 Pavonia, by Francis Picabia (France) 1929 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 Pavonia, by Francis Picabia. Deadline is January 31, 2025. 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. Scroll down to donate $5CAD (about $3.75 USD). 4. USE THIS EMAIL ONLY. Send your work to [email protected]. 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 PICABIA 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. 7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 8. Deadline is midnight EST, January 31, 2025. 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 for challenge submissions. 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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 The Wild Hunt of Odin, by Peter Nicolai Arbo (Norway) 1872 Let Them Be Free —for poet Wendell Berry and author Mel Robbins The midwinter blues coalesce as the gusty grays collide constellate near the diagonal darkness of an airborne battle. Here weapons deploy amid legions of chaos. Unlike the legends of brutality rendered atop canvas or the reality of present-day feuds between humans the owl and raven the goat and horse fend for well-being seek mellow horizons as they glide walk and gallop toward circumstances within their control practice The Peace of Wild Things and The Let Them Theory. Jeannie E. Roberts
Jeannie E. Roberts is the author of several books, including The Ethereal Effect - A Collection of Villanelles (Kelsay Books, 2022). On a Clear Night, I Can Hear My Body Sing is forthcoming from Kelsay Books in 2025. She serves as a poetry editor for the online literary magazine Halfway Down the Stairs. ** Through the nightly air (from the opening line of the poem Asgaardsreien, by Johan Sebastian Welhaven.) Dark and hideous burns a sunrise bruising sacred goodness of a life. Combating chores on days of no consequence, women weave a vapor chorus, let the green fly into the web- while the men assault cheap liquors. Turmoiled mind, howling time drowns murmurs and the scent. Secrets smolder through the nightly air. Abha Das Sarma An engineer and management consultant by profession, Abha Das Sarma enjoys writing. 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, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, here and elsewhere. Having spent her growing up years in small towns of northern India, she currently lives in Bengaluru. ** [frothing black horses] frothing black horses presage the coming storm of the hunting forces of rain forcing the hollow-eyed prey of the following cataract coarsening weather-veins pulsing repulsing all hallows evening all Wotan hailing unmortal flesh flushed flown OddWritings, a.k.a. George Pestana OddWritings, a.k.a. George Pestana, has a degree in computer science. He enjoys playing with words, doing crossword puzzles, writing poems, and occasionally publishing them. You can learn more about him at http://oddwritings.com . ** Ode to Odin Odin bursts into the dead of night his wild vein horsing on his forehead haunted by the bright mirage of the muses’ porcelain souls lost in peripatetic cadence luring him in chase through Valhalla drowning darkness as their gloss blinds his mind and he can’t but grab and run till all porcelain ghosts are dumped into the crack of dawn. In a way it’s carnage. In a way - bondage. Odin has awareness of none. He belongs to the Solstice taunt. By dawn Odin is oddly gently numb. You awake to what made your wynorrific dream. Ekaterina Dukas Ekaterina Dukas, MA, writes poetry as a pilgrimage to the meaning and enjoys being frequently honoured by TER and its challenges. Her poetry collection Ekphrasticon is published by Europe Edizioni. ** Tidings from Mjolnir Shut your eyes, for we have been awoken by the flames of Valhalla to ride into your moonless night. Run, while you still can, into the shallow depths of your camp tents, brothels-- pray that the pain shall kill you swift when the valkyries stab out your battle cries with spears, lay you down with bow and arrow, condemn your chainmail armour and naked bodies to the lowest layer of Helheim. Our ravens have brought death unto whole armies, raised hordes of harlots from graves, so waste not your last moments on thoughts of escape-- Rather, peer past those billowing curtains and look to the rolling clouds, shadow mountains, thunder, Thor. Angelina Carrera Angelina Carrera, 22, is a neurodivergent poet, Philosophy major, and Creative Writing minor at UC Berkeley. She is winner of First Matter Press’ 2024 Ekphrastic Poem Contest. Her work has been featured in After Happy Hour Review, F(r)iction, Last Stanza Poetry Journal, and more. ** Wild Hunt Odin’s terrifying procession across the night sky A wild hunt, seeking all those not hidden, to die Across the winter landscape, dead souls would fly It presaged a catastrophe, such as a plague or war A motif with origins in Germanic and Nordic lore Seeking and abducting witnesses to join the horde The moon looks on, through the thickening cloud Cries of the many rabid hunters, deafeningly loud All blinded by violence, none ever shall be cowed The dawn soon to come, the sun with its own fire Survivors, to be left trembling in the bloody mire Seeing them overhead with bared teeth and sword Howard Osborne Howard has written poetry and short stories, also a novel and several scripts. With poems published online and in print, he is a published author of a non-fiction reference book and several scientific papers many years ago. He is a UK citizen, retired, with interests in writing, music and travel. ** Truth or Dare? Near fifty past in Wistmans’s Wood connections with The Hunt, their sale for tourist bounty, rural rides, though county next, in Cornish lore the Devil’s Dandy Dogs seemed frail. Grimm tales, long spread, all underlaid; did delta drain, strain deemed aura? Here’s host of pruning, thinning ways - those Marvel Comics, Quatermass - with music, modern media. But myths are truths, allegory, so commonalities exist, a pattern made, if not pre-laid, each culture with