 Guernica, by Pablo Picasso (Spain) 1937    Meeting Picasso for Monika Pisniak & Lorette C. Luzajic after Guernica by Pablo Picasso (Spain), 1937 C.E. Truth is ugly. We possess art lest we perish from truth. —Nietzsche (Excerpt from Will to Power) Art is the lie that enables us to realise the truth. —Picasso I. My very first meeting with Picasso transpired amidst the epilogue to the 20th century—around 2000 C.E. in London, UK—via the title of a book, Genius of the Century, and the image published on its cover front. (I beg your pardon, for the exact first, middle and last name of the author betrays my memory; at the moment, all I can vaguely recall about the artwork is that it appeared to be a distorted (self-)portrait of a human-face). And back then, Surrealism/Cubism was to me as the Greek language and customs were to the Barbarians, to be honest! After all, those were my early days of ‘selling my soul to the devil’ named Art & Literature. (By the way, it’s not as if I’ve acquired a complete mastery over the said genres now. (Ha ha!) But now, at least, what I’ve acquired a complete comprehension of is this: probably, the claimants of the mastery of Surrealism & Cubism have failed to comprehend the Spirt of the said Movements—‘cause, the human idea(s) of Drama & Dream is not the ‘centre of the universe’, id est, sometimes, the circumstance(s) defines the man, and sometimes, the wo/man leaves her/his tattoo painted on the body-of-circumstance(s), id est, on the teeter-totter of Human V Nature/Circumstance, maya[1] is the fulcrum!) (An epic poem and/or a philosophical treatise on the ideas/dramas/dreams appearing in these lines, on another occasion now). II. My very first meeting with Picasso’s one of the magna opera, Guernica, transpired amidst the prologue to the 21stcentury—around 2020 C.E. in Lahore, PK—via the title of a poem, ‘Guernica’, by Luzajic. Now, I trust that all afficionados of literary/art possess affluent comprehension regarding the historical significance and moral of the said painting. Hence, I shalt save myself the energies of unnecessarily labouring my thalamus on the War-of-Words—praising or critiquing the piece-in-point. Sure—an etymological inquiry of the Greek word, ‘ekphrasis’, reveals that the phrase is concerned with ‘defining/describing a piece of art/work in words’. However, as far as I am concerned, Art & Literaturehas no business with the lexicon-definitions/descriptions of phenomena! (I fear that this line will probably prove to be as if Greek Fire for various artists and poets and writers! (Ha ha!)) Anyway, my favourite verse of the said poem is: what is this man, human, who so wants war? (Now, such a concern begs a rather book-length type discourse on the nature & human condition/disposition. On another occasion, then.) Saad Ali [1] Maya: Illusion. Saad Ali (b. 1980 C.E. in Okara, Pakistan) has been educated and brought up in the United Kingdom (UK) and Pakistan. He holds a BSc and an MSc in Management from the University of Leicester, UK. He is an (existential) philosopher, poet, and translator. Ali has authored five books of poetry. His latest collection of poetry is called Owl Of Pines: Sunyata(AuthorHouse, 2021). His work has been nominated for The Best of the Net Anthology. He is a regular contributor to The Ekphrastic Review. By profession, he is a Lecturer, Consultant, and Trainer/Mentor. Some of his influences include: Vyasa, Homer, Ovid, Attar, Rumi, Nietzsche, and Tagore. He is fond of the Persian, Chinese, and Greek cuisines. He likes learning different languages, travelling by train, and exploring cities on foot. To learn more about his work, please visit www.saadalipoetry.com, or his Facebook Author Page at www.facebook.com/owlofpines. ** Guernica cubed eye cracked heart squared broken so surreal discordant pictures of hell! wherein fractured bodies lay in pools of redless black blood an eye sees all as it sheds light on the darkness below illuminating a haides in place a woman burns in fire screaming! in a house made of wood with a square window of no hope in her emblazoned hand a fascist plane a Hakekreuz sent by the evil one to bomb guerinca to obliterate guerinca a practice of death to come franco’s cubistic bull cotaneously annihilates azana the surreal horse speared with the lance shredding newspaper mail as the skull shrieks through the snout as a dead baby lays under her mother wailing out of sight the ghosts with a lamp recently aghast newly passed still in horror are witness to all the flower of death breathes heavily the flowers of demise are white grey black mâché skulls and bones a necrosis to all stretched out on a white matted canvas on the shroud of turin a pyre guernica guernica resolute in ash i cry war no more! James Hoffman James N Hoffman: "I am retired and living with my wife in Ocean City, Maryland. I have a MA in Applied Psychology and a BA in Philosophy. I started writing many decades ago but found I like to write what I called colour poetry since I cannot paint. Later I learned that it is called Ekphrastic and has been as old as some of the Greek philosophy I studied. I have been published three times in the Ekphrastic Writing Challenge." ** Liev Today I can write about Lviv and the white flower in the garden. The wind in apricot trees. Today I can write about Liev. A hill overlooking the town. Through days in the main square where many people died. My city struck by missiles. How I suffered March. So many times we have seen charred earth the apricot trees and in our blue skies and over our heads the sun. The weeping women, the dead child. Ilona Martonfi Ilona Martonfi is a mother, an activist, an educator, literary curator, poet and an editor. Born in Budapest, Hungary, she has also lived in Austria and Germany. Martonfi writes in seven chapbooks, journals across North America and abroad. Curator of the Argo Bookshop Reading Series. Recipient of the Quebec Writers’ Federation 2010 Community Award. Martonfi lives in Montreal, Canada. The Tempest, Inanna Publications, Spring 2022, is her fifth poetry book. ** Guernica on the Wall of their Apartment After we’ve arrived in Singapore we visit the Stevensons for Thanksgiving. Kathy says Ikea’s the place to go for furniture. They have everything. Look, she says, even art for the wall. Guernica. On the floor Robbie and Matt squabble over whose Lego piece is whose and Tina sits silent on the couch with Stephen King. The village burns. Flames lick into corners. We set the table. The boys grumble. They say there’s nothing to eat and what's wrong with burgers and chips. Kathy brings out her Pumpkin Pie. A new recipe. Fighter planes are machine-gunning women and children. They run into fields to hide. The boys are sullen. There’s foreboding with the first taste. They’d rather have ice-cream. The village, still burning. Marjory Woodfield Marjory Woodfield's poetry, articles and short fiction have appeared in The BBC and stuff.co.nz, as well as in literary journals (takahē, Orbis, Ekphrastic Review, The Lake etc...) and anthologies. She won the New Zealand Robert Burns Competition in 2020. This year she won the NZSA Heritage Poetry Award, gained second place in the Inaugural Patricia Eschen International Competition and was highly commended in the Erbacce poetry competition. ** Guernica Comes of Age I. Conception: Pablo Picasso encounters an article in l’Humanité, Paris, April 28, 1937 I wear war tattooed on my skin. My name is l’Humanité. Ironic, I know. Guernica wouldn’t exist without me. Pablo’s friend told him about the attack in Basque. He didn’t pay attention until he held me in his hands. I laid it out in black and white. Operation Reprimand. That’s what it was called. But in German, of course. Rügen. What an ugly word, ugly deed to crush a small town for its resolve. They chose a Monday: Market Day. Four thirty-five in the afternoon, when teachers and dutiful children run errands on the way home. April 26th, the middle of spring. Over three hours of those noisy planes, their bombs and grenades. Fires raged through the rubble, smoke escaped to the mountains, the sky aglow all night. How do you find almost 2,000 people in all that mess, to bury them? I got Pablo out of his slump. I did my job, Guernica takes after me. II. Birth: Paris, May 1-June 4, 1937 I wear war as my second skin. Commissioned by the Spanish government. Special order at Castelucho’s shop in Paris, where he sent me to my studio with his finisher. We arrived so early Jean was afraid to knock, but Papa scolded him for being late. It took the two of them to get me ready, one to stretch me smooth while the other fixed me to my frame. Jean was still applying the gesso when Papa grabbed a stepladder and some charcoal, transferred the scatter of sketches on the floor to me, knowing line is everything, colour optional. III. Coming of Age: New York City, November 15, 1939 I love New York. Especially the MoMA. What a sophisticated crowd. People say that about Paris, but nobody thought much of me in my hometown. And it was the World’s Fair! Millions of folks the world over, and all I saw was their backs. Had they been hoping to find something to admire when bombs drop on homes and barns? I was supposed to go to Spain after that. They thought me an insult. Must be all that Truth is Beauty nonsense. Of all people, you’d think they would want the world to know how it feels. I went back home to spend a year with Papa. He believed in me. Sent me on tour to raise money for the motherland, the refugees. First to Great Britain, then across The States. More of the same. Revolting. Cuckoo. What did they know? Two and a half months of Nazi assaults will make you see with different eyes. Becky DeVito Becky DeVito is a professor of psychology at Capital Community College in Hartford, Connecticut. Her doctoral dissertation investigates the ways in which poets come to new insights through the process of drafting and revising their poems. Her poetry has been published in bottle rockets: A Collection of Short Verse, Frogpond, Modern Haiku, Ribbons: Tanka Society of America Journal, and others. Sources referenced for this poem: The Atlantic, The Guardian, l’Humanité. ** Crushed Help is not a word he said lightly, warrior that his father was, taught to knuckle under any pain without cries So, he became a farmer, much anger from his father, but still a living carved out of a tough existence, poor meager until war came to his village, father insisted he fight, watched his brothers die trampled by plow horse, never meant to be in battle under moonlight, bare bulb overhead, broken bodies, vessels overturned fields and homes in vast ruins lain waste Julie A. Dickson Julie A. Dickson is an advocate for captive zoo and circus elephants, loves feral cats and writing poetry. She enjoys the challenge of prompts and workshops to write poetry. Dickson holds a BPS in Behavioral Science, is a past poetry board member and regular contributor to over 50 poetry journals, including Open Door, Five Fleas, Blue Heron and The Ekphrastic Review. ** Visiting Guernica at the Reina Sofia, October 2022 Darkness fell from the sky trees budding out in early spring became kindling for devastation. Shapes hidden in the shadows - women and children and horses flee. There is no escape from oppression. I scrutinize Dora’s photographs; the process fascinates me. How does Picasso make paint reveal truth? A mother holds her dead child the bull’s balls dangle over them - a swollen sword of Damocles. The canvas howls newspapers print facts a crumbling town rattles its ruin the last hope evacuates. It’s too much, or not enough I exit the former hospital to a dreary afternoon and walk through October rain. Lesley Rogers Hobbs Lesley Rogers Hobbs is an Irish writer and poet. She just moved to Port Orchard, Washington with her husband and service dog. Her poetry has been published by The Ekphrastic Review, The Avocet and Open Door. ** The Dove The last time I remember, a bald guy was trying to draw an olive branch on my beak. A branch, a dream, a desire for peace, too heavy for my beak. It kept falling out. And I blink and here I am, lodged between a dead horse and a dead bull in a wasteland which smells like putrefied flesh. And dead human arms, and legs and under an eye glowing like a fluorescent bulb. Senseless destruction. One white feather drops from my wings, and flutters. All my friends are ash, and they ask me, one time, why are you so white? And I say, humans, you know, they have this thing for white, and I am supposed to bring peace. And they ask, is peace white? And frankly, I have not seen peace to know. The white feather flutters with a red spot on it, a stain of human death, and killings and this terrible stench. Humans wait for the worms and vultures to clear their mess. But right now the silence. The waiting. I must try to fly out from here before becoming vulture food. I flap my wings. A sharp pain runs into my ribs. I stretch out a leg. A black void, my foot dangles. I am stuck in mid flight, like someone shot me, and gravity disappears, and I straddle life and death. But I try again, and flap the other wing. I cannot lift it. Then I put my neck out, further, a little further I stretch my wings together, and with a sharp pain I am dislodged, and fly into the world. Ani Banerjee Ani Banerjee is a retiring lawyer and an emerging writer from Houston, Texas, who was born and brought up in Kolkata, India. Her flash fiction has been published in Flash Flood, Friday Flash Fiction and other places. Find her on Twitter @AniBWrites and http://www.AniBanerjee.com ** Memorandum Suppose my voice be unheard among this muddle of other voices, I ought to turn my back. Instead I resolve to look into the eyes of myself, peer at reflections of vanity thro’ shards of broken memories. Perhaps I’ll cut off my ankles and surrender beneath the feet of descending angels, till I am a bloody mess a postscript an asterisk an echo. Marc Brimble Marc Brimble: How to make the perfect cup of tea: Prepare loose tea by placing 1-2 teaspoons of loose tea into a tea strainer, put the strainer into your cup, then pour properly heated water directly over the leaves. If using a teapot, measure 1-2 teaspoons per 8oz of water. For milder tea flavour, shorten brew time. For stronger tea flavour, increase brewing time. Marc is based in Spain. Find some of Marc´s poems here - https://marcbrimble.substack.com/ ** To Picasso Regarding Guernica Ironic is the war you wage in fractal of destructive rage that by its brush must decimate the truth it leaves to re-create from shards beholders render whole each eye somehow in somber soul enabling by implicit guise the sum as cast to symbolize resistance mourned that faces war, the scalar breadth of battle gore that tyranny leaves unresolved as fear that's felt but only solved by swell of far more hellish force from those who seek a freer course. Portly Bard 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. Ekphrastic joy comes not from praise for words but from returning gaze far more aware of fortune art becomes to eyes that fathom heart. ** Three and a Half Hours I was twelve and on the precipice of adolescence. I was boundless joy, irrational fear, foolish frustration and fresh hormones – I was life. My town was not a metropolis. It was slow, with dirt roads lined with red claveles spicing the air and green hills lazily rolling around. Our gathering place was the weekly market where I met my friends to laugh and gossip. On luxurious weeks I had the freedom to saunter down the road on my own. Those days were mine, and I relished my freedom. That day mama walked with me. My twelve-year-old body flamed with resentment. She did not understand the freedom she withheld from me. And all for a stupid spice she wanted for this Sunday’s dinner. I hated that she thought I could not remember. On our walk she bored me with ramblings about April and how it was the best month. “Look,” she said, pointing to the hills. “The rain washes them clean of winter. We should be excited about how hard spring is fighting to make its way out of the cold to gift us with its beauty.” Only half listening to her, my thoughts were on my friends or maybe a boy I thought was handsome. What did I care what the stupid flowers and grass had to do to be pretty? I paid close attention to where my loafer stepped as I never wanted to soil the white of my socks. Mama stomped through puddles like she was putting out a fire. Her socks and ankles were rusty from the muck. While she went on about the water in the streams being life-giving, she splashed muck on my left ankle. She did not notice my anger but kept talking about the birds coming home to sing us their beautiful songs. “April, my dear,” she said, “April is life. She was wrong. Mama had just found the pimentón when we heard them. The birds that day were not returning to sing us beauty but hurtled toward us. The metal-bodied fowl spewed fire, screamed, and dropped hissing packages on us. The first bomb hit a group of unbelieving upturned faces. Unblinking masks of fear shattered to pieces in seconds. There was no rain that day, only life-draining metal aimed at our tender flesh. Mama’s hand clawed at the back of my neck as she spun me into her breast. Her body engulfed mine like a blanket. When the bullets hit her, they sounded like muffled popping balloons. The impact of the hot metal felled us to the ground like a cypress tree. The heat from her final rattled breath cooled the flesh of my ear within seconds. I lay beneath her absorbing the dirt on my back and her blood on my front. I was an unmoving human sponge to the filth and death growing around me. What I could not see bundled within the folds of mama, I could easily take in with my ears. Screaming mixed with explosions mixed with flesh hitting the ground. The jumble was pure hell for a twelve year old imagination. With the fading whirr of planes, there was a short frozen moment of silence. Before the fourth heartbeat thrum