The Ekphrastic Review
    Picture

    ​​Find a writer, artist, or poem, etc. by searching here:
    Current Prompt
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    PLEASE SUPPORT US



    ​
    ​Archives
    ​

    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015

    Lorette C. Luzajic theekphrasticreview@gmail.com 

  • Ekphrastic Journal
  • About
  • Give
    • Merch
  • Book Shelf
    • Ekphrastic Book Shelf
    • Contributors' Book Shelf
  • Ebooks
  • Submit
  • Prizes
  • Ekphrastic Writing Challenges
    • Challenge Archives
  • TERcets Podcast
  • Writers
  • Contact