twist patented, like stubborn stubble, winnowed grist. Midst winter woods, ferocious winds, both howling hounds and growling storms, as plagues, wars, famines strip the ground, land spirits from cult-of-the-dead, all baying, gallop, restless forms. These spectral and nocturnal hordes, a muscle memory of tears, less threat by naming, slotted box, or by transforming to our taste - so fairy host, those vicious, clears. As culture vultures search their roots, find routes by which we share our fears, new faiths accommodate as must, adopt or demonise as best - for monks and missionaries steer. In harmony, strange Schönberg see - while Weber also joins that Liszt. Here Hecate and Wicca merge in pagan pantheon with Norse, that none be missed in vaulting mist? The nightly frothing horse stampede, thronged ravens of the Odin flock, those spectral riders, Arbo’s frame - feel menace din of restless souls, these trolls, werewolves, Valhalla stock. 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 curated and published by on-line poetry sites, printed journals and anthologies, including The Ekphrastic Review. He has, like so many, been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. His blog is at https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com ** Hunted nightmare carves the dark like fire breaking under rough clouds a stampede of wild horses their hooves iron anvils striking sparks from a gunmetal sky-- ghost-ridden chased from the last dull shelter split open and broken empty bone shell crushed out of hope and no chance of rescue where dark squalls of crow and raven shoulder past even the faintest memory of light and I crouch beneath the weight of judgement’s heel and wait the final hammerfall of night Mary McCarthy Mary McCarthy is a retired Registered Nurse who has always been a writer. Her work has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including The Ekphrastic World, edited by Lorette C. Luzajic, The Plague Papers, edited by Robbi Nester, The Memory Palace, edited by Lorette C. Luzajic and Clare MacQueen, and recent issues of Gyroscope, 3rd Wednesday, Caustic Frolic, Inscribe, the Storyteller Review, and Verse Virtual. Her collection, How to Become Invisible, that chronicles a bipolar journey, is now available from Kelsay books, Amazon, and the author. ** Ode to Woden When Wednesday's child though full of woe won the war we warriors wandered home to whelp our wee ones oh how we wept whence we saw The Wild Hunt of Odin where once again we women were limbed without wearing nary a gown Donna-Lee Smith Donna-Lee Smith writes from Gotland Island where the Baltic Sea nibbles the coastline and the Vikings rest their souls in ships of stone. ** Gehenna Revolts Of all the evils man has endeavored, one yet remains, too long endured. Convicting mortal nature—a devil! masquerades as both magistrate and Lord. So, in coalition and common reason, the damned then to the depths resort. Where in concert as resounding Legion, against the deity they lead revolt. Together, harmonic in agreement, the demonic chamber forever pleads. While the Archon stokes over Hades’ ember, devouring sacraments of ill-will and misdeed. The guilt it savours are remorseful flavours-- morsels of the bitter treasure hoard. Until again, at vengeance end, the unrepentant feed their god once more. Jory Como Jory Como is an aspiring American writer residing in Christchurch, New Zealand. ** Inheritance My ghosts are visible but unrecognizable. we wish on stars, on myth, on the magic of words spelled into narratives that journey us alive My ghosts cannot be confined. alive inside darkness awaiting the ending of time, ethereal layers scattered like seeds My ghosts are ravenous and skeletal. layers of seeds scattered into history—what grows from our bones? are we tied to earth or spirit? My ghosts are beasts of legend, followers of frenzied flight. spirit relics remade into dust, particles that travel in wavelengths of long lost souls, shadows My ghosts hold the darkest hour untouched by light. shadows emptied of self-- moon-mirrors death-dancing-- as if they could tell us who was master, who thrall My ghosts are divine, profane, profound. 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/. ** These Visions Sadden Me so don’t expect a love poem, minus enticing apples and rose petals it shrieks of conquest and power, not one brush stroke of humanity. Evil heaves itself across a terrifying sky hunters seize unfortunate souls unable to find refuge in time, but, in the midst of this ambush what about those lithe Valkyries─ are they compassionate heroes or hostile compadres steering the ill-fated to the slaughter? The opposite of a love poem, there’s no hope in this melee, only sorrow that history and lore often celebrate brutality. Elaine Sorrentino Elaine Sorrentino has been published in Minerva Rising, Willawaw Journal, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, The Ekphrastic Review, ONE ART: a journal of poetry, Haiku Universe, Sparks of Calliope, Gyroscope Review, Quartet Journal, The Raven’s Perch, and Panoplyzine. She hosts the Duxbury Poetry Circle and is looking forward having her first poetry collection, Belly Dancing in a Brown Sweatsuit, published by Kelsay Books in spring of 2025. Visit Elaine online at https://www.elainesorrentinopoet.com/. ** They May Fight on the Clouds They may fight on the clouds riding horseback. They may turn the rivers red with blood. But Odin, the god of poets, the god of war With his band of female handmaiden warriors His Valkyries, he will not give anyone room. Except for those few, his choosers of the slain And the slain will then be carried to Valhalla, As heroes to once more live immortally again They may fight on the field of battle valiantly. They may even sing of victories fairly won. But Odin, the god of poets, the god of war He will throw his spear again and again. While riding his eight-legged horse, Sleipnir, And his spear will hit its mark and sink Into the hearts of beasts like a venomous