in my ears, the wails of anguish crashed like a wave over the carnage. The sounds of shoes crunching clods of soil near my head emboldened me to move. Mama was heavy and held me within her death cocoon. It was hard to pull away. I rolled our bodies to the side and shimmied out from under her. I could not look – must not look. I patted her hand as if to comfort her or maybe hoped she was pretending. She did not move, and I did not look. The chaotic scene caught my attention, and for the first time in three hours, I saw what my village had become. Smiling faces replaced with masks of anguish howled to the heavens. A heaven that did not answer. My eyes were overwhelmed by the scene. Beyond the ruined buildings, and ruined town, the colours of death flooded me with doom. Bluish white bodies lay atop garish red ponds melding with the rust brown of the earth. The sounds and smells and chaotic colors became too much for my young mind. I pulled my knees to my chest and leaned against mama for support. I rubbed my thumb raw worrying at a spot on my socks. A man tapped me on my shoulder to ask if I was hurt. No, I said, but mama is. Mama was added to a growing line of bodies covered in whatever linen that was found intact. The man walked me in the opposite direction and delivered me to a woman surrounded by children. She said we needed to leave. I turned to look one last time. All life-giving colours had been replaced, drained away – only black and grey remained. Forever more, my life would remain in greyscale. Joy forever muted. Jennifer Cabral Jennifer Cabral is a wife, mother, educator, psychologist, writer, and photographer. She currently lives in Southern California with her husband Stephen and annoying old Vizsla Magic. She recently pivoted her focus from APA format to creative writing. She is half way through a sh*tty first draft of a novel. ** The Tree of Guernica "OAK of Guernica! Tree of holier power Than that which in Dodona did enshrine (So faith too fondly deemed) a voice divine Heard from the depths of its aerial bower -- How canst thou flourish in this fighting hour?" The Oak of Guernica Supposed Address to The Same, William Wordsworth "Then go out and get the prize calf...and let us celebrate..." Luke 15:23 And when the colours had disappeared from his canvas like spilled blood, did Picasso imagine which figures could be redeemed after the war? Would the horse -- say -- make its way through the streets of Paris, brought back to life ridden by a woman whose idea of art was to believe in lines of love? Whose eyes and body could be translated from his thoughts to Cubist pieces, a compilation that could create an unforgettable face; or help the heart of Spain rebuild a Basque village? As twilight filled the windows of his studio -- blue-petaled and violet -- did he dream of a girl with an empty basket (her cesta) looking at the rubble of her homeland; remembering the days she could come to the center of Guernika for simple, day-to-day things: grains for cereal, vegetables and fruit, the crafts of tailors, cobblers and the mending of her Amona, her grandmother. She had touched the linen fabrics sold by the flax merchant who had filled her ears with stories weaving words as well as cloth, the threads of his life, some from foreign markets like his tale of Zeus's Temple in Dodona, where, it was said the future could be written by prediction if he wove an image into cloth. He would chose the bull, he thought, like the proud animal destined to appear in Picasso's painting and give it, like a horned god -- the Minotaur -- the head of a man and body of a massive herbivore in white, like snow, fallen in a field where animals graze waiting for wildflowers -- oxlips, cowslips, pyrean buttercups, blue gentians -- the spring abundance of the Pyrenees like the bull's home in a book written for children; or a labyrinth where war-torn bodies lie beneath the Tree of Guernica the place where Basque laws were made -- a democracy -- a season when branches pressed out leaves, and Picasso explored the roots of art -- the bull, the woman, and the horse. Laurie Newendorp Laurie Newendorp lives and writes in Houston. Recipient of multiple acceptances by The Ekphrastic Challenge, "The Tree of Guernica" represents the first time she has made two submissions for the same challenge, her reason that the poem is written in memory of her dear friend and teacher, Marilyn Hammer Black, whose age and potential for survival were influenced by WWII; and who introduced her class to the meaning of Picasso's Guernica, her favourite painting. Guernica's (or Guernika's) Tree was famous for centuries, known to both Wordsworth and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. ** Stillness Sings in arced cries lining the sky, escaping by the guiding light- in strokes that paint faces agape with colour of death, a weight history must bear. spawned body parts, spilled blood like stretches of cactus across desert with red flower heads. men and women sit inside deep dug squares of mud- leaves wither, nothing is spared, bulls, horses, mothers' love. what occupies a devil's mind? what rides heart of a shooter- desire to fight, anger, dreams to conquer the earth. a wait until tornado strikes swirling the dead, spinning spilled blood, blooming stillness into a clamor- exploding apocalypse, blazing freedom.. Abha Das Sarma An engineer and management consultant by profession, Abha Das Sarma enjoys writing the most. Besides having a blog of over 200 poems (http://dassarmafamily.blogspot.com), her poems have appeared in Muddy River Poetry Review, Spillwords, Verse-Virtual, Visual Verse, Sparks of Calliope, Trouvaille Review, Silver Birch Press, Blue Heron Review, here and elsewhere. Having spent her growing up years in small towns of northern India, she currently lives in Bengaluru.
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 Roses, Convolvulus, Poppies and Other Flowers in an Urn on a Stone Ledge, by Rachel Ruysch (Netherlands) 1680s Join us for biweekly ekphrastic writing challenges. See why so many writers are hooked on ekphrasis! We feature some of the most accomplished, influential writers working 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 Roses, Convolvulus, Poppies and Other Flowers in an Urn on a Stone Ledge, by Rachel Ruysch. Deadline is December 9, 2022. You can submit poetry, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, microfiction, or any other form creative writing you like. 1000 words max please. 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. There is no mandatory submission fee, but we ask you to consider a voluntary donation to show your support to the time, management, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review. It takes an incredible amount of time to curate the journal, read regular and contest submissions, etc. Paying all expenses out of pocket is also prohibitive. Thank you. A voluntary gift does not affect the selection process in any way. 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 RUYSCH 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 piece. 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 EST, December 9, 2022. 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. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we do not send out sorry notices or yes letters. You will see what poetry and stories have been selected when the responses are posted one week after the deadline. Understand that we value your participation as part of our ekphrastic community, but we can only choose a handful of the many entries we receive. 12. A word on the selection process: we strive for a balance between rewarding regular participants and sharing the voices of writers who are new to our family. We also look for a variety of perspectives and styles, and a range of interesting takes on the painting. It is difficult to reproduce experimental formatting, so unfortunately we won't choose many with unusual spacing or typography. 13. By submitting to The Ekphrastic Review, you are also automatically joining our subscribers' list. Your submission is your permission. We don't send Spam and we don't send many emails- you will not receive forty-four emails a day! Our newsletter occasionally updates you on some of the challenges, news, contests, prize nominations, ekphrastic happenings, prompt ebooks, workshops, and more. 14. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges! 15. 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! 16. Check this space every Friday for new challenges and selected responses, alternating weekly. What a surprise to find this painting one of our most popular challenges so far! It struck a cord with so many of you and we received so many fascinating responses. Thank you as always, to everyone who participated, whether or not your work was chosen this week. These challenges are such a wonderful way to engage with art, experiencing it together with others from around the world. Enjoy this selection of perspectives and talents. The Ekphrastic Review  Les Saltimbanques, by Gustave Dore (France) 1874 Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité Hélène, like her mother before her, was ‘in service’ to the lord of the manor; at least she had somewhere to live. The mice kept her awake at night, creaking wooden stairs to her chamber in the middle of the night kept her alert, but they always stopped halfway and descended again. They’d be the monster. Only 14, kitchen maid to the formidable cook, Madame Puissant. One late night the steps didn’t stop. Her son was born in the hospice de pauvres, the poorhouse. She called him Émile. By the time Émile was four, they travelled with the saltimbanques. The clown had found her when she was begging at the street corner. Her beauty had startled him. The clown was in love. Hélène was grateful. Émile died of consumption before his fifth birthday. A beautiful thought Freedom, equality, And fellowship Rose Mary Boehm Rose Mary Boehm is a German-born British national living and writing in Lima, Peru, and author of two novels as well as six poetry collections. Her poetry has been published widely in mostly US poetry reviews (online and print). She was twice nominated for a Pushcart. DO OCEANS HAVE UNDERWATER BORDERS? (Kelsay Books July 2022) and WHISTLING IN THE DARK (Taj Mahal Publishing House July 2022), are both available on Amazon. Her seventh collection, SAUDADE, will be published by Kelsay early 2023. https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/ ** les saltimbanques write it. the midgets, ventriloquists. write, a sad clown, acrobats, the jugglers. under the big tent the ringmaster. the clapping, the cheering. in narrative painting. oil on canvas. the middle of a muddy field odour of sawdust and straw. write, an accident in the papers. they heard it, the calliope playing. chimes, bells, a band organ. write, carousel uplit by violet-blue. tinsel glitter and spangle. the cracking of a whip. chimpanzee with leash around its neck. the blindfolded pony trotting in circles. animals refused to perform. steel railroad tracks, dirt roads. added grey taupe to the river. family of acrobats whose child died after a fall. Ilona Martonfi Ilona Martonfi is a mother, an activist, an educator, literary curator, poet and an editor. Born in Budapest, Hungary, she has also lived in Austria and Germany. Martonfi writes in seven chapbooks, journals across North America and abroad. Curator of the Argo Bookshop Reading Series. Recipient of the Quebec Writers’ Federation 2010 Community Award. Martonfi lives in Montreal, Canada. The Tempest, Inanna Publications, Spring 2022, is her fifth poetry book. ** Wailing Wall A balanced art composed to bring diagonals of blue, soak red, reflecting acrobatic swing - but shed composure, fallen, bled. Sneer ace of spades in circus grin joins daylight owl awaiting death, hug leotard, pale second skin save flush of loins, last bandaged breath. So close to wight, this white of son, thin border in this fairground haunt, witch, cartomante, bohemian, pietà boy at heart, now taunts. Juggle the trumpet, tambourine. last trump to greet with joys or fears, performance dogs claw, paw with whine, site sheer flesh costumes, drapes in tears. Reading their runes, here parents fail, with tricks of trade done, plain wall-slung, exquisite laid by wailing veil, What cost, the moneymaking young? Stephen Kingsnorth Stephen Kingsnorth (Cambridge M.A., English & Religious Studies), retired to Wales, UK, from ministry in the Methodist Church due to Parkinson’s Disease, has had pieces published by on-line poetry sites, printed journals and anthologies, including The Ekphrastic Review. His blog is at https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com/ ** No Children Dying First Dog, owl, another dog, mother, father, onlookers, decaying wall without a ball, parched air without any hair, flying cockroaches with stinging broaches and blood and tears, all frozen like hope and fear in loved one's breaths, eyelids just before a doctor confirms life or death. And the devil himself hiding in the nails of the hands of the clock that no one saw or cared for much, as such is the destiny, not harmony of the poor folks’ workday that could not keep at bay the passing of their young boy seemingly an animated toy to earn a few more pence, for the future of that tense and the instruments laying nearby transforming into silence now, giving a final bow to the tarot cards semi circled in tow stealing, sealing their fun noting that realism can’t always be twisted into surrealism at the whims and fancies of the gilded age leading Muckrakers, old and neo, to cry hoarse to sign an infinite covenant with God that regardless of greediness, prankishness, unrighteousness, snobbishness, hopelessness of humans, or time, no one should have their children dying first by any devil himself hiding in the nails of the hands of the clock that no one saw or cared for much, as such. Anita Nahal *Muckrakers: Those involved in exposing the ills of capitalism and big business in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the US. Anita Nahal is an Indian-American poet, flash fictionist, children’s writer and columnist. Anita has several books of poetry, one of flash fictions, four for children and three edited anthologies to her credit. Her recent books of poetry include What’s wrong with us Kali women, and Kisses at the espresso bar, by Kelsay Books. Two of her books are prescribed in a course on multiculturalism and immigration at the University of the Utrecht, The Netherlands. Anita teaches at the University of the District of Columbia, Washington DC. Anita is the daughter of Sahitya Akademi award winning Indian novelist, Chaman Nahal and educationist, Sudarshna Nahal. Anita resides in the US with her son, daughter in law and golden doodle. More on her at: https://anitanahal.wixsite.com/anitanahal ** Lament for a Child Acrobat I know now how the Madonna wept. I weep. Alone as the barn owl, The scratch of the dog is ignored. Nothing left of me When death nabs the one Once tethered to my body. I weep as I embrace The lost trace of my son Whose mortality stole The star from my soul. You say, he did not speak, But you saw the dance he jigged Sensory seeking In the atmosphere of being. His winged feet flew to the trapeze Without netting. His beat did not cease In the clamor of the tent, But carried the din of Elephant and trumpet howls Into his core to move the crowd. The tumbler. You, Diablo—my shadow-- Flamed in evil, Background voice, extinguisher of sanity. Father, you say. What father would take away A mother’s son? I question my religion. Is that what He wanted from his plan To save the sinful, abandon the innocent? I should have won our argument. To set our son in the window niche For Nuns of Florence to find him, In the foundling wheel for salvation. My Trovatello, the bell rings for you-- Not to unlatch the infant hatch, But to welcome you, D’Angelo, As my arms pass you, To spin through the firmament Into gloved hands of the Ring Master. Cynthia Dorfman Cynthia Dorfman practices ekphrastic writing as a frequent participant in the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery writing program. She has been a writer, editor, publications manager, and communications director in the public and private sectors. Her most recent work appears in Red Ogre Review. She lives in Maryland in the winter and in Wisconsin in the summer. ** No Jest “I know my sweet” she crooned, holding me, “it is our life, reading cards juggling, training the dogs” Nothing consoled me. It was no jest for father dressed as fool, me a freak child, and today I fell - the court laughed as if part of the act, but our lot has no home, never enough gold to make a life away from performing, animals are better off, at least fed and loved by us, we are just fool entertainers Julie A. Dickson Julie A. Dickson has been a poet for over 50 years, published in many journals including Open Door, Misfit, Blue Heron Review and Ekphrastic Review. Her full length works are available on Amazon. Dickson holds a BPS in Behavioral Science, shares her home with two rescued feral cats and advocates for captive elephants. She has served on two poetry boards, been a guest editor for three journals and is an avid reader. ** With Each Step Encouraging words turn into pressure, My father's voice is all that I gather. He yells and shouts, nothing seems up to his standard - But the sound of the crowd’s laughter, That’s all that matters. I want to sleep yet I stay busy. Each task is harder than the last, My vision becomes so blurry, That I cannot see my own two hands. I dance and perform at my father’s wishes, For a crowd of eyes, they’re all witnesses. With each step I take, I go higher and higher, Til I am at the very top, the top of the ladder. A thin, silver line is all that I focus, As blue and red lights flourish me from a distance. My feet leave the platform, slowly one after another, My father