snake. And no doubt his victims will undoubtedly fall. But Odin, the god of war, the god of the dead And the hall of the slain he will use his knowledge, His sorcery to defeat those who won’t kneel, Bow before his royal feet. Wisdom is his alone. After bartering his sight for a far greater insight Those who don't agree will swing from the gallows. They may fight on the clouds riding horseback. They may turn the rivers red with bubbling blood. But Odin, the god of poets, the god of war Today, he alone knows what’s truly in store. With his band of female warrior handmaidens He will cut the beast of the field down to straw. With a party of airborne horsemen accompanied By ravens and owls, the Wild Hunt is upon us. And all are sent scurrying like a fleeing whore. Back to the places where sleep's a wild pagan boar. Mark Andrew Heathcote Mark Andrew Heathcote is an adult learning difficulties support worker. His poems have been published in journals, magazines, and anthologies online and in print. He is from Manchester and resides in the UK. Mark is the author of In Perpetuity and Back on Earth, two books of poems published by Creative Talents Unleashed. ** To Nicolai Arbo Regarding The Wild Hunt of Odin There are forces far beyond us eyes behind us would explain as torrential fury's vengeance gods could wreak upon the vain at the turning of the winter through the dark of longest night as the chill of bitter warning in a wind of lethal might to remind us flesh is mortal but its soul might well survive to be prey of Odin's hunters for the hell in which they thrive while they leave our ash to fallow as the terror thus they hallow. You paint that tale in single frame with screech implied of mythic fame and wind as if the eerie moan of souls removed from flesh and bone amid the thundered rumbling sound of hooves that strike the air as ground emerging from concealing clouds unbound it seems from yielding shrouds becoming capes that flutter free as terror eye can plainly see against the veil of shuttered sky at dusk so prematurely nigh that crackles with the distant fire of life extinguished on its pyre to kindle in the warming glow rebirth as spring we will not know except by deed or brush or pen that tells the tale of who we've been. Portly Bard Portly Bard: 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.  Life on the Precipice 1, Yosemite Park, photography by Franka M. Gabler (USA) contemporary. Click image for artist site. 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 Life on the Precipice, by Franka M. Gabler. Deadline is January 17, 2025. 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. Scroll down to donate $5CAD (about $3.75 USD). 4. USE THIS EMAIL ONLY. Send your work to [email protected]. 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 GABLER 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. 7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 8. Deadline is midnight EST, January 17, 2025. 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 for challenge submissions. 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.  CAN/CAN‘T by Pascal Möhlmann (Switzerland) 2024 Can You? Arms reaching out Pink, beautiful You can Arms reaching out Green, ugly You can’t Make up your mind Think again You can Antje Bothin Antje Bothin loves writing poetry. She lives in Scotland and has recently authored an inspiring book on a treasure hunt around Iceland. Her poems were published in several international anthologies. When not being creative, she can be found doing voluntary work in nature or drinking tea. ** Beggars As if their life were draining away, Wounds on their arms, Beggars show how life could do harm. Hands outstretched towards Infinity, Desperate hands, Full of hope. Quest for a small piece of happiness, Quest for a small piece of freedom. Heads hypnotized by a low and false light. A disappointed man turns his back On this hypocrite donor And secretly informs his pals Not to believe in artificial promises, But to believe in themselves. Jean Bourque Jean Bourque lives in Montreal, province of Quebec. He is French-speaking and a retired specialist teacher. As a retiree, one of his plans is to learn English. A new friend, Donna-Lee Smith, with whom he has the pleasure of chatting, introduced him to The Ekphrastic Review. Jean met Donna-Lee at the Conversation Exchange program that pairs up Francophones with Anglophones in the McGill Community for Lifelong Learning. This is his second challenge submission. ** Dream or Reality? Sporadic colours, green and pink cover the hordes of people. Arms reach out in desperation for something or someone and yell: “Can’t, can’t! I find it distracting and frightening. My body trembles as I watch the crowd grow in abundance and the chants become louder. I try to move, but my feet won’t lift from the ground, and the sweat pours down my neck as my heart pounds profusely. I realize the multitude of hands are coming for me. I try to run, but I still can’t move, and I have no voice to scream. Suddenly, I feel a touch and shudder. “Wake up, Char, you’re having a bad dream.” I open my eyes, and my boyfriend is leaning over, his hand on my shoulder. “Rob, I had the strangest dream.” When my eyes focus, the air is filled with green and pink. Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher has been writing since 2010 and has had many micro-flash fiction stories published. In 2018 her book Shorts for the Short Story Enthusiasts, was published, The Importance of Being Short, in 2019 and In A Flash in 2022. She currently resides on Long Island, New York with her husband Richard and dogs Lucy and Breanna. ** Cordelia Imagine Goneril and Regan lurid green I am the colour of dawn Look carefully at my eyes Full of wonder and dismay Father in the foreground slips into madness I am daughter I am fool Between self and family I can barely/I can't even Lara Dolphin A native of Pennsylvania, Lara Dolphin is an attorney, nurse, wife and mom of four amazing kids. Her chapbooks include In Search Of The Wondrous Whole (Alien Buddha Press), Chronicle Of Lost Moments (Dancing Girl Press), and At Last a Valley (Blue Jade Press). ** Whispers Psst listen hear me. Psst look see me look this way. Psst I will gift you it all put everything in a blue bag ready for your hands to grasp. Psst you’re still not listening, you’re looking away. Psst Hey, you all in all your colours your faces not the same but still you face the same way away. Psst the bag has gone. I threw it away. Lynn White Lynn White lives in North Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud War Poetry for Today competition and has been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, Best of the Net and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Consequence Magazine, Firewords, Vagabond Press, Gyroscope Review and So It Goes Journal. Find Lynn at: https://lynnwhitepoetry.blogspot.com ** The Beckoning Come pray with me I'll feed your addiction to the Valkyries Come play with me I'll whisper my love against your wisdom Come stay with me I'll mend your flesh in silver tones Come away with me I'll seed my weeping into your bones Donna-Lee Smith Donna-Lee Smith occasionally writes from a Viking graveyard on Gotland Island awash by the Baltic Sea. ** The Painterly Function of Arms, Hands, Squash, and Modal Verbs 1. Where rumours linger arms reach beseech relief unite in resemblance stretch to receive the blush of compassionate light. 2. Where rumours linger the roundness of colour arrests the eye amplifies the pumpkin in Caribbean blue as the bottle gourd listens in lateral repose its sage ear tilts to take heed. Here the artist whispers spreads suspicion expresses uncertainty to his still life. 3. Where rumours linger you reach for answers beseech relief lean toward the possibilities of modal verbs. You can and will persist midst brushes with can’t find comfort in your abilities and the wish to receive the blush of compassionate light the unseen companion who perseveres when the voice of doubt strikes. Jeannie E. Roberts Jeannie E. Roberts is the author of several books, including The Ethereal Effect - A Collection of Villanelles (Kelsay Books, 2022). On a Clear Night, I Can Hear My Body Sing is forthcoming from Kelsay Books in 2025. She serves as a poetry editor for the online literary magazine Halfway Down the Stairs. ** What Haunts My Eyes Isn’t Can/Can’t What haunts my eyes isn’t can/can’t How much money or alms can be earned for wages? What haunts my eyes is why I too can’t fly. Lord knows I’m green with envy at times. Working for loose change—petals blowing on the tide A brush stroke here or two that catches the gospel. I sing for the bees and sleep on a cactus bed. I guess this easel is about to flower and suck me in. What haunts my eyes isn’t can/can’t It’s a tear I can’t somehow wipe away at a wine bar. What haunts my eyes isn’t that it’s my birthday today. And I haven’t figured it all out yet. What haunts my eyes is I want to bare my soul and undress. And remove every falsehood till I’m broken and found But secretly I believe I am not that gifted. Or even that proud, look, I wear no garb of gold. What haunts my eyes is a memory of when you were mine. And we interconnected like a jasmine vine in the dew. And secretly you were mine like a flash of lightning. Posing in the nude, Burning my fingers like only you could ever do. Oh, Picasso had two wives. And dozens of lovers they did as Picasso’s muses Six mistresses lit a torch to his Rose Period and set it aflame. But I am not a pretender. I want to whisper, Darling, we’ll meet later. Sooner or later after the turpentine dries And the jasmine flowers fade from sight. There’ll be no can/can’t see you later. Whatever haunts my eyes, I hope it's you when I look back. Mark Andrew Heathcote Mark Andrew Heathcote is an adult learning difficulties support worker. His poems have been published in journals, magazines, and anthologies online and in print. He is from Manchester and resides in the UK. Mark is the author of In Perpetuity and Back on Earth, two books of poems published by Creative Talents Unleashed. ** Can vs Can’t - Interpretation (a villanelle) Chance synchronizes interconnected Can vs Can’t red verses green as arms semáforos like cabriole points up to ‘xx’ vs ’x y’ as signals slant volcanic clashed abstract red contrast. Hauteur, y tu picaros chance synchronizes interconnected Can vs. Can’t brushes surreptitious angst, joy reverses chiaroscuro like cabriole points up ‘xx’ vs. ‘xy’ objects slant?! engagé faces in shock surceased as ingenuous belief cerulean bag of kudos. Synchronicity chanced interconnected Can vs. Can’t , Equivocating comic iconoclast clarity in the extreme so seems malapropos rhyme without reason matched claret masked precisely seriously verdant, gestures humorous yellows chance synchronized interconnected Can vs. Can’t Like cabriolet points up to code ‘xx’ vs. ‘xy’ as signals slant. Carolyn Mack Retired teacher, and grandmother, Carolyn Mack resides in San Diego backcountry and Cortes Island, BC, Canada. Although living abroad while raising her family, she studied in Oregon at Southern Oregon State and Guanajuato University. More recently she has published a book of illustrations. Her poems have been accepted in literary journals here and in the UK. ** Turning Can't into Can Philippe shook his head in dismay. The dress-rehearsal dance practice was going very badly. Yes, Giselle looked beautiful, as always. Odd, but still beautiful. This was what happened when the bride-to-be roped in her artistic friends to help with wedding preparations. Philippe, a superb dancer and choreographer, had been tasked with the special wedding dance where Giselle and bridesmaid would welcome the groom. A groom, who of course was not here, and would not arrive in town until just before the wedding. The problem had never been Giselle, who Philippe knew as both a friend and a colleague. She would pirouette and prance easily though the simple routine he'd prepared, ever the centre of attention, just