will be pleased, The crowd is full of rapture. I walk in light joy, a bit of worry - For the ground beneath me - becomes a bit blurry. The cheering gets louder - A boulder in my head, It tips me back and forth - I am leaning toward my death. Ava Swanson Ava Swanson is a tenth-grade student who is very passionate about all things literature. When not drowning herself in knowledge, she enjoys digital art and music. ** The Year I Went Without Having Gustave Dore to My House I entertained the idea. Of a red hoop. For which there wasn’t a start or an end. Of a horn. That tried to make sense of our pain. While an angel drew silence. Up over its mouth. I entertained the idea of a dog. Who knew only to howl. And another who knew only to crawl. Across the stars on your gown. Or gnaw, for hours, on your crown. Of a row of cards. That worried the dust. With what must be. Always read into the dark. I entertained the idea. Of an owl. Who was also a prisoner. Of its own useless wisdom. Of three planets. That circled my head. One for each god. Who showed less and less interest in the dead. I entertained the idea. Of an acrobat. Who’d stood by gravity. For far too long. And so would dawn the red scales of a fish. Until his gills clogged. With this sacrificial blood. Mark DeCarteret Poems from Mark DeCarteret’s manuscript The Year I/We Went Without have been taken by The American Poetry Review, Asheville Poetry Review, BlazeVOX, Guesthouse, Hole in the Head Review, Map Literary, On the Seawall, Plume, South Florida Poetry Journal and Unbroken. ** Death Has Come I watch as a mother gently holds her child in her arms. I have come to take him away from her. Out of the corner of his eye, he has seen me but he refuses to look at me further. Instead, he clutches his mother as tightly as he can. He knows I am here for him and it’s only a matter of time before he submits and I take him with me, just as I have taken many before him. The young boy’s parents intrigue me. They seem to be in despair, especially the father. The mother seems to be comforting her son as he slowly slips away from her grasp. They will both hold on for as long as they can, especially the mother. From my experience a mother almost never has a feeble grasp, they seem to be willing to do anything for their children, even giving their lives to me. I never understood human emotions or why these mortal beings feel the way they do, but nonetheless, they fascinate me. I have seen many different emotions inflict themselves upon many. Whenever a human being is in pain or on the verge of death they have this face of deep anguish. Not only does it affects the person who is dying but those around them. The emotions run so deep for some that it’s as if a spear laced with a deadly toxin has impaled their hearts and this face they make is the result. Nonetheless, the boy’s time is up. He says goodbye to his mother and father and I begin to pry him from their hands. He screams and tugs on his mother's dress not ready to let go. What he doesn’t realize is that within my hands I contain the strength of a lion, no one has ever escaped my grasp. After much struggle, I have taken the boy. Where we will go only I know. There is still much work to be done. Justin Perry Justin Perry is a high school senior at Herriman High School in Utah. In his free time he loves to play chess and the violin. ** At a Flea Market Outside Paris, Kentucky People didn’t talk about war overseas-- or the boy maimed from a gangster’s bad aim. He wasn’t white like the little French boy who bled out the length and width of his mother’s womb. In a plastic frame the poster was marked one dollar, one Euro in today’s France. My wife flipped through used vinyl thirty-threes. (She doesn’t see or look for death in the racks.) We joked about Depeche Mode and big hair. I held the dusty print in the sunlight the glass spiderwebbed, a gooey brown stain on his mom’s foot—a whimper from a boy behind us, begging at a pen of pups for a black and white mutt missing a leg. Someone played that song, Personal Jesus. His mom offered ten dollars. We walked out happy—rain tapping, dripping off the tin roof. Robert E. Ray Robert E. Ray is a retired public servant. His poetry has been published by Rattle, Beyond Words International Literary Magazine, Wild Roof Journal, The Ekphrastic Review and in four poetry anthologies. Robert lives in coastal Georgia. ** The Comfort of a Mother The moon and the owl and the darkness of the night have seen me through my highs and lows have comforted me at 2 am when it feels like no one is there and I am all alone. The darkness protects me from those around, manufacturing a blanket so richly dark much like the ones the saltimbanques spread out before every performance. that it envelopes me warm and close like a mother's arms would. The owl hoots in soft syllables, crooning a melody designed just for me much like the tambourines and trumpets keep the beat for the saltimbanques as they cartwheel and acrobat that carries me to a land far away like a mother's bedtime tales would. The moon seems so distant, shining brighter than everything else around much like the performance of the saltimbanques eclipsing the mundane of the everyday that it radiates a warmth so tender and pure like a mother's goodnight kiss would. Poor substitutes though they are, it is now because of my companions three that I am finally free to move from the light into the comforting dark of Nidra*'s nest. Nivedita Karthik *Nidra is the goddess of sleep in Hindu mythology Nivedita Karthik is a graduate in Immunology from the University of Oxford. She is an accomplished Bharatanatyam dancer and published poet. She also loves writing stories. Her poetry has appeared in Glomag, The Society of Classical Poets, The Epoch Times, The Poet anthologies, The Ekphrastic Review, Visual Verse, The Bamboo Hut, Eskimopie, The Sequoyah Cherokee River Journal, and Trouvaille Review. Her microfiction has been published by The Potato Soup Literary Journal. She also regularly contributes to the open mics organized by Rattle Poetry. She currently resides in Gurgaon, India, and works as an senior associate editor. She has two published books, She: The reality of womanhood, and The many moods of water. ** The Price of a Second Red shining, Blood signifying cradling mother holding close holding tight, feeling the warmth letting go How long will he still be alive, how much money do they have, will the funeral cost too much The cards have been forgotten and the dogs have gone quiet the trumpet is silent the balls have gone still and the tambourine is not ringing Don’t breathe don’t move for the moment could be gone hold on before he could be moved on Your child could be dead she sees his red costume, her blue dress the ground, his white makeup the blood she feels the wind, the dogs breath her clothes, her cold child she hears the crowd, mumbled prayers the final breaths of her child she tastes dirt, salt she smells iron Casey Lumley Casey Lumley is a senior at Herriman High School in Herriman Utah who loves singing in a choral ensemble and loves learning computer science. ** The Acrobats To gain money they have killed their child and in killing him they have found out that they had hearts. Gustave Dore Aflame in the glitter of cloth and sequins, the street performers stop to rest. Leaning against the brick wall of a warehouse, the woman holds her injured child and the man looks down watching his shadow engulf stray feathers and rusted nails -- as if he shed the soft and sharp aspects of his own grief. Two hours earlier, everything seemed fine as they jumped and juggled, sprang into space and somersaulted back to earth never thinking their son would be hurt in the final act. The crowd held their breath as the mother hurled the slender boy into the air; and the father prepared to catch him after his backwards flip -- but failed. He fell to the ground and lay unconscious as blood trickled from his brow into the field with its thinning scalp of grass. Some of the locals rushed to help and wrapped the wound in white strips of linen. With no doctor or clinic nearby, they told the parents to take him home. From a distance, someone yelled, it's heartless to risk a child, A sin committed by a heartless heart. The voice trembled with anger as wings rose from the umbrella pines. Crows clothed the wind like the black corner of a veil and muffled its sound Now the judgment resounds within the father's mind as he looks toward his wife, a bereaved madonna burning through the dusk. And he wonders if that voice belonged to the man he glimpsed sketching them during the show. An artist rumored to have come from Montmartre and often known to wear a silk scarf, to paint his subjects with operatic depth. Or maybe -- the husband's blue eyes water, it was God ( in disguise) etching his soul with acid, leaving an echo of indelible guilt. Wendy Howe Wendy Howe is an English teacher and free lance writer who lives in Southern California. Her poetry reflects her interest in myth, diverse landscapes, and ancient cultures. Over the years, she has been published in an assortment of journals both on-line and in print. Among them: The Copperfield Review, Silver Blade Magazine,, The Poetry Salzburg Review, Eye To The Telescope, The Tower Journal and The Orchards Journal. Her most recent work will be forthcoming in Carmina Magazine and Sun Dial Magazine later this year. ** What a Fool! Even though we were mere street performers, we played our roles well. She wore her crown like she’d been born to it, carried herself with grace, never mentioned the father of the child. My only sin – daring fate. She charmed the public. I teased her and the crowd, scooped up coins tossed at our feet. No fool would keep his head after taking such liberties with a real queen. We got by, enough to scrounge up a meal, sometimes a roof over our heads. I should have known. I should have known. A fool and a queen never roll the right dice, never waltz into happily ever after together – just as wee children never take care. Her son slipped doing back flips, banged his head on the cobblestones just before a carriage… She scooped him up, whispered love, rocked him in case he could still hear and feel. She saved her tears for all her tomorrows. Nothing for me to do but sit with her, silent, knowing she’d never risk love again. Alarie Tennille Alarie Tennille graduated from the first coed class at the University of Virginia, where she picked up her B.A. in English, Phi Beta Kappa key, and black belt in feminism. Retired now, Alarie delights in having more time to read, write poetry, and hang out at The Ekphrastic Review. Her latest poetry collection, Three A.M. at the Museum, was named Director’s Pick at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art gift shop. ** Transition "Now he's crying again. I told you he was way too old to look like a baby. No way were you going to pull off Madonna and child. And who even wears that to a Halloween party? We'll never get that blue curtain back on its rail now." Jimmy spat the words at his wife and slumped down on the bench next to her. "What about you? X-men? That's so ten years ago! Who was supposed to be able to tell you were meant to be a Mystique-Dark Phoenix mash-up? And aren't they both girls anyway?" Jenna was tired and their little boy Kyle was feeling very warm to the touch. Kyle settled and moaned gently as he lay across his mother, drifting into a fretful sleep. The background sound of bickering never stopped these days. Jimmy launched into another rant. "And why have we become minders for all these mangy animals? The owl's Kenny's, the wannabe Harry Potter, that thing pawing your skirt is the dumpy little blonde Dorothy 'Toto' and this mongrel in a turban is supposed to be with Ming the Merciless, AKA Gary from Accounts." "Don't ask me, they just turned up. I always seem to attract the waifs and strays." "Huh." Jimmy's sullen demeanour was accentuated by the sallow make-up. "It's not my fault the boss told me he was letting me go next month. There are too few staff to make the store worth running any more so he said it has to close. Anyway, I'm sure I'll get another job soon. A better paid one as well. I heard the company across town is offering twice the hourly rate and they are desperate for new hires." Jenna was feeling desperate too, worrying about Kyle needing a doctor's appointment and all the expense of that. She held her tongue, reluctant to mention this would be Jimmy's third time laid off this year, and she was already working two part-time jobs in addition to looking after Kyle. The other thing on her mind was the fan of cards at her feet. She'd intended just to play a hand of solitaire in this quiet corner when Jimmy had been living it up on the dance floor, but she'd been tempted to test her hand at an old skill. Jenna's mother had always told her she had the gift, if she wanted to use it, one that had skipped her mother's generation but been handed down through a long line of women seers. Now the cards showed her more than she wanted to know. Some people used a tarot deck but even regular playing cards in the right hands could show the future. The one thing that jumped out loud and clear was that there was a time of transition coming. Jenna couldn't yet get a handle on the shape of it, but back in real life, here and now, were Kyle's sickness and Jimmy's lost job and even the endless arguing between them. Jenna hushed Kyle and held him close. She not only had the second sight but also the strength and bravery of her ancestor women in her bones. The only thing for sure right now was that change was coming and she'd need every ounce of courage to face it. Emily Tee Emily Tee writes poetry and flash fiction. She's had pieces published online in The Ekphrastic Review and Visual Verse and in print in various publications from Dreich, as well as several poetry anthologies. She lives in England. ** The Mother holds her Son after Les Saltimbanques by Gustave Dore (1874) and remembering a visit to the Scrovegni Chapel, Padua  Marjory Woodfield Marjory Woodfield is a New Zealand teacher and writer. She's been published by the BBC, Orbis, The Alchemy Spoon, Ekphrastic Review and others. She won the New Zealand Robert Burns Competition ( 2020), the NZSA Heritage Poetry Prize (2022) and was highly commended in the Erbacce International Poetry Prize (2022). She’s been anthologized by Frogmore Press (Pale Fire), Sonder Press (Best Small Fictions) and Bath Flash Fiction (with one eye on the cows). ** Collateral. You sold your child to Death, swapped his flesh one sliver at a time for coin and now you hold his emaciated body, white and fragile as ancient parchment, to your well-fed breasts, knowing you can have another and those breasts will feed your newest source of gold. You wear your bright blue dress and grand tiara shamelessly and ask the cards why the child is gone so soon while the Devil sits beside you in his suit of blood emblazoned with the final tears stolen from a child born from heaven into hell. Linda McQuarrie-Bowerman Linda lives in Lake Tabourie, NSW. She’s written most of her poetry since 2021 and is completing her Degree in Creative Writing at Curtin University. She has so far been published on Viewlesswings.com, in The Ekphrastic Review, Right Hand Pointing, One Sentence Poems, Star 82 Review, Cathexis Northwest Press, with work forthcoming in Misfit, and two pieces selected for Brushstrokes, the 2022 Ros Spencer Poetry Award Anthology and another two poems to be published in the South Coast Writers Centre Digital Anthology Coast. Her poem ‘Shiver’ has been nominated by the Star 82 Review for Best Spiritual Literature, formerly the Orison Anthology. She recently branched into flash fiction and her first piece was short-listed for the 2022 Berry Writers Festival Award. ** Street Circus Aarohi’s smartwatch beeped on her wrist. She was running late for the interview. The sun overhead glared at her through the windscreen like a traffic policeman does at an errant rule-violator. She was surrounded by a sea of blaring horns. Frustrated fellow commuters waited at the edge of the congestion, cursing under their breath. The noisy congregation took up most of the space on the narrow Avenue Road. From the middle of this crowd, appeared a woman in a soiled turquoise saree. Her skin was pale and her hair needed combing. One of the many golden motifs that littered her saree glinted in the sun. She sang a soft folk tune Aarohi had not heard of. A little grey dog was dressed in a ragged brown gown held together by an indigo-coloured belt in the middle. The woman rapped on the tambourine at quick intervals and the dog danced in step with the beat. A man dressed like a clown in a vermilion costume, played a cornet. Aarohi took a deep breath, closed her eyes and resigned to her fate. She was stuck in the middle of a street circus. She was probably not destined to bag the job she had applied for. A loud cheer from the crowd forced her eyes open. The man had erected poles. Between the poles, a thin rope hung in a slight parabola several feet above the tarred road. A little boy who balanced five pots on his head had begun his perilous walk across the rope. Aarohi waited with bated breath. Was the rope tight enough? Were the poles steady? Was it necessary for the boy to be put into jeopardy? Several onlookers threw coins into an aluminium plate at the foot of the pole .Their tokens of appreciation. Suddenly, a tawny owl flew close to the boy. The boy must have lost concentration. The rope began oscillating wildly in the sky. Three seconds later, he crashed onto the tarred road without a scream. The pots scrunched loudly against the tar before being shattered to smithereens. A terracotta shard hit Aarohi’s windscreen. It took some time for the crowd to realise that this was not part of the stunt. Someone shouted, Call for an ambulance. The woman rushed forward and scooped up the boy in a