as she deserved. Even the three bridesmaids, two of Giselle's cousins and an old high school friend, all untalented cloggers, could manage the unsophisticated steps. No, the problem was Guido-Jorge, who had decided they were going to do the make-up. Despite Giselle's request for something "minimal and natural" Guido-Jorge had insisted on 'unleashing their inner auras' as they'd put it. That was why Philippe had been confronted with Giselle in shades of cerise, still beautiful of course, and the green bridesmaids looking ready for a role in a pantomime as the wicked step-sisters or witches round a cauldron. "Carla! Darla! Sonya! Try not to tread on Giselle's dress. Less of the soulful yearning! Project more joy!" Philippe knew his directions were not getting through. As soon as they'd been painted the three girls seemed in a trance. One of them, Sonya, was only half-painted, though for some reason her bare arm had a prosthetic open wound, 'to let the evil miasma flow out', according to Guido-Jorge. Philippe had tried to reason with Giselle, but to no avail. "Hush, Philippe. I'm so honoured that Guido-Jorge decided to help. They're a genius. I know it's unusual, but what a statement it makes!" Philippe wasn't sure exactly what it was saying, especially as Guido-Jorge was insisting that various legumes and plant bulbs be brought in as props for the simple dance routine. "Hush, Philippe. It's part of their cultural heritage. They are bringing nature into their art. The dancers are part of that. Everything is from the spirit, the aura. Just relax, lean in. That's what I'm doing. All will be well." Giselle seemed very at peace with it all. "I'm not sure I can..." "Hush, Philippe. Turn that can't into can." "Philippe! Here, drink this. Cassava, papaya and a few medicinal herbs. It will recharge your positive energy. Your aura is shading towards cyan. That must stop!" Guido-Jorge held out a tall glass of a viscous pale yellow drink. "Yes, Philippe. It really helped me calm down," said Giselle. There was a chorus of yesses from the bridesmaids. Philippe thought to himself, what harm can a fruit and herb drink do? He drank down the contents of the glass. "Argghhh! That's more like it!" A calmness and an inner energy suffused Philippe. Everything was clear. The girls were the perfect colours, each radiating their own special spark. "Okay. Giselle, Carla, Darla, Sonya! Follow my lead. We are going to turn can't into can. Let's put on a wedding dance like no-one's ever seen before." Guido-Jorge smiled. The dancers and their director swayed and moved to an internal beat. It was always so rewarding to connect people with their inner auras, unleash their inner "can'." Emily Tee Emily Tee is a writer living in the UK Midlands. She's had some pieces published in The Ekphrastic Review’s challenges previously, and elsewhere online and in print, including in the 2025 Poetry Diary from Sunday Mornings at the River. ** What We Had in the After-Life The oarsman hissed, Ladies, prepare your songs. Is it not a new year each day? Rafts knocking the shore, we scrambled out as missiles fired one hundred kilometres to the east. Faces uplifted, arms outstretched we unstitched our lips, searching for psalms our souls did not understand how to sing. Breasts and arms bullet-holed black, our bodies were stained with the blood and putrescence of those we left behind. As we laid sacrifices to the victors on sand rimmed in ash, one bruised green gourd, one blue silk bag squat with salt, a gleaming tea tray reflected the face of she who wanted to believe there might yet be mercy. Janice Scudder Janice Scudder lives in Colorado. ** Hands It looks like a hot bubble that breads biblical trouble. Love isn’t in the air. Mankind is in spiritless despair. AI is a Flying Dutchman, in a way. Real hands are called to uphold the poor old panting world. Spellbound by the rapture, the artist galvanized his brush to capture all burnout labourers unto his canvass sheltering their prayer for a sway of our god-given gift – sharing the planet in good faith. The hues hint their vocations. The crimson hands pulled a child out of a shrapnel typhoon helping her to walk the earth again and making her parents rejoice in heavens. The pallid hands cooked soup for the desponded homeless on the street discounted by gluttonous Midas’-like fists. The green hands reached the shifting verdant edge in a heated argument exchange for stopping yet another private jet. No luck as yet. But there is always hope left – wrapped in a blue heaven-sent present to be opened on Christmas morning – the magic that all await to be revealed like a smile slowly blooming upon hungry mouth following the spoon from pot to lip, man, it’s closing the gap between heaven and earth! Planets’ reclusiveness resolved, joy is at hand – a fig fallen from the garden of Eden for freshly squeezed sweet nothings as it was in the beginning. But just about to sample its scriptural taste, I notice something I can’t understand though I can comprehend – some smudged impression, some chimera of dread between some likeness of teeth, though I can’t be sure, indeed. Yet, I can comprehend though I can’t understand – a phantom trying to loot our bona fide gift. I can’t comprehend though I can understand – the ghost of the upper hand – the artist’s cold dish best served brushed off hand. Ekaterina Dukas Ekaterina Dukas, MA, writes poetry as a pilgrimage to the meaning. Her poems have frequently been honored by TER and its Challenges. Her collection Ekphrasticon is published by Europe Edizioni. ** To Pascal Möhlmann Regarding CAN/CAN'T You paint both feast of Him as gift and feast of His command to lift the hands that beckon Heaven's reach instead as lessons they would teach extending Grace to spirits poor, embraced as those who suffer more, to be, by toughened love of kin, the mirror that reflects within the strength to know that sacrifice, endured is blessing's precious price, as service to the greater whole of common, selfless, sovereign soul whose yearning is the trust of yore evolving as forevermore. Portly Bard Portly Bard: 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. ** Can/Can’t Turnip cabbage Butternut squash Can of olive oil Mother do help us We can’t. We can’t do it The knowledge of ages The ancestral bliss You contain it We turned to tiktok We turned to twitter We turned to our contemporaries Feeding us their feeds We eat our daily pixels Swallow the whole of the world On a perfectly clean dish We can’t do it Father do help us The turnip cabbage The butternut squash Can of olive oil They prompt in us the appropriate scene The classic kitchen The good soup The right choice of kitchen tools We can imagine. We can We can exactly pinpoint the essence We know the stereotype, the prototype and the exquisite We know how to judge We are judgement in the flesh Perfect pawns of categorical imperative But what about turnip cabbage Madre Mia What about butternut squash Please mother Hold us Comfort us Stien Pijp Stien Pijp lives in the Dutch country side. She enjoys thinking, poetry and clay. She works as a linguist in the field of aphasia and care. A dreamy person who likes to hang around and walk her dog. ** All That Was Bright upon the night long rain, flapping mid-air like the sunbirds in silence- imprinting moments that never came. Blue and deep, all that was. O lord of miracles I offer you life's celebrations, beauty once held- chirping of robins and blackbirds, nightmares through early hours. I offer you my burden today of not praying enough. Darting thoughts like the naked iron rods out of years in layered bricks, slipping spirit from the weeping holes. Abha Das Sarma An engineer and management consultant by profession, Abha Das Sarma enjoys writing. 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, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, here and elsewhere. Having spent her growing up years in small towns of northern India, she currently lives in Bengaluru. ** Evolution "If she tells fortunes with a deck of fallen leaves Until it comes out right -- (How could you not love a woman who cheats at the Tarot?) " Robert Hass, The Problem of Describing Color We could have been anything possible or improbable, call girls or soloists in a church choir in the country, sisters born naturally in the verdant bed of Mother Nature -- we were three: Ivy, Vetiver and Rose. Ivy, a twin, had a passion for still life so she painted a flower poet, stems and leaves of Ivy (her namesake) in a lovely shade of turquoise, its colour called the sky-stone by Native American Indians, a blue-veined rock they used in ritual healing. Vetiver (the other twin) said water -- its rippling aquas -- reminded her of the springtime when she learned to swim in a pond named for Eustacia Vye in a Thomas Hardy novel -- a tragedy -- written before Vetiver's arm went missing. Rose said Pascal took too long to paint it -- the lost limb -- using a shade of algae green: Painterly, complex & tripartite, how could he fantasize all of us? Calling us his little secret? Never trust a man who wears a watch! Rose came to him with open arms reaching for a basket full of stars; Ivy said her wish was for a starfish an open creel in deep-sea clouds where lovers' dreams turn upside down & Vetiver's an essence. Call her grass -- a miracle of propagation, all the answers in her roots (some might say the grass is greener) a seasonal dissertation when work evolves in brush strokes -- with jabs and dabs -- a Rose by her own name, with fewer thorns guarded by a bulb of garlic... How can one painting have 3 lost loves, evolving, bold in wildflower souls, with passionate stems growing quickly although our art is timeless -- an artist's question of Can't or Can as he paints us in our new colours as we spill from a moon-silver paint pan? Laurie Newendorp Laurie Newendorp, whose Dutch surname means "new in the town" although she is now a grandmother, has been honored multiple times by The Ekphrastic Review's challenges. Her book, When Dreams Were Poems, explores the relationship of life to poetry and art. Eustacia Vye (a character as well as the name of a pink rose) becomes "part of the pond's world of algae" when she drowns in Thomas Hardy's Return of The Native. ** Art Reflecting Life He applied the finishing flourishes on his 55th birthday months before Glinda and Elphaba defied gravity in theaters, both painting and flick a depiction of inclusivity, each spreading the truth that despite the color of our skin our needs are the same. Elaine Sorrentino Elaine Sorrentino has been published in Minerva Rising, Willawaw Journal, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Ekphrastic Review, ONE ART: a journal of poetry, Haiku Universe, New Verse News, Sparks of Calliope, Gyroscope Review, Quartet Journal, The Raven’s Perch, and Panoplyzine. She hosts the Duxbury Poetry Circle, and was featured on a poetry podcast at Onyx Publications. Her first collection of poetry, called Belly Dancing in a Brown Sweatsuit is in production at Kelsay Books. ** Supplication These girls, arms flung up in adoration, yearning to be part of the performer’s world. Swifties pledged to adore their Queen. Light from the stage spills over them, kissing their young faces with garish green and bastard amber. For a few hours, they can worship their heroine. Arms outstretched, they look like Michaelangelo’s Creation of Adam. But this time, it’s no Sistine Chapel. More likely, a sports coliseum. A man turns away from the Goddess, ignoring the girls and waiting for the screaming to stop. Lynne Kemen Lynne Kemen’s full-length book of poetry, Shoes for Lucy, was published by SCE Press in 2023. Woodland Arts Editions published her chapbook, More Than a Handful in 2020. Her work is anthologized in The Memory Palace: an ekphrastic anthology (Ekphrastic Editions, 2024), Seeing Things and Seeing Things 2 (Woodland Arts, 2020 and 2024). Lynne is President of the Board of Bright Hill Press and has served on many other not-for-profit boards. She