hug. The man offered her a handkerchief with which she tried to clean the gaping wound on the boy’s head. The dog pawed at her wanting to know what happened to his little playmate. Within minutes, the crowd disappeared without a trace. With their path cleared, the vehicles on the road scrambled to make a move. Aarohi saw the driver ahead cast a curious glance at the weeping parents and proceeded with an insouciant shrug. Nobody had the time, Aarohi realised. In her car’s rear view mirror, she saw a balding man with a rotund stomach get out of his midnight-blue Vento and shake his fist menacingly at her. He was clearly asking her not to block his path. It was a quick moment’s decision when Aarohi clambered out and ushered the hapless trio into the back seat of the car. The dog whimpered its way to the passenger seat in the front. Aarohi put her foot down on the accelerator pedal with all her might. She sped through the empty road, searching for signs of a red cross against a white background. Preeth Ganapathy Preeth Ganapathy is a software engineer turned civil servant from Bengaluru, India. Her works have been published in several magazines such as The Ekphrastic Review, Soul-Lit, The Sunlight Press, Atlas+Alice, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Mothers Always Write, Tiger Moth Review and elsewhere. Her microchap, A Single Moment, has been published by Origami Poems Project. She is also a two-time winner of Wilda Morris's Poetry Challenge. ** Outsider Tonight you hold extremes Of suffering and pleasure Like the sun striking horizontal In winter, remorseless- This clown’s garb cannot relieve. Tonight grief separates us such- Our eyes fill with dead tears. Sitting beside a shadow of worship Wrapped in tenderness of the moment, I beckon your spirit- In the fallen colours of autumn. Arms that stretched to a juggler of fortunes On trapeze in belief, in wonder He could bring down the stars unseen- Bejewel the tiara, set the tent canopy exploding. Tonight I besiege you to look at me- Put us in slumber, friends who sing no more, Who relinquish the floor. Abha Das Sarma An engineer and management consultant by profession, Abha Das Sarma enjoys writing the most. Besides having a blog of over 200 poems (http://dassarmafamily.blogspot.com), her poems have appeared in Muddy River Poetry Review, Spillwords, Verse-Virtual, Visual Verse, Sparks of Calliope, Trouvaille Review, Silver Birch Press, here and elsewhere. Having spent her growing up years in small towns of northern India, she currently lives in Bengaluru. ** One Trick Death is working his spindly charm under limelight cowled beneath the straining tent-top’s unbridled joy his tenebrous shape stands buried in canvassed fold bored by his own laughter’s rattle he is scratched into action returning to customary tread soundless, certain shadowed through the brazed serenade of trumpet blown the cheerful yapping of a dancing dog & cosmic sadness’s clowning, he slips unseen between guffaw & sweat of the marvelling mass to turn playful cheer to bleached hue, his frigid breath pushed through perfect teeth, breaks the child’s fine balance father’s catching hand & roused guilt cannot hold those small somersaulting limbs sand and straw no barrier to bleeding internal spilling, filling the big top with awful gasp in his mouth innocence is chewed over spat out thickly into the night air the moon will rise tomorrow, crowds seeking distraction will return without eyes for the vanished boy, who took his last tumble & lies still in a portable wooden box the one trick we all long for cannot be worked no magician can outwit this bony fellow who knows he will dance with us all Simon Parker Simon Parker is a London based writer, performer and teacher. His work been published in The Ekphrastic Review and has been performed at the Lyric Hammersmith Studio, Hackney Empire Studio, The Place, Somerset House, Half Moon Theatre, Southbank Centre, the Totally Thames Festival, and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Simon is an associate artist of Vocal Point Theatre, a theatre company dedicated to telling stories from those not often heard, and providing workshops for the marginalised. He runs creative writing and reading groups for the homeless, socially excluded and vulnerable. If you want to know more go to https://www.simonparkerwriter.com The Purple Velvet Purse I) Exposition: Money, money, money, it’s why we decided to keep him. When Cecille, the Tarot-Card reader, tried to entice him away, swaddling him close to her round, comforting bosom, it took only a short glance across her body, eyes meeting, for us to walk away. As I snatched him from her embrace, his cry a mewling protest, I felt only vindication, Cecille’s tears sealing his fate. Barren Cecille, lusting for the child made me resolute. Like all of our decisions, it was of one accord. We are two of the same, twins separated somehow, then fated together like two sides of the same coin. Both of us were born under the sign of Gemini, light as air but with feet firmly planted in delight, delight that takes money to procure. We ate, drank, danced and sang to one another, for we were flush with talent and lust. Our miserly love, only reserved only for each other, was apparent when we flew! Indeed, we were air-children, floating aloft, over the heads of mere commoners that tossed us a half-weeks wages, imagining themselves high in the atmosphere. Upon the thin wire, or wrapped in rare silks, dangling into free-fall, trusting only one another, complicit in our utterly narcissistic devotion to the exchange. The exchange was a simple proposition: getting the money to leave from any available pocket and into our own purple velvet purse. Cecille at first appeared to be cut from a similar, franc-loving cloth, but alas! She truly had the gift of foresight, and knowing what was coming, what would happen to him at our hands, she begged us on bended knees to give her the child. Her cheeks flushing red, she had offered all she had to give, and though tempted to let the burden go, we had big plans. The future helped us endure the suffering of the present, every hour of lost sleep, every cry. Slipping out at nightfall, we’d sustain ourselves by drinking wine and making love in the moonlight. Ever begrudgingly, we tended to the fragile life. Our hands were our instruments, weary of waiting, waiting for the day that the little bird could pay his way! By flying, of course! A tiny, brittle bird, only by flying could he possibly make our sacrifice worthwhile! The vanity, the sheer excess of it, was absolutely bald. There was simply no way to hide it, and we didn’t even try. 2) Development: We had him on the boards before he was six months old, much to the consternation of our fellows in the troupe. Fortunately for us, the Ringmaster was an avaricious simpleton, content to turn his head for a small pittance. So, we kept on. The child passed between our hands before he could walk, eyes wide with fright or disbelief. His tiny hands, balled into fists, shook at us, and, perhaps, at God, for putting him here, between two hedonistic acrobats. Inside, I knew the truth: a bitch with a dozen pups could have given him more warmth than he got from the two of us together, sad though I am to admit it now! The only time he heard us rejoice was when he finally did it, he finally flew! Holding tightly to the bar, the nets far below, he jumped from me to his laughing, encouraging father. I recall his face: wide and unnatural, with a smile so huge, it swallowed his eyes, his cheeks pinkening with the first blush of weightlessness. Greedily, we watched, vicariously feeling the sensation of first flight while knowing, this was it! This was the big payoff, the peasants would soon stuff our purse to overflowing! The unimaginable draw of a flying baby had become real! Call me the fool, I deserve worse. 3) Recapitulation: The flight was short, uneventful at first. I pushed, his father, suited up like the jester he surely was, caught him, then sent him back. I watched intently, waiting to catch him, already feeling victorious, and…what was that stab in my heart, a sudden stoppage of blood that gripped me like a vise? Oh mon Dieo! Was it fear? Or love? I couldn’t tell. Struck with precognition, I struggled to see anything for a moment. Then clarity: I saw, or imagined I saw, the bent and pleading visage of Cecille. And so he slipped. His tiny hands uselessly grabbed the air, as he fell down, down, down, into the useless net, made only for adults. We did everything together, and this was no exception. The tears in his father’s eyes told me he, too, had felt a puncture, a frightening exposition of what was forthcoming, and the perfect love. That was there too, for both of us, much too little, much too late. In vain, we scurried with him through the streets to the clinic, in vain we waited to hear what we already knew: internal bleeding and a snapped neck. A gift we neither appreciated, nor even knew we had, was gone: gone into the atmosphere, the heavens, the precious air. Afterward: Months of heights never before imagined, recklessness grew outsized and our coffers prospered, the purple purse stuffed to overflowing. Our house was packed with wheat and cheese, but the wires wore thin, always thinner, until the cowards way out beckoned, came closer, overtook us. But first. Not redemption, but practicality. My young sister was wide with child, her man a mercenary, seldom in town, usually surly with drink. She didn’t want the child, but here she was. We called her through a messenger before the poison finished taking hold. For her, a purple velvet purse, an address. For her, care until the child came. For Cecille, another chance. Or maybe the love of her own flesh and blood would reach my sister long before it came for us two. Two cowards, a fool and a jester, eternally reaching out for his hands. Debbie Walker-Lass Debbie Walker-Lass is a poet, artist, literary essayist, and fiction writer living in Decatur, Georgia. Her work has appeared in several journals and magazines, including The Ekphrastic Review, Poetry Quarterly, Haiku Universe, The Light Ekphrastic (forthcoming) and Natural Awakenings, Atlanta. After a long career in Supported Employment and Mental Health, Debbie spends her time reading, writing, working on mixed-media pieces, and beachcombing. ** Les Saltimbanques Marian clutched her child tightly and kissed his forehead to soothe his fears. She did her best to settle her own terror, but the weeping of her child was beginning to seep into the cracks of her facade. She set him down and turned to face the man beside her. “Well, Lucien,” she said, her voice shaking and cracking. “You’ve won. My soul is yours to take.” She stood, wiping her eyes dry of tears and petting the tawny that sat on the bench. It cooed and looked at her with its quizzical eyes, its head tilting slightly. “Yes,” Lucien said. “Yes, I suppose it is…” He was staring at Marian’s child solemnly, seeming lost in thought. He noticed Marian gazing at him, and he cleared his throat, standing to address her. “I have thought deeply about this situation, miss Marian. It is evident that your child is without a father. Am I correct in that inference?” Marian was taken aback. She hadn’t thought that the man would be capable of such emotional thought. “Yes, your grace. He is.” Lucien nodded carefully, looking at the child again. “I will grant you one hour to say your goodbyes, and one more to find this boy a loving home. Should you need my assistance in the latter, you will have my help at your disposal.” He looked at Marian again. “You should use this time wisely, young one. I am not so forgiving in every case.” Marian’s heart was leaping and bounding, both out of joy and of fear. Could this be a trick? Could Lucien be telling her a cruel joke? But… no, his eyes were genuine, and there was no hint of a smile. He was genuinely sorry for Marian’s child. She bit back a sob, tears beginning to stream down her face, and hugged the man. He was no devil; simply a sympathetic man who had lost his way, and wanted to set things as right as he could. Lucien’s eyes went wide, and he stood motionless for a moment before awkwardly wrapping one arm around the woman. He squeezed gently and let go, gesturing for her to take the child and walk away. At that moment, he decided that he wouldn’t enforce the deal he had made with her. He made a mental note to burn the contract, and, at the end of the first hour he had given the woman, send a message to notify her. As she walked away, he noticed that his cheek was wet. He wiped it, finding a trail of water trickling down from his eye. A hint of a smile tugged at the corner of the man’s lips before he turned and vanished into a nearby alley. Lucien—the Devil himself—had shed a tear. Cody Graham Cody Graham is 18, and a senior at Herriman High School.  Join The Ekphrastic Review live on zoom for a wine and art write night with Frida Kahlo. The magnificent Mexican artist is known for her passionate love marriage to Diego Rivera, her lifelong illnesses, and for her determination to live life on her own terms. We will relax together, discuss Frida's artwork, and use it to inspire our own writing, whether poetry or fiction.
Click on image above to sign up, or to purchase gift certificates for our workshops to give as holiday gifts.  Guernica, by Pablo Picasso (Spain) 1937 Join us for biweekly ekphrastic writing challenges. See why so many writers are hooked on ekphrasis! We feature some of the most accomplished, influential writers working 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 Guernica, by Pablo Picasso. Deadline is November 25, 2022. You can submit poetry, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, microfiction, or any other form creative writing you like. 1000 words max please. 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. There is no mandatory submission fee, but we ask you to consider a voluntary donation to show your support to the time, management, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review. It takes an incredible amount of time to curate the journal, read regular and contest submissions, etc. Paying all expenses out of pocket is also prohibitive. Thank you. A voluntary gift does not affect the selection process in any way. 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 PICASSO 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 piece. 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 EST, November 25, 2022. 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. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we will no longer send out sorry notices or yes letters. You will see what poetry and stories have been selected when the responses are posted one week after the deadline. Understand that we value your participation as part of our ekphrastic community, but we can only choose a handful of the many entries we receive. 12. A word on the selection process: we strive for a balance between rewarding regular participants and sharing the voices of writers who are new to our family. We also look for a variety of perspectives and styles, and a range of interesting takes on the painting. It is difficult to reproduce experimental formatting, so unfortunately we won't choose many with unusual spacing or typography. 13. By submitting to The Ekphrastic Review, you are also automatically joining our subscribers' list. Your submission is your permission. We don't send Spam and we don't send many emails- you will not receive forty-four emails a day! Our newsletter occasionally updates you on some of the challenges, news, contests, prize nominations, ekphrastic happenings, prompt ebooks, workshops, and more. 14. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges! 15. 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! 16. Check this space every Friday for new challenges and selected responses, alternating weekly. Dear Readers and Writers, Just a friendly editorial note to say thank you for being part of The Ekphrastic Review. Just by reading the poetry and stories in this journal, you are generously supporting the work of these wonderful writers! If we are small compared to massive news media outlets or best-selling mainstream novel publishers, these words still matter. We are participating in so many layers of communication, between artists from all over the world, from different times, between writers and readers. Each artwork chosen for these challenge prompts aims to provide variety, mystery, and inspiration to writers, to take your writing in unexpected directions. Whether you let the work speak to you viscerally or stimulate free associations, or you play detective and look for any backstory that might get woven into your words, my goal is always to give you a rich experience. Encounters with art are the blood of ekphrasis, and define our whole raison d'être here at the Review. Whether your work is selected this time or next, or not, we strive to include a variety of perspectives and approaches to every painting. We strive to welcome new voices and honour faithful participants, too. It is not possible to publish every entry, every time, but we are so grateful to every one of you for participating in this journey as part of this community. If the work of writing and writers, or artists, means something to you, we ask you please to share these challenge pages and The Ekphrastic Review in general on your Facebook or Twitter pages and in your newsletters, groups, and beyond. Every additional reader matters to a writer. This small action that you may not even think about is huge. Every time you've mentioned a poetry book on your page or shared a writer's post, you have participated in the support of creation, expression, and dialogue. THANK YOU. We also invite you to spread the love and invite someone into ekphrasis by giving an ekphrastic workshop to a friend, to a young writer, or to someone who may not have the means to participate. Our single-session Zoom workshops generate amazing conversations about art and artists and they're fun, too, with a variety of creative writing exercises. They are about connection, creativity, and conversation. We have gift certificates for the holidays that can be redeemed for any workshop in 2023. There will be sessions on single artists, on various themes in art, and wine and art write nights. One of the gift certificates is to give away, and one is to join as a friend at a discount. We also have a collage themed workshop coming very soon, and a Frida Kahlo night for wine and art. These workshops have nurtured ekphrastic writing, grown our community, and helped this journal survive. THANK YOU. love, Lorette  Señor de los Milagros, Sanctuary of Las Nazarenas, Lima, Peru, possibly by Benito or Pedro Dalcon (Peru, b. Angola) early to mid 1600s. photo by Miguel Chong, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.  