is an Editor and Interviewer for Blue Mountain Review. She is a nominee for a Pushcart Prize this year. ** On Mohlmann’s Can/Can’t Why the women and why the whispers, who has done it-- the thing not spoken of? Who has the right to point? And who the guilty ones? This painting is fake, it’s staged, I fear. The women needy, to be sure, but who holds their destinies, who opens their doors? It looks like the man is unfriendly. But see the green hands, grasping-- always grasping for the best, the women want more than the rest. At this hour, the male holds the power; the women think they’re bereft, don’t know they're actually blest. The man holds the moneybag near, the women peer in the wrong direction. It’s a painting trying to be a Greek Chorus, as if a god such as Horus could answer their pleas. Carole Mertz Carole Mertz, author of Toward a Peeping Sunrise, a chapbook, and Color and Line (a poetry collection of ekphrastic and other poems) resides with her husband in Parma, Ohio. In December, 2024, she published her hundredth review; many of these cover the works of contemporary poets, see World Literature Today, Full Stop, Mom Egg Review, Heavy Feather, and Oyster River Pages. ** Can/Can’t or can/can whatever just kick it as far as it will go let it roll or let it ride all the marbles all the time(s) tell it slant or force a rhyme meter made me meter matters murder me with silent chatter truth be told teeth shatter and meat pulls away from the bone I hate to say he was right i’d rather tell a story about sunlight but nothing impresses like the grotesque green = enmeshment we can’t even see anymore glass is cloudy mirrors have gone brown and we’re left with intention and a microphone of all things give it here I’ve got one last song to sing. Crystal Karlberg Crystal Karlberg has been a middle school teacher, library assistant, mentor, advisor, activist. Her poems have appeared in The Threepenny Review, The Penn Review, Best New Poets, Beloit Poetry Journal, etc. ** Seventy Different Voices cataclysmic cracks in the skull designed by fifty dearest dissuaders and hopeless hopefuls; another twenty wait and wait, their choice of topic an arm’s length away, their strong voices ready to boom, conserved through the menial issues cackled, clawed and chipped away at by the cacophonous rest, loud without purpose, piercing the sound barrier for the fun of it, to sleep through what matters more; come portentous point in history, and the handful turn on the megaphones to drown in a silence of an unused throat. Manisha Sahoo Manisha Sahoo (she/her), from Odisha, India, has a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering and a Master’s in English. Her words have appeared/are set to appear in Inked in Gray, Usawa Literary Review, Bridges Not Borders, Apparition Lit, Sylvia Magazine, Atticus Review, and others. You can find her on Instagram/X @LeeSplash **  The Wild Hunt of Odin, by Peter Nicolai Arbo (Norway) 1872 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 The Wild Hunt of Odin, by Peter Nicolai Arbo. Deadline is January 3, 2025. 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. Scroll down to donate $5CAD (about $3.75 USD). 4. USE THIS EMAIL ONLY. Send your work to [email protected]. 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 ARBO 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. 7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 8. Deadline is midnight EST, January 3, 2025. 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 for challenge submissions. 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.  Train Through Town, by Maud Lewis (Canada) c. 1967 Editor's Note: It was a treat to read all the responses to Maud Lewis's painting. Many of you were moved by her ability to produce joyful art in the midst of a poverty-stricken life. Still others were filled with memories of snowy winters, train journeys, grandmothers, and mentors. And finally, some wrote about their current climes and how they differ from Train Through Town. Happy winter or summer, wherever you may live! Write On! Sandi ** Maudie - a haibun your tough life didn’t show in the vibrantly coloured canvases you sold for just a few dollars nor did it show in the wide crescent-moon smile across your face or the love for your man and his for you ‘til the end, still in the same house on Highway 1, its front door so close to the road, a passing car’s tyres would send a tremble through its walls, shaking you awake, calling your fragile bones to rise; entreating your fingers to capture life in all its pretty commonness trailblazer a small woman and her paintbrush I see you painted yourself in this time - you and he together watching snow fall to blanket hills you’ve never actually seen: every hue thick with brightness so unlike the white exterior of your tiny house, although the inside was a different matter - they’re all the rage now, tiny houses. The rest of us have cottoned on to what you already knew, that small and simple lets the sun shine and doesn’t block its glory, and can leave a mark much bigger than itself pneumonia in Canada’s winter not surprising Linda McQuarrie-Bowerman Linda McQuarrie-Bowerman is an Australian poet who lives and writes in the coastal village of Lake Tabourie, NSW, on traditional Yuin country. She enjoys seeing her poetic work published in various excellent literary spaces. ** O Take Me Back O take me back to childhood on the Maudie Lewis train, Where firs are green and snow is white and ponies mind the rein; Where there’s a ridge to every roof, a church to every hill, The skies are clear, the smoke is sweet and no one’s ever ill. O take me to the cookie tin that calmed me as a kid, And let me live forever in the landscape on the lid, Where clothes are pink or sunny gold and shadows minty blue, And nobody has scary things they really have to do. O take me to the softer lands of cotton and of thread: The patient, careful needlepoint that hangs above the bed, Where someone helped a child to make her stitches neat