Anne Graue Anne Graue is the author of Full and Plum-Colored Velvet, (Woodley Press, 2020) and Fig Tree in Winter (Dancing Girl Press, 2017) and has poetry in SWWIM Every Day, Verse Daily, Rivet Journal, Mom Egg Review, Flint Hills Review, Feral: A Journal of Poetry and Art, and in print anthologies, including The Book of Donuts (Terrapin Books, 2017) and Coffee Poems (World Enough Writers, 2019). Her book reviews appear in FF2 Media, Adroit, Green Mountains Review, Glass Poetry Journal, and The Kenyon Review. She is a poetry editor for The Westchester Review. ** Hope Radiating strength and virtue with every step he took, He slowly healed our broken community, Shaping it into one never before seen. He was created free of sin and He wanted that for us too, For the shackles of sin to be no more. Out of love for his brothers and sisters He promised to undergo the excruciating death of crucifixion, finally liberating us from its restraints. Honoring his promise, he was nailed to the cross. His mother’s presence emitted a hopeful glow, One that spread to those around her. Gazing at her with weary eyes, He laid down his life Becoming enveloped with love And the pain was no more. Evelyn Sanchez Evelyn Sanchez is a senior at Miss Porter's School in Farmington, CT. She is taking an Advanced Latin course about the Aeneid and has been studying the ancient ekphrases that occur throughout the epic poem. ** The Miracle Man Somehow, almost four hundred years ago, you created A grand Baroque crucifixion icon in the Spanish style With the whole cast of characters included, Golden light glowing on the Trinity, The Holy Mother, enrobed in lapis blue, her hands upheld in prayer, And cochineal blood mixed with groveling Magdalene’s tears In the dark dirt at the foot of the cross. The four corners are lost in mysterious darkness, And shadows linger on the human faces too, Visages that will never smile. Somehow, this holy icon gave birth to a healing miracle, Then engendered more miracles Then a religious festival, the largest on earth Still alive in Lima in the high cold mountains at the end of the world-- Processions in the streets with your masterpiece held high, And thousands of followers, purple decorations everywhere, special snacks and pastries, Even bull fights, and masses every day Turning remote Lima into an October carnival better than Mardi Gras. But everyone seems to have forgotten you. Who were you anyway? What was your name? Benito? Pedro? Surely you had an Angolan name in your homeland Before the Portuguese slave traders sold you to a Spaniard with a Huge gold crucifix around his neck, an image of a wounded man, bleeding, dying. As your captor hauled you in chains to his smelly galleon, filled with gold and slaves, You looked into that necklace as a mirror, and saw a suffering man, like you. Your mother, dressed in blue cloth, dyed with indigo from the fields, Stood on the dock tall and dignified, not screaming and cursing The demon who dragged you away, but chanting a blessing for you in your new life, The girl you loved since childhood, standing beside her, red flowers in her hair. You saw many Spaniards in the years to come, and they all wore A heavy chain around their necks and a gold crucifix, the totem of their tribe As though they were the slaves in chains of the wounded man. Did one of the other slaves tell you that the man on the cross came back to life? And did you later learn that this re-born man was a miracle worker? There is nothing a slave needs more than a miracle, and painting was yours. Did the holy women’s blessing chant echo in your ears as your scarred hands Worked with the brushes, the colours, the shadings of darkness and light And you came to recognize the wounded man who came back to life, El Señor De Los Milagros, as your twin? Rose Anna Higashi Rose Anna Higashi is a retired professor of English Literature, Japanese Literature, Poetry and Creative Writing. Her poetry journal, Blue Wings, was published by Paulist Press. In 2022, her poems have appeared in The Avocet, PoetsOnline, The Ekphrastic Review, The Agape Review and The Catholic Poetry Room. Many of her lyric poems and haiku can be viewed on her website: myteaplanner.com, which also publishes her monthly blog, Tea and Travels. Rose Anna lives in rural Hawaii with Wayne, her husband of nearly sixty years. ** The Cloth The perizoma and tear drinking handkerchief were cut from the same cloth, divided down the middle into seemingly independent realities. Within him an unknowing turns the cloth into a shroud, sorrow and shame softening to a rain and in her hands a cloud. A backdrop of gathering night, dark clouds merge in the gloaming-- a singular cloth becomes a canvas for an artist. Christopher Martin Christopher Martin: "I am a poet/lyricist and Buddhist living on the North East coast of England. My work has featured in various publications and competitions. I am currently working on my debut collection, due out 23/24 with the Black Cat Poetry Press." ** From Lima to St. Mary's School -a sestina bursts and blooms and a sky fired by clouds childhood rises and quakes Stop! with sorrow gaze up gaze down there is no reflection some may find comical this search for peace shades of red on red on red on red pain they were as always there to take those prayers small child uses the earth to make his prayer he can’t be seen there might be in the clouds or being hidden in robes of deep pain so what? others here were downed by sorrow colored clothes and folded hands don’t mean peace look again! tell me there’s a reflection the columns shed the only reflection a shame there was no other place for prayer above the christ hovered the dove of peace the only light an orb in auburn clouds the sense in this work is the same sorrow as the walls of St. Mary’s walls of pain the father the son their plan of great pain holy spirit sings whites of reflection there was confusion amid the sorrow what could they use for clarity but prayer though we know that at the end under clouds we know there were two marys who brought peace Magadalene and Nazareth embraced peace with impossible and angering pain a child I was swaddled years in clouds god omnipresent yet no reflection god’s sky was the sepia of our prayers the mahogany of our young sorrow yes this painting brings up all the sorrow but that is not to say there was no peace an altar boy at st mary’s school prayers memorized stations of the cross all pain we children taught the grace of reflection taught that one day we’d ascend through the clouds encompassing the sorrow of the clouds the days of peace and mary’s reflection st mary’s prayers and years to handle pain John L. Stanizzi John L. Stanizzi is author of many collections including Ecstasy Among Ghosts. Besides The Ekphrastic Review, John’s work has been widely published including in Prairie Schooner, The New York Quarterly, Rattle, and many others. His work has been translated into Italian, including in El Ghibli, The Journal of Italian Translations Bonafini, Poetarium, and others. His translator is the Italian poet, Angela D’Ambra. A former Wesleyan University Etherington Scholar, and New England Poet of the Year (1998), John has just been awarded an Artist Fellowship in Creative Non-Fiction from the Connecticut Office of the Arts and Culture for work on his new memoir. He teaches literature at Manchester Community College in Manchester, Connecticut, and lives with his wife, Carol, in Coventry, CT. https://www.johnlstanizzi.com ** No Doubt (a fibonacci poem) God is watching the tableau below. Does He see or care about the suffering of the crucified soul bleeding, groaning on the cross. Women nearby watch, stay close, feel nearly as much pain as the dying man, hear his plea: forgiveness for all. Delivered, every word heard. Tina Hacker Tina Hacker’s newest poetry collection is titled Golems, published by Kelsay Books. The poems are based on the magical mud and clay creature from Jewish folklore who is conjured from the earth to accomplish a task. After fulfilling it and often having a good time, the golem returns to the earth. Tina has authored two previous collections of poetry: Listening to Night Whistles and Cutting it. In 2016 she was named a Muse of The Writers Place in Kansas City, MO, and currently serves as the poetry editor for Veterans’ Voices, a national magazine of writing by military veterans. Tina has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize four times. ** The Women Stayed In the midst of death’s horror defying priests and fierce centurions two women stayed, braved it all to be sure his spirit would not be alone as it left this earth, left the body broken for our sins. Faces brown like the slave who painted it, a humble man acknowledged them, showing the world women stayed and braved, as even now women, girls march, heads uncovered for a girl whose death they could not attend, march for freedom to live, to speak for the right to live a life unburdened by today’s centurions Like the women at the cross, it is our mission not just to watch and wait but to speak and act to defy evil when we see it, to remain faithful until the end so the world can witness resurrection. Joan Leotta Joan Leotta plays with words on page and stage. She performs tales featuring food, family, and strong women. Her essays, poems, and fiction are in or soon will be appearing in The Ekphrastic Review, Pinesong, Brass Bell, Verse Visual, anti-heroin chic, Gargoyle, Silver Birch, Ovunquesiamo, Verse Virtual, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Yellow Mama, and others. She’s a 2022 Pushcart nominee, received Best of Micro Fiction, 2021 (Haunted Waters), nominee for Best of the Net, 2023 and was a 2022 runner up in Frost Foundation Poetry Competition. Her first chapbook, Languid Lusciousness with Lemon came out in 2017 from Finishing Line Press. Her second chapbook, Feathers on Stone, is coming in late 2022 from Main Street Rag. ** Brush with Death So how compute ‘Adobe’ word, so far from mudbrick, Spanish name? But rammed earth term must bear its load, through water, straw and earthy dung. That soil of sand with silt or clay, and straw - it binds, not breaking back - those bricks dry on an even keel - no cracking, shrinkage in the wall. So rooted, firmly in the earth, Angolan slaves who brush with death would raise the Christ, redemption hope, that vision reaching through the pain. ‘The Lord of Miracles’, renamed, an altar piece to alter peace, yet stood assured as quakes shook world; how was its reputation gained, from wishful thinking, bonded men? And still today, the festivals shift focus from the trembling known to what might be in heaven’s orb - so much to bear in deep Peru. Street celebrations of the crowds; scene linked back to the chains that bound; new tremors warded off from ground - the daily grind, mass chasm bridged. Stephen Kingsnorth Stephen Kingsnorth (Cambridge M.A., English & Religious Studies), retired to Wales, UK, from ministry in the Methodist Church due to Parkinson’s Disease, has had pieces published by on-line poetry sites, printed journals and anthologies, including The Ekphrastic Review. His blog is at https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com/ ** Miracles I Nails pierce through palms that healed the poor, hammer through hands that blessed, broke bread, scald through feet shod with Earth’s sawdust—so to raise the dead. II Under clouds’ turmoil, below the hover-shadow of a sacred bird, rooted in clay yet hung from the stars, the Lord of miracles is manacled to a cross, pinned by the indignation of Pharisee and Sadducee, spiked by rank hypocrisy of Roman rulers. He has no feet to run away, no hands to raise with pleas of Cease! Instead, He’s bound and broken, head bowed down, quivering as the world shakes, as the whole Earth quakes below heaven’s high, high arch, and darkness floods all cosmic space. III Through the blood-blurred wilderness of his distress, Christ sees their piteous faces; looks deep into their treasuries—loves and lives and memories-- sees beyond their modest shawls, their homespun veils: not to damn them (Neither do I condemn you), nor to show contempt (This woman welcomed me with tears for water to wash my weary feet, with hair for a towel to dry them), but to offer love not ever shown before to women in this way. In His mild eyes, they’re beautiful, these Marys of Jerusalem. In His listening ears they murmur love truer than any mourning doves’. IV The Temple curtain tears in two. Earth’s bedrock shatters. The Maker of the universe has now unmade Himself to raise us to the miracles of life, eternal life. Lizzie Ballagher British by birth, Ballagher has lived and worked over seven decades on both sides of the Irish Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, often near coastlands. Never having had a collection of her landscape poetry published, Ballagher is currently working on a sequence of poems about Exmoor (UK). Recently one of these was chosen as winner in Poetry on the Lake's 2022 formal category with a pantoum about Tarr Steps in mid-Exmoor: https://www.poetryonthelake.org/competition ** Afterward, The Pieta They do not lay Him in my lap; they throw Him dead at my feet in a merciless pose, the immodesty of His groin cloth—displaced, genitalia exposed. My child, my Jesu. I rush to cover Him. My blue veil turning violet where it hits His hands, His feet, His side… I, the while, careful to keep my eyes downcast—as not to stir suspicion. I nod for John to assist me... Joseph’s makeshift stretcher waiting to spirit Him home. His wife, Magdalene, remains frozen and immovable. “I’ll take you with me,” I whisper, “until he returns to claim you.” A 2023 Best of the Net poetry nominee by The Ekphrastic Review, Keith Hoerner’s work has been anthologized often. He has been published in 100+ literary journals across five continents and is founding editor of the Webby / Communicator Award recognized Dribble Drabble Review, in addition to a Best Book / American Writing Award Finalist. ** thaumaturgy the interior is impossible to describe—it never reveals itself, remains always turned inside out—desire travels through it furtively, a passenger blindfolded to the hidden landscapes, the locations of both boundaries and doors, embedded and concurrently refused both entry and exit-- totally submerged by secrets, drowning in the unexplained Kerfe Roig A resident of New York City, Kerfe Roig enjoys transforming words and images into something new. Follow her explorations on her blogs,https://methodtwomadness.wordpress.com/ (which she does with her friend Nina), and https://kblog.blog/. ** Swell of Faith Becoming Wall In poor indentured neighbourhood, a house of friars stalwart stood as message that the soul was free and sacrifice was priceless fee for seed of opportunity to bloom as blessed community... ...and thus within, on wall of clay, an artist humble would portray the sacrifice unrecognized that would so precious be so prized as proof of everlasting hope the dawn renews for those who cope with shackles holding spirit fast to yesterday's repeated past... ...and so its home became enshrined as oracle where hearts divined the courage to make dreams persist where means were meager to enlist... ...and then, it seemed as no surprise, when quaking earth became demise of heaven's house, the wall would stand where still the art of humble hand remained as beacon left to see a future brighter yet to be... ...where grateful hearts would recreate the art in oils to venerate as icon of a festive feast to honor hope among the least who line the streets where nature's wrath became its restoration path and celebrate foundation laid where fear will never more dissuade... ...the swell of faith becoming wall of souls embraced resisting fall. Portly Bard 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. Ekphrastic joy comes not from praise for words but from returning gaze far more aware of fortune art becomes to eyes that fathom heart. ** Que Es El Milagro? What is the miracle? Is it that a beautiful mural was painted on an adobe wall by an African slave? Is it that after the earthquake, when almost all had been destroyed, the adobe wall remained intact despite the surrounding monastery being rubble? Is it the number of miracles attributed to the painting? Or is it that almost three centuries on the people of Lima venerate it still? The real miracle is exactly what is seen. Pure, unconditional Love nailed to a cross. Forgiveness and Redemption nailed to a cross. Free Salvation and eternal life for all who seek it. Este es el verdadero milagro! Stephen Poole Stephen Poole served for 31 years in the Metropolitan Police in London, England. As a freelance journalist his articles and interviews have appeared in a variety of British county and national magazines. His poetry has been published in The Ekphrastic Review, Poetry on the Lake, LPP Magazine and four anthologies with a fifth anthology due to publish more of his work soon. ** Mary Magdalene "...the inner life---the imagination or the spirit---is not some trick of culture, or upbringing or even genetics, but an actual different order of reality....so that when they looked at love---as when they looked at literature or prayer---they were like children baffled by one of those optical illusion drawings: They saw the two profiled faces but couldn't make out the grail formed in between." Andrew Klavan, Shotgun Alley "....all souls, turned toward one another, while we pass through a softer wind." John Freeman, Wind, Trees And when the white dove appeared above Christ's head in a painting, its haloed wings spread over your cross, mi companero--in--love and adversity I prayed to El Señor de los Milagros for a miracle; for your beloved hand to break free of pain --- the nails biting your flesh --- so I could feel your blessing touch my bowed head as I knelt down near your feet as your body hung, crucified, como un ciero, hunted and killed. Away from this place of sorrow --- of hatred and hypocrisy --- there is a country with a magical legend about Lovers, how they were protected by the spirit of a Great White Hart a magical being from the family of Cervidae who watched from deep within the ancient forest when they met there, clandestine, beneath trees in a clearing, the stag's eyes filled with compassion beneath his massive crown of horns. Some say women with red hair are witches, filled with sexual need but you loved me, believed I was the girl whose fiery passion could not save you. Death calls, now, from gnarled branches and golden columns of Cathedrals nature sinned against, though I carried ripe berries to a woodland altar, and Mary your mother, will wear a sky-blue cloak for eternity, surrounded by a court of clouds; while I, a sorry sister, will dress in black, hidden by bias, controversial in biblical literature though I cherish drops of your blood, like freckles on my cheeks, mingled with the salt of tears when the night is my diminished companion until you rise, emanating sunlight and I reach the safety of a foreign shore carrying our future. Anonymous, I will look for lavender, purple as a bruise healing in the red earth of Provence where your soul is my chosen landscape --- votre ame est un paysage choisi --- and that beneficent light called sun and moon are perpetual children, free of sin even in twilight, our collateral fruit, free roots in a vineyard with Blue Apples. Laurie Newendorp Laurie Newendorp lives and writes in Houston. Her recent book, When Dreams Were Poems, 2020, explores the relationship between art and life in dreams, surreality and poetry. Honoured multiple times by The Ekphrastic Review, her poems have been nominated for the Pablo Neruda Prize and Best of The Net. She received second place in the Houston Poetry Fest's Ekphrastic Contest, and she has been listed by The Ekphrastic Review as a Fantastic Ekphrastic. Mary Magdalene is designated the Patron Saint of women. Along with enigmatic references to her secret and controversial existence, she is associated with the words "Blue Apples" found on tombstones in southern France where there is a basilica dedicated to her in a medieval town outside Aix-en-Provence. Beneath a crypt in the church, there is a glass dome said to contain the relic of her skull. **
 Les Saltimbanques, by Gustave Dore (France) 1874 Join us for biweekly ekphrastic writing challenges. See why so many writers are hooked on ekphrasis! We feature some of the most accomplished, influential writers working 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 Les Saltimbanques, by Gustave Dore. Deadline is November 11, 2022. You can submit poetry, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, microfiction, or any other form creative writing you like. 1000 words max please. 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. There is no mandatory submission fee, but we ask you to consider a voluntary donation to show your support to the time, management, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review. It takes an incredible amount of time to curate the journal, read regular and contest submissions, etc. Paying all expenses out of pocket is also prohibitive. Thank you. A voluntary gift does not affect the selection process in any way. 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 DORE 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 piece. 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 EST, November 11, 2022. 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. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we will no longer send out sorry notices or yes letters. You will see what poetry and stories have been selected when the responses are posted one week after the deadline. Understand that we value your participation as part of our ekphrastic community, but we can only choose a handful of the many entries we receive. 12. A word on the selection process: we strive for a balance between rewarding regular participants and sharing the voices of writers who are new to our family. We also look for a variety of perspectives and styles, and a range of interesting takes on the painting. It is difficult to reproduce experimental formatting, so unfortunately we won't choose many with unusual spacing or typography. 13. By submitting to The Ekphrastic Review, you are also automatically joining our subscribers' list. Your submission is your permission. We don't send Spam and we don't send many emails- you will not receive forty-four emails a day! Our newsletter occasionally updates you on some of the challenges, news, contests, prize nominations, ekphrastic happenings, prompt ebooks, workshops, and more. 14. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges! 15. 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! 16. Check this space every Friday for new challenges and selected responses, alternating weekly. Guest editor's note: I feel so rich—I know, a crazy word to use here, but “rich” feels right—after having read all these extraordinary submissions from all corners of this planet on which we continually work to open ourselves to each other and to make joy. It’s a challenge—the open and the joy. And so was it to select work here. I gave myself a numerical limit. A combination of energy and craft and some alchemy that sometimes found disparate people I don’t know writing threads of my story that they have no reason to be aware of (some aren’t out there at all) is what led me to these works. I could do nothing but take you in. With gratitude to all of you who submitted. With gratitude to this place for our words. With gratitude to Lorette for asking me. Always, Annaliese  Time-Molt, Tender, by Annaliese Jakimides (USA) 2022 Red Sky at morning or night? I knew the rhyme once before dawn and dusk became jelly became a fluid mass splattered on the horizon before they stole the hands of clocks my watch leaving their naked faces round with shock she’s late again the carer the girl with the copper hair who never stops to chat pushed for time she claims I’m not surprised the way she fills these walls with her life story then cries at my annoyance no sign of my boy I’ve been watching the tan scum of tea ride the cup no idea who put it there where is he? came last autumn brought roses from his garden a car is reversing now fading odd same make as my son’s she’s back the carer the girl with the copper hair claims to be my daughter as if I’m a fool as if I’d forget her nearly seven years old loves the wig in that dress up box of memories just out of reach like the words to that rhyme Kate Young Kate Young lives in England and her poems have appeared in various webzines, magazines, and Chapbooks. Her work has also featured in the anthologies Places of Poetry and Write Out Loud. Her pamphlet A Spark in the Darkness has been published by Hedgehog Press and her next pamphlet Beyond the School Gate has been accepted for publication in 2023. Find her on Twitter @Kateyoung12poet. ** Elsewhere I still live in our house by the sea. It’s been so long since you’ve been gone, but each day I carry out our routines of walking on the beach and embracing the sunset with a drink on the terrace. Stargazing at night, welcoming the new moon and its phases. I’m alone, but not lonely. Memories keep me company. Sometimes I force myself to do something different. Once or twice a month I go to the pub and socialize with the locals, but I feel lonelier in crowd. I don’t know how else to explain this. The other day I thought I’d change my walking venue and ventured into the forest. It was in its autumnal attire, the mix of colours from red to orange and brown. A delight for the eyes. I strolled upon the fallen leaves, tossed them in the air and stood under their colourful shower. It was amazing. Then I came to an opening where the forest ended. I kept walking until I arrived at a place where there were three circles, each drawn by chalk or lime. They weren’t far from each other but distinctly separate. I knew they were portals to take me to you. Not knowing which one to take, I returned home and went to sleep thinking about them. In my dream you asked, “How to do you know they were portals?” “It’s just a gut feeling,” I replied. “Maybe they were stone circles?” “There were no stones. I observed each one carefully.” “You do realize I’m elsewhere.” “I know, but, maybe, just maybe I can visit you wherever you are.” “What if you end up in the wrong place, at the wrong time?” “I’ve thought about that, too. It’s still worth taking a chance. The odds are probably 50-50. My life is very boring now, perhaps this will bring some excitement.” “What if you arrive at a horrible place among hostile people?” “What if I end up with you?” “I’d love that, but you know you can’t change the past. The only thing you can change is the present and your future will be a result of that.” “There you go, you said it. How do you know we can’t change the past? We are wiser now, aren’t we? We probably learned something from the experience. Perhaps we can be more proactive than reactive.” “How would you know which portal to take?” “I’ll trust my gut feeling. Not the one on the left. Maybe the centre, or the one on the right. Centre, I’m thinking. Safer.” “My love, this is a treacherous journey.” “I know, but what if I choose the right portal and be with you again?” “It’ll end up the same.” “How do you know? Even if it does, I’d still cherish the time I’d be able to spend with you.” “There’s no stopping you.” “No.” The following morning, I walked through the forest, stood in the middle of the centre circle, and closed my eyes. Praying, hoping. Behind closed eyes, I could see beams of light. Reds, oranges, yellows of autumn. Then the colours changed, to purple, magenta, indigo, azure, and pale blue. I was transported elsewhere. Sebnem E. Sanders Sebnem E. Sanders lives on the Southern Aegean coast of Turkey and writes short and longer works of fiction. Her stories have appeared in various online literary magazines, and two anthologies. Her collection of short and flash fiction stories, Ripples on the Pond, was published in December 2017. More information can be found at her website where she shares some of her work: https://sebnemsanders.wordpress.com/ ** A Tender Place If you could see me through my living room window, you’d know I’m at home in this clatter of colour, slight tinkle of teacups, a salamander woven from pineapple fibres climbing the wall. It’s here I keep company with the bright blue peacock, a mask from Bali, and its mate, a red-gold lion’s head with bulging eyes. Here I drink my solitary coffee like the unknown characters in Hopper’s Nighthawks diner. Sometimes, I grow dizzy, images swirling around my head, like the stars in Van Gogh’s Starry Night. Or sit at my computer wishing to stroll through Pissarro’s garden with its Plum Trees in Blossom. I find balance in art, where my spirit hums, trying to harmonize, accept how life gives and takes away. Divorce from the first husband, death of the second. One moment lost in grief, the other captivated by a good book about someone else’s life. Here, I can muse about time—how it molts memories the way birds molt feathers when they’re not needed for movement or courtship. Where I can feel tender. Sandi Stromberg Sandi Stromberg lives in a house filled with an assemblage of colorful, eclectic artworks, as well as masks and rocks collected by her geologist husband. Her poetry has been nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize and twice for Best of the Net. Published in many small literary journals and anthologies, she is a dedicated contributor to The Ekphrastic Review, which has honoured her with one of its Fantastic Ekphrastic Awards. She has also contributed to the Review’s “Throwback Thursday” and been a guest judge. ** Keeping Watch Ghostly bicycles, or are they coiled snails, announce the presence of the animal world. Perhaps the painter is hiding, perhaps she's decided not to reveal her signature presence. The world of time reverses itself as a plunge of green and blue. Orange is the colour of time forgetting. You once said we must open all doors to perception. But it wasn't you, was it, permitting the alteration of time? Colors collapsing onto themselves, tender remnants like the one eye looking out from the sea, keeping watch from this new orientation. Kathleen Ellis Kathleen Ellis’s most recent poetry collections are Outer-Body Travel and Narrow River to the North. Her manuscript Body of Evidence won the 2022 Grayson Books Poetry Contest. Her poems have recently appeared in The Café Review and in the anthologies Rumors, Secrets, and Lies; A Dangerous New World: Maine Voices on the Climate Crisis; and Enough!: Poems of Resistance and Protest. A recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Maine Arts Commission, and the Pablo Neruda Poetry Prize from Nimrod magazine, she teaches poetry and creative writing at the University of Maine, Orono. ** The maximum load a material can bear when stretched without fracturing. I am seven, walking in the woods at Burnham Beeches, snuffling for treasure in the leaf litter, like a well-trained hound for truffles. My father keeps me on a short leash. I find a small skull in the bronze crunch, under mouldy rotten branches and fresh fallen beech mast. We learn Tudor Times at church school: pollarding, coppicing, sheep shearing, wattle and daub, timber framed building, how cows and sheep and pigs grazed on common land before enclosure, how snouts and trotters rummaged free range in these woodlands, how wild boar gave birth in springtime to striped piglets with waggling tails, snorting, eating violets. I put the skull in my pocket, climb trees and eat rose hips. Years later, I find it, on my father’s birthday—14th October—sorting through detritus, in the family home reclaimed by ivy, piles of decomposing scores, rusty paperclips, coffee grounds and teabags, wool and feathers, in the rain-soaked roofless study. Mice nest in shreds of Mozart music, clippings of cricket matches and clock mechanisms. Broken lightbulbs cocooned with spiders’ webs and moth wings, crunch underfoot in stagnant puddles. Rolls of sellotape and a set of Narnia Chronicles grow ears of glowing orange jelly fungi. The desk crumbles. It trembles with beetles. I smell the rotten branches, berries and autumn forest floor from childhood. Brambles crack apart the stonework. In the Highlands, cottages were cleared for grazing. Sheep made more profit for lairds from grassland. Tenants starved or fled to fish or emigrated. I remember the lanolin grease of sheep fleece between my fingers. While lawyers wrangle, my family home falls into strata, sinks as layers of sediment in a murky river, falls into mulch like copper beech leaves, a merz of medicine cabinets, chair legs, vinyl records, concert tickets, pearl bracelets, moth-eaten wool blankets and mouse excrement. Swallows circle overhead calling into the last top corner of sunlit ice-blue. Air-filled aerodynamic skulls slicing through the storm clouds. Paedomorphic skulls under a thin shield of flesh and feathers. Neither fibre glass nor bamboo is stronger than this two-phase composition of collagen and calcium. This bird’s pneumatised skeleton, inherited from dinosaurs, has incredible intrinsic tensile strength and is perfectly adapted to flight and thousand-mile migrations. Saskia Ashby Saskia is a poet/artist/academic in the UK. ** Time-Molt, Tender, by Annaliese Jakimides It’s all there: The dusk, the wind The monarchs And the autumn leaves The bicycle you crashed, And the wire fence Petals of sunflowers Cactus, carpet, Grass that arrived home On a picnic blanket Honeycomb and hot asphalt Black seed of illness, grief Pressed between the thin Rice paper of your chrysalis This oldest metaphor For powerlessness, Risk When Time becomes merely The snake-skin of your eternity What thrills Is this most human pain: No choice Over the colour Of your next wings. Jenna Funkhouser Jenna Funkhouser is a poet and artist living in Portland, Oregon, recently published by Spiritus Journal, As It Ought To Be, and the Saint Katherine Review, among others. Two of her poems won first place in the Oregon Poetry Association’s 2022 Spring Contest. https://jennakfunkhouser.com ** Mother Onion I can’t think of my mother without thinking of onions and vice versa. She loved those vidalias and spoke sweetly to them as she cut, but the purple onions were her nemesis and she drowned them into submission. Such was her way in the kitchen and the car where she trapped me with her perfume neck and her clutch foot pressed to the floor. She was a manual driver in an automatic world. And green with envy. She was hard like a shell by the time I came along for the second half of her story. Narrative is a series of scratches or so I’m told which is not as comforting as you might think. There was a song she used to sing, but the words escaped her and she had to make up her own. The melody never suffered though. Sad. There was not enough sky in her life and we all knew it. Sometimes I could almost see through her skin to the tender girl she once was, but the scales were tightly woven and I didn’t have the tools or the fortitude to handle such danger. I would’ve carried her around in a pillowcase if I could’ve to keep us both safe. We joke, but swimming was never a hobby for her but a means of survival. The fish rots from the head she said over and over again in the weeks before her death and for once she was telling the truth. Crystal Karlberg Crystal Karlberg is a Library Assistant at her local public library. She is also a speaker for Greater Boston PFLAG. ** Deep within Green’s Leafy Swell —a pantoum The raptor hunts. It scans for prey. Great fear engulfs the garter snake. It slithers near the risky edge. Hurry, go! Though where? Which way? Great snake dispel your trembling fright. The threat is real, no turning back. Now hurry, find a safe escape! Ah, precious weeds like roof or veil. The threat is real, no turning back. The corvid caws, then gnaws a shrew. Beloved weeds: the serpent’s shield. Hide deep within green’s leafy swell. The corvid gnaws, then caws with gust. Snake slithers near the risky edge. Hide deep within green’s leafy swell. The raptor hunts. It scans for prey. Jeannie E. Roberts Jeannie E. Roberts has authored seven books. Her most recent collection, As If Labyrinth – Pandemic Inspired Poems, was released in 2021 (Kelsay Books). Her eighth book, The Ethereal Effect – A Collection of Villanelles, is forthcoming from Kelsay Books. Her poems appear in Anti-Heroin Chic, Blue Heron Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Panoply, Silver Birch Press, Sky Island Journal, Verse-Virtual, Visual Verse, Writing in a Woman’s Voice, and elsewhere. She’s a Best of the Net award nominee and serves as a poetry editor for the online literary magazine Halfway Down the Stairs. ** Scene from an Industrial Childhood My father came down from the factory, came down from the factory with his steel hands, his steel hands and his stone face, his heart, his heart as soft as water, as air, as soft as, as soft as flowers. My father came down, came down with the flowers and the animals, and the animals loved him and followed him, and followed him with flowers in their mouths. In their mouths, they held words like love, words like love to conjure rain, and my father, my father raised his collar and lowered his voice, lowered his voice until it was quieter than flowers, quieter than flowers in steel hands, quieter than, quieter than, quieter than his beautiful stone face, his beautiful stone face that softened with a word, with a word like love, and all the animals whistled, whistled like freedom, as my mother waved, wild, waved, wild as love, as my father came down, came down from the factory to hold her tight, to hold her tight in the love of their shining son. Oz Hardwick Oz Hardwick is a poet, photographer, academic, and occasional musician, whose work has been widely published in international journals and anthologies. He has published ten full collections and chapbooks, including Learning to Have Lost (Canberra: IPSI, 2018) which won the 2019 Rubery International Book Award for poetry, and most recently the surrealist political chapbook Reports Come In (Clevedon: Hedgehog, 2022). Oz is Professor of Creative Writing at Leeds Trinity University (UK). www.ozhardwick.co.uk  Señor de los Milagros, Sanctuary of Las Nazarenas, Lima, Peru, possibly by Benito or Pedro Dalcon (Peru, b. Angola) early to mid 1600s. photo by Miguel Chong, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Join us for biweekly ekphrastic writing challenges. See why so many writers are hooked on ekphrasis! We feature some of the most accomplished, influential writers working 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 Señor de Los Milagros, possibly by Benito or Pedro Dalcon. Deadline is October 28, 2022. You can submit poetry, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, microfiction, or any other form creative writing you like. 1000 words max please. 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. There is no mandatory submission fee, but we ask you to consider a voluntary donation to show your support to the time, management, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review. It takes an incredible amount of time to curate the journal, read regular and contest submissions, etc. Paying all expenses out of pocket is also prohibitive. Helping the editor share the time and expenses involved is very much appreciated. There is an easy button to click above to share a five spot through PayPal or credit card. If you would like to give more, you can do so here. Thank you. A voluntary gift does not affect the selection process in any way. 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 MILAGROS 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 piece. 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 EST, October 28, 2022. 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. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we will no longer send out sorry notices or yes letters. You will see what poetry and stories have been selected when the responses are posted one week after the deadline. Understand that we value your participation as part of our ekphrastic community, but we can only choose a handful of the many entries we receive. 12. A word on the selection process: we strive for a balance between rewarding regular participants and sharing the voices of writers who are new to our family. We also look for a variety of perspectives and styles, and a range of interesting takes on the painting. It is difficult to reproduce experimental formatting, so unfortunately we won't choose many with unusual spacing or typography. 13. By submitting to The Ekphrastic Review, you are also automatically joining our subscribers' list. Your submission is your permission. We don't send Spam and we don't send many emails- you will not receive forty-four emails a day! Our newsletter occasionally updates you on some of the challenges, news, contests, prize nominations, ekphrastic happenings, prompt ebooks, workshops, and more. 14. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges! 15. 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! 16. Check this space every Friday for new challenges and selected responses, alternating weekly.  Kakaso'Las Totem Pole, by Ellen Neel (Canada) 1955. photo by Ymblanter, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons Symbiosis Animals, birds, and people, sitting on each other, with a killer whale on top. Why? Is it to give the killer whale some height so that it can look far away? Maybe they are friends, giving the killer whale an opportunity to see the lands on the other side of the shore. The killer whale outstretches its fins, forming a peace shape. Will the animals give the killer whale enough strength to take off and soar into the air like a bird? Every creature holds the ones above them. A raven in the bottom bears the weight of all the other creatures. Each of them support the killer whale, giving it energy to fly. Their little contributions adding up to a huge amount. The killer whale can take off now, with the height and strength given by the animals below, and explore the world beyond the ocean. Kavyn R. Kavyn is a ninth grader who loves anime and bread. He lives in his cozy nook doing art, poetry, and math. ** The Condor Returns For the first time in over one hundred years the condor returns to Northern California. For the first time since the big death, we see new wings taking off after birth and rebirth. The totem pole tells us the story of the evolution of the human spirit, of our kin, our belonging, our journey, our symbols: when you’re done you soar high above what tied your body and spirit. The world we know is only a description handed down from generation to generation. Poets, artist, stop the world. Be the ones who remakes interpretation. Allow people to see instead of just looking. Call the Condor. Rose Mary Boehm Rose Mary Boehm is a German-born British national living and writing in Lima, Peru, and author of two novels as well as six poetry collections. Her poetry has been published widely in mostly US poetry reviews (online and print). She was twice nominated for a Pushcart. DO OCEANS HAVE UNDERWATER BORDERS? (Kelsay Books July 2022) and WHISTLING IN THE DARK (Taj Mahal Publishing House July 2022), are both available on Amazon. https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/ ** flight no thing with wings chooses to crawl. the woodcarver, a man, stood tall you in his long tribal shadow. where does a woman like you go with knives and native grit? windfall is a straight tree. the call primal to feed what cries out at nightfall-- to the rooted tree a deathblow. no thing with wings chooses to crawl. with each thwack, the birds withdrawal to the sky. there’s a protocol for roosting and flight. there’s a glow at dawn. the native carvers know how to sing & soar with a chisel. no thing with wings chooses to crawl. Robert E. Ray Robert E. Ray is a retired public servant. His poetry has been published by Rattle, Beyond Words International Literary Magazine, Wild Roof Journal, The Ekphrastic Review and in four poetry anthologies. Robert lives in coastal Georgia. ** Sages Storytellers, sages of history , Cradle time in their words. Be still and hear the echos of the past, The hills resound with their murmurs. Footsteps follow the ancient trails, The heart knows the journey. The elders do not seek, they know. Trees pour out their sap of wisdom, Animal spirits impart their totem. Rumination’s visit from the stars, The passing years illuminate our souls. We are not wise, we are untied Tether our consciousness To the voices that came before us, Be quiet and listen to the Earth. Carol Tahir Carol lives in Southern California and has had a few poems published in anthologies, online blogs and journals. She divides her time between painting, reading and writing. ** Woulda Coulda Shoulda Before we lost you I had planned to take you north to see the totem poles up in Canada. Your view of Douglas firs would be a blurry from the dog nose prints left on the window. Soon we would see country where more Sitka spruces would start to appear. From the front seat I would be playing teacher and boring your now teenage self with stories about how Sitka sprues were called ‘wolf trees’ because they had big open spaces with great outreaching braches. Even with headphones obscuring a bouncing head I would have caught your wide smile in the rearview mirror. I’d keep bragging on the stacked totems, how beaver, raven, bear, and even eagle were waiting to tell you about your future with animals and how stars were beginning to line up for you, my grandson. But this never happened, because before you found your power and grew your blowhole large enough to take in water, we lost you. You were always about water from your strong breast stroke to beaming in a photo in front of that tall, lean waterfall. Maybe you thought yourself such a great swimmer you figured you’d make it, or maybe a very dark spirit had already staked its mortal claim, or maybe the totems would have healed you with their big toothed grins. Yes, they would have. Ursula McCabe Ursula McCabe lives and works in Portland, Oregon. Her work can be seen in Piker Press, The Avocet, Oregon Poetry Association’s Verseweavers, Bluebird Word, and Academy of the Heart and Mind. ** Pole Star Here’s cupid heart cut into bark, the timber frame for barque or home; first nations carved their story too - an ancestry, family tree. Algonquian wood, totemic stood. While others kneel at altar steps and would alter inheritance, they stand to ban native device though fail to understand the craft, or storeyed picture book of past. Dust to dust but ash to pole, for funerary casket cache, a welcome sign or ridicule, pot-boilers in the tourist trade, community, kinship support. Neel before all with female skill. You see the wood before the trees. Stephen Kingsnorth Stephen Kingsnorth (Cambridge M.A., English & Religious Studies), retired to Wales, UK, from ministry in the Methodist Church due to Parkinson’s Disease, has had pieces published by on-line poetry sites, printed journals and anthologies, including The Ekphrastic Review. ** On Native Artist Ellen Neel As feat iconic each would stand to mark possession long of land by generations thus endeared as spirit that had persevered to earn enduring totem made that honoured roles their strengths had played, first will, determined to persist, then skill devised to coexist with nature's growth from its decay, and predators becoming prey, in seasons of repeating course implying greater present force that moved adept, creative heart to be the hands of native art. Portly Bard 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. Ekphrastic joy comes not from praise for words but from returning gaze far more aware of fortune art becomes to eyes that fathom heart. ** To a Grandmother I Never Knew Did you ever marvel at the intricate carved wings of some eagle or stare in wonder at cedar-hewn faces, cheering this new world? What did you make of fine stacks of ancestral symbols so alien to you? Let me place you, a young woman, hungry and shell-shocked from your epic journey with its endless gusts of ocean gales; with its steam-train crawl across a continent that heaved you past cities, lakes, prairies; past forests and mountains, to this near wilderness. You look up, startled by some sacred, ancient totem pole: your glance full of curiosity or is it fear? Those haunted eyes! Do you panic and ask: “Why am I here?” Do you fight off familiar sickness: that fierce swell of frantic longing for the old world, for the salt marsh, with its curlews, its sheep, its sea thrift; for your firstborn lost in its mists? Dorothy Burrows Based in the United Kingdom, Dorothy Burrows enjoys writing poetry, short plays and flash fiction. Her poems have been published in various journals, including The Ekphrastic Review. ** An Out-gas of Broken Links Link me to the land where I belong. Let me breathe my Spirit’s in-breath and out-breath of life. Let me be like Earth’s nourishing river of peace, paneled with colors that gave me form. I am carved with celestial meaning and notched with history’s visions. Yet here, just here in these swamps, injustices linger and nations hide behind the serpent’s vitriol. The serpent slithers through the miasma, wanting more, and always wanting more. Carole Mertz Carole Mertz, poet and essayist, has recent work at The Ekphrastic Review, Abandoned Mine, Adanna Literary Journal (Fall, 2022), Dreamer’s Creative Writing, and River Teeth. Her meta poem “Invited to Linger” was a finalist in the Ars Poetica 2022 Contest at Riddled with Arrows. A Pushcart Prize nominee, Carole is the author of Color and Line (2021), and Toward a Peeping Sunrise (2019). She is Editorial Assistant in poetry at Kalisto Gaia Press and book review editor at Dreamer’s. ** Silent Warrior Too many minds in the kitchen, Too many heads in the room, Too many masks over faces, I hope to close my eyes soon. A fight I feel myself losing, A battle waged by their stares, A wrong I want to be voicing, I hope my lungs will find air. My silence fuels their cruel power, My nature drives their beliefs, My weeping feeds their aggression, I pray to welcome the beast. Then I will judge this false jury, Then I will disband this tribe, Then I will unmask this fighter, I see a rebel inside. Corrie Pappas Corrie Pappas is a small business owner living outside Boston. Her work has appeared in The Ekphrastic Review and she is the author of the children’s book, Come Along and Dream. ** lineage as if always echoes out of nowhere-- like raven shimmered, gathered into silence, echoed out of nowhere on the water’s edge-- gathered into silence like the beginning of time-- on the water’s edge, iridescent, unfathomable-- like the beginning of time, balanced on the horizon, iridescent, unfathomable-- like wings thundering-- balanced on the horizon, a whisper like wings thundering inside dreams-- a whisper that begins as brume inside dreams-- the way the sky begins as brume, opens and frees itself-- the way the sky within and without opens and frees itself, shining within and without-- tiny stars of stillness shining through light, tiny stars of stillness-- like raven shimmered through light-- as if always Kerfe Roig A resident of New York City, Kerfe Roig enjoys transforming words and images into something new. She is a frequent contributor to The Ekphrastic Review, and her work has also been featured recently in Feral and swifts & slows. You can follow her explorations on her blogs: https://methodtwomadness.wordpress.com/, which she does with her friend Nina, and https://kblog.blog/. ** Salute to the Sun for Another Day What happens to you when more loved ones are dead than alive? To top the ivory tusked totem is more than the heart can bear some days. Where was your mother that day your kittens died, that black night when your best friend passed, your golden son Jason left the world without a sound except your screams ringing in the night. You look into the empty corners of your house-- it has become the sum and substance of you. Paint a smile on those lips, pull on those jeans, lift the leg that won’t go alone. Strive for one more day of drifting democracy. See if you can make someone you meet on the street smile, in answer to yours. You beat the alarms again, all of them. Jackie Langetieg Jackie Langetieg has published poems in journals and anthologies: Verse Wisconsin, Blue Heron Review, Bramble, Ekphrastic Review. She’s won awards, such as WWA’s Jade Ring contest, Bards Chair, and Wisconsin Academy Poem of the Year and a Pushcart Prize nomination. She has written six books of poems, most recently, Snowfall and a memoir, Filling the Cracks with Gold. ** Her Crown Seabear carries her largest child Black white red nursing Her husband Held strong by his inner beings Slippery frog keeps his honest Bak and raven keeps her safe In Stanley Park J. L. Wright J. L. Wright has published two hybrid poetry collections, Unadoptable Joy and Homeless Joy. Published on four continents, J. L. participates with several different poetry groups including IWWG, Jersey City Writers, Poets on the Coast, and Village Books Writer’s Corner. J. L. develops poetry craft while influencing students during community education. ** Shebungaa I was walking by the riverside watching tiny fishes straddling the stream. The aroma of damp soil was in the air. It must have rained last night. I sat by a big rock watching the sunrise, toddler rays sprinkling their warmth like a mother’s morning hug. Love and longing gathering in her body overnight, the mother rushes in the dawn darkness to find her child, to hug her little darling, her spit, sweat and coziness in tow. In a few hours however, this gentle morning will become the blazing noon. Tender mother will turn into an evil witch, scorching the earth, punishing her child for mischief and languor. I never met my morning sun. My mother left me when I was a baby. She wasn’t ready for a child and a girl at that, especially one that looked like a portmanteau of world’s evil. Now, right at this instance, I don’t fault her. I’m a grown up. But I spent the first 15 years of my life blaming her for giving up on me. When she eventually found her way to me and tried to patch things, I had already grown into a beautiful, kind, young woman, no thanks to her and I wasn’t ready to let her in. I couldn’t suddenly fill the empty space in my heart with someone who showed up a decade too late. That space was expansive when I was born, but over time it kept shrinking and had finally settled into a tiny fragment, the size of a mustard seed. When I told this to my friend, he suggested I visit a healer. “You should go see Shebungaa.” “Who is Shebungaa?” “Shebungaa is the cousin of Bak’was the Wildman of the Woods, a red cedar being, an all-knowing spirit of the forest. “Is Shebungaa a he or she?” I asked. “No one knows. Shebungaa have no gender, they are beyond such trivialities. They are simply Shebungaa, wise and powerful.” This comforted me and gave me a tiny bit of hope. Next day I travelled to the park to see Shebungaa and asked if they could turn my mustard seed heart into a lemon ball. Or bigger. Shebungaa stared at me as we stood facing each other. They reached into the mountains, twisted their hands to pluck an essence from the top, from the wings of Kakaso’Las and placed a tiny speck of light in my palms. A gift, they called it. “Guard this with all you have.” “But… I don’t know how. I’ve never done this before.” “Grow this each day, nourish it.” “How will it grow? What if it dies? What should I do? I don’t know how to take care of things. No one took care of me, so I never learned how. I don’t know if I can do this.” Shebungaa looked down and up, then closed their eyes as I rambled on, “What if you’re making a mistake? I thought Shebungaa are supposed to be helpful and wise. Do you realize what you’re trusting me with?” Shebungaa was walking away. The mountain light rested in my palms. How is this going to help my mustard-seed heart? Honestly, I had expected a show, a miracle. I had imagined Shebungaa reaching into my chest and healing my heart with light and magic. Instead, they handed me light itself. I was a tad disappointed and a whole lot scared. That was then. For three years I have been guarding the speck. I flamed it, nourished it and spread its light and warmth every day, even when it seemed impossible. The speck grew, the light grew. The orange-gold iridescence renewed souls. And the reason I sought Shebungaa in the first place? That was happening too. I could feel the space in my heart growing. More and more people visited the mountain light seeking the beauty of malleable heart, seeking wisdom. Seeking the infectious exuberance. Seeking strength and ecstasy. That’s when trouble started. I realized that the line between good and evil is not only flimsy thin but an illusion. Good became bad and bad turned to evil like fast burning forest fire. I hadn’t witnessed such jealousy, deception and gluttony before. Some wanted the flame for themselves. Others simply wanted it gone. No one thought about the hard work or sacrifices needed to nurture the flame. They couldn’t see. They were blinded by greed. They saw power and coveted it. Then one day, just like that, it was gone. The light was destroyed. Whatever had opened inside me shrunk again. If only I hadn’t let people near the light. If only I had been more careful. If only I could find Shebungaa again and beg them for another speck. If only. If only. If only. I wandered with no hope for months and stumbled into a desert one evening. Tired and beat, I crouched by a cactus, thirsting for life. Hours went by as I sat peering into the sand. A lizard came out from under a rock, grabbed a roach and scampered back to its hiding. “Something is killing something else. All the time.” Was that Shebungaa’s radiant voice? Or me thinking out loud? All the history and zoology lessons I didn’t pay attention to in school were coming back to me. Cheetahs and coyotes kill deer and elephants. Deer and elephants eat plants. The hyena feasts on rotting flesh. “Why should humans be the exception? Are you blind to the nasty hyenas among humans, salivating at the sight of red meat? If there are deer and elephants, there will also be coyotes and cheetahs among us. Have you forgotten? Or do you not want the struggle?” I couldn’t tell if Shebungaa was guiding me from outside or within. Either way, this is the second gift. Anything good must be protected and goodness is always worth the struggle. Light flickered in my chest. I can see the moon rising now. Glimmer and hope too. Sowmya Krishnamurthy Sowmya Krishnamurthy is an artist and writer who lives in Chennai, India with the love of her lives, Kavyn and Navilan. She writes fiction, poetry and weekly menus for her family. Her work has been published in The Birdseed, 3MoonMagazine, The Visual Verse and elsewhere. She can be found sleepwalking on Twitter @sowmya. ** Finding the Right Words It was late afternoon on the day of the equinox and Shona was in the land now designated as a small public park that held the four totem poles belonging to her family. 'Charlie, you gotta see the colours! Look at all the cool animals, they musta loved them! That one on the bottom of the front one - I swear it's Sonic The Hedgehog! Shame it's kinda behind the grass.' The voice floated across from the other side of the low boundary fence. Shona was used to visitors reacting to the totems in their own way. This particular set were placed in quite a photogenic arrangement so were a regular stopping off place for what Shona called the drive-by tourists, the ones who'd pull up to the parking space and sometimes not even get out of their car. They'd just grab their phone or an i-Pad, point and click, and most likely post to their socials later on. Of course, a few stopped and got out, wandered around the poles and even read the information board. The details on there had been recently updated, with input from Shona's family. She wondered how much could be said in a one metre by a half metre board? In fact the information was scant, a few basic facts about the approximate date of construction of each pole, the name of their community. There was a reference with a QR code to other resources should anyone care to find out more. Shona gave a kind of mental 'huh' as once again the thought came that it didn't even name-check great-aunt Ellen, the artist behind the front pole, even though she knew that the omission had been a collective decision. Shona waited for the car to move off and wandered round the totem poles. The autumn equinox was a special time, one among many in the cosmic calendar that held the important memories. She stopped in front of the 'Sonic' one and ran through the retelling of the history of this world, the journeys through its lands, the world before and the one beyond. Others from her family would arrive soon to join her. Words mattered. There would recitations later, some known only to her oldest relatives. These words would never be shared with the university researchers or the journalistic types who came out to write op eds about the place. Words held power and strength and memories and a connection from the past to the future, the flow of energy around the universe and all the stages of life's journey. Each totem might serve as an external reminder but the truth of the cosmos was in the collective oral tradition. For a second Shona attempted to see the poles through the eyes of the tourists. She appreciated the fine workmanship and beauty of the carvings, the vibrancy of the paintwork. Ellen truly had a gift, not just for working the wood but for capturing the narrative. Try as she might Shona couldn't help reading the stories of the people and the land, the ancestors and the generations to come as she took in each symbol. That bird wasn't just a bird, that head was more than a representation of a person. Even the spacing and arrangement of the poles themselves held special significance, one that would be refreshed and revealed later on at sunset. Tonight was going to be especially good, a mostly cloud-free evening and an early moonrise meaning the setting sun and moon would appear together. Later on, this designated dark skies site would offer a tantalising glimpse of the milky way, gateway to the wider cosmos. The equinox was a special time of balance, harmony and interconnectedness of all things as well as a gateway from one season to another. The gathering would reflect that. Anyone looking from the outside would just have seen another tourist moving slowly between the poles, a bit more contemplative than some, but nothing unusual. Shona knew the power was in the words yet to come, the rest of the time all that knowledge and wisdom were just hiding in plain sight. Emily Tee After years spent with numbers Emily Tee is now spending her time writing poetry and flash fiction. She's had pieces published in The Ekphrastic Review challenges and in print in several Dreich publications and poetry anthologies including Hope is a Group Project, by The Wee Sparrow Poetry Press, with other work forthcoming elsewhere. She lives in England. ** Thunderbird "My grandfather loved thunder storms. He loved to see the restless weaving of trees..." Edward Hirsch, Ancient Signs "The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature." Joseph Campbell, Reflections On The Art of Living "Your sacred space is where you can find yourself over and over." Joseph Campbell How many were the mornings when I watched the light unfold inside the raven's night-black wings? And found out what the Kwakiutl know -- The Raven brings The Green! A girl, I dreamed Green Mansions -- the rain's long fingers touching leaves and I was free (or so I thought) to take a chance, embellished by the elements in ways I learned to turn the page to nature my fate designed by a water fall of words; and art, illustrations for the faces on a totem pole stacked like chapters in a serial romance ignited by the wilderness. At the top, inside the carved paws of the Spirit Bear an Orca struggles with the forest's passion, a pulse so strong it transforms creatures from the sea to humans, a Man sheltered by the Thunderbird, its flight- pattern lines in turquoise as the sea surges through the trees for an unlikely couple -- Bak'was and Dzunka, wild man and woman, she, a giantess; Children fear her whisper in the woods -- Hu! , she says, her voice's hoarse sound wind in the cedars as spirits of the trees eat ghost food out of cockle shells, congregating in invisible houses (Somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond any experience...) as the girl in the rain forest travels through fire in a fairy tale rising on Thunder- bird/Phoenix wings to look for her legend of true love, the rain forest story of a native American prince who appears in the song of a totem frog. Laurie Newendorp Laurie Newendorp lives and writes in Houston. Her book, When Dreams Were Poems, 2020, explores the relationships of art, surreality and poetry. One of Ellen Neel's totem figures, the Spirit Bear, refers to the creation myth of "ghost" cubs born to the black Kermode bear. The bear was named (to the poet's surprise!) for Frank Kermode, an early 20th century zoologist, whose name suggested a romantic nature for her poem: Sir Frank Kermode, a literary critic, came to the University of Houston when Newendorp was a poetry student. One of his books, The Romantic Image was a reference source for her poetry thesis. "Somewhere I have never travelled, gladly beyond any experience" is the name of a poem by e.e. cummings that ends with a beautiful line, apt for a rain forest, "not even the rain has such small hands." The Kwakiutl and Tlingit transformation masks in the North Coast Gallery of the New York Museum of Natural History started Joseph Campbell on his "hero journey" in writings that began the poet's fascination with myth.  Time-Molt, Tender, by Annaliese Jakimides (USA) 2022 Editor's Note: We are over the moon to have our esteemed contributor Annaliese Jakimides as our guest editor this time, as well as showcasing her artwork as the ekphrastic challenge prompt. We can't wait to see what Annaliese inspires in your words! Lorette Guest Editor's Note: I’m so looking forward to what words/stories Time-Molt, Tender offers all you ekphrastic writers. For I have come to know The Ekphrastic Review writers as extraordinary translators of images into words—be it poetry or prose or some combination or combinatoric (that’s a math thing, by the way; I love its sound/rhythm). To me, ekphrasis is a kind of magic. It’s thrilling to witness. And I’m eternally grateful that Lorette has created this world. As a writer, it took me a while to accept that some things I’m carrying insist on being told visually—that I don’t have the words. My visual work is mixed media, and any number of materials might be employed. In this piece, I used all kinds of fiber, including dyed raw wool, plus feathers, teabags, leaves, coffee grounds, with acrylic and inks. I rarely use a brush. And I often look back and have absolutely no idea how I got there. I’m honoured and moved to have been asked to both contribute a visual image and to review the challenge submissions. I’m so looking forward to hearing where this work takes you. Annaliese Jakimides Annaliese Jakimides writes prose and poetry in a closet in her apartment in Bangor, Maine, after living for many years on a dirt road in the woods near Mt. Katahdin. A finalist for both regional and national awards, her work has been nominated for a Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. Her most recent publications include “The Long Marriage” in The Ekphrastic Review and “I Tell Henry the Plate Is Red” in Breaking Bread: Essays from New England on Food, Hunger, and Family (Beacon Press). ** Join us for biweekly ekphrastic writing challenges. See why so many writers are hooked on ekphrasis! We feature some of the most accomplished, influential writers working 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 Time-Molt, Tender, by Annaliese Jakimides. Deadline is October 14, 2022. You can submit poetry, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, microfiction, or any other form creative writing you like. 1000 words max please. 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. There is no mandatory submission fee, but we ask you to consider a voluntary donation to show your support to the time, management, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review. It takes an incredible amount of time to curate the journal, read regular and contest submissions, etc. Paying all expenses out of pocket is also prohibitive. Helping the editor share the time and expenses involved is very much appreciated. There is an easy button to click above to share a five spot through PayPal or credit card. If you would like to give more, you can do so here. Thank you. A voluntary gift does not affect the selection process in any way. 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 JAKIMIDES 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 piece. 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 EST, October 14, 2022. 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. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we will no longer send out sorry notices or yes letters. You will see what poetry and stories have been selected when the responses are posted one week after the deadline. Understand that we value your participation as part of our ekphrastic community, but we can only choose a handful of the many entries we receive. 12. A word on the selection process: we strive for a balance between rewarding regular participants and sharing the voices of writers who are new to our family. We also look for a variety of perspectives and styles, and a range of interesting takes on the painting. It is difficult to reproduce experimental formatting, so unfortunately we won't choose many with unusual spacing or typography. 13. By submitting to The Ekphrastic Review, you are also automatically joining our subscribers' list. Your submission is your permission. We don't send Spam and we don't send many emails- you will not receive forty-four emails a day! Our newsletter occasionally updates you on some of the challenges, news, contests, prize nominations, ekphrastic happenings, prompt ebooks, workshops, and more. 14. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges! 15. 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! 16. Check this space every Friday for new challenges and selected responses, alternating weekly. |
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