and straight, And gently took it over when the tangles grew too great; Don’t leave me in a place where crippled women slave all day To summon up our fantasies because they know they pay; Take me where nothing’s ever lost but all swings round again, As bright and clean and painless as the Maudie Lewis train. Ruth S. Baker Ruth S. Baker has published in a few poetry journals. She has a special love for animals and visual art. ** She’s Coming from a Place of Happy Memories "She preferred the colours just as they are... paintings made on cardboard, and little pieces of wood, sold on the roadside." The Moving Story of Artist Maud Lewis, Danielle Groen "But secretly, while the grandmother busies herself at the stove, the little moons fall like tears from the pages of the almanac into the flower bed the child had carefully placed in front of the house." Sestina, Elizabeth Bishop Happiness is inside of you! my little grandmother would say when I complained of boredom my malady of choice. She was right, of course (little grandmothers usually are) for how else could Maud Lewis have wrapped her crippled fingers around a paint brush? Frozen by rheumatoid arthritis, fingers curled in a shape called "pencil-in-cup" she is smiling in a photograph, at work in her home a shack in Nova Scotia without electricity or running water. Art Naif comes from inside, so Maudie smiles creating scenes of life in miniature, doll-house size figures waiting for a train on snow-coated earth, the train rolling through town on wheels that resemble peppermint candies. Smoke from the steam engine's chimney puffs out the train's arrival as a blue-suited conductor calls out Prochain arret les amis! -- "Next stop folks! -- it's Marshalltown!" & lovely are the ladies in big-skirted dresses, memories of Victoriana in yellow and pink. One woman stands with a gentleman in a top hat, his bright orange muffler warming his neck, though its ends are whipped by a winter wind... & the bells that the children could hear were inside them... Did Maudie Lewis hear them, listening for sleigh bells as she painted the town and its old-fashioned people? Or dream down a memory of horses and sleighs? High above the train stop a small white church is perched on the horizon, where the trees, tall and straight are a forest militia -- pines for the pining -- for a holiday journey with horses and sleigh; and look who's coming to meet the train's schedule -- someone with a dog sled; the animal's outline (the back of his head) a folk art edition of Batman's visit, ears perked up to help Maudie Lewis as she paints Nova Scotia. Soon more snow will be falling and the train will be moving but there's no end to the journeys where Maudie's art takes her, transforming her pain with child-like perception. Laurie Newendorp An appreciator of Folk Art's view of nature, both simple and complex, Laurie Newendorp can understand why Maud Lewis's neighbours in Marshalltown felt her to be a special person. To create in her body's crippled state must have been a motivating source of happiness for her, why her art was evaluated as "coming from a place of happy memories." Recipient of numerous Ekphrastic Challenge acceptances, Newendorp's book, When Dreams Were Poems, is based on the significance of poetry in art and life. Folk Art is often childlike, "And the bells that the children could hear..." is a quote from Dylan Thomas's "A Child's Christmas In Wales." ** Childhood Memories Maud Lewis painted her magnificent painting Train Through Town in 1967, the year of Montreal's World Expo. The year that takes me into a past that is still very present. The year the world opened up to us; the year the world came to us. With its vibrant contrasts of hot and cold, Train Through Town makes winter speak, and warm me with childhood memories that the painting brings to life: Mr. Charbonneau who took me for a ride after a magnificent snowfall with his impressive horse seen through my child's eyes;my grandfather who took me to the station to see the freight train go by, never a passenger train. The carpet of snow, painted by Maud Lewis, seems soft under the hooves of the horses and their cart. The carpet of snow contrasts with the solidity of the rails supporting the train. Light and fragile sleighs, strong and agile horses. Imposing and solid train cars with the horsepower of the locomotive pulling them to the great joy of travelers. Maud Lewis painted Train Through Town just three years before her death. A rich and fabulous heritage. Jean Bourque Jean Bourque lives in Montreal, province of Quebec. He is French-speaking and a retired specialist teacher. As a retiree, one of his plans is to learn English. ** To Maud Lewis Regarding Train Through Town You blur as if through children's eyes the stirring joy of their surprise at waking to the snowy white of fledgling winter taking flight where barren tree and bravely those who face the wind in bundled clothes are there —as rumbling train departs-- to welcome home the kindred hearts who share the soul of town remote where misted eyes will rightly dote on distant spire that speaks to hope alive and well in those who cope where simple will of faith prevails as steed and steel recarve its trails. Portly Bard Portly Bard: 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. ** Time Travel on Canvas More than just a pretty scene, more than an artist’s brushwork evoking a time long past, I know this scene because I once traveled there, to that past place. As surely as Maud Lewis did with brush, Mother DeSales, a woman nearing ninety in 1958 when she reigned over the study halls of my fifth-grade classroom, Mother DeSales took me skating with her in one of the small towns just outside of Pittsburgh, when snow covered everything. She was not deemed well enough to teach any longer, but she loved being with students and while we worked on our assignments, she talked to us. I loved her visits, moving from my usual seat in the middle of the classroom to the front so I could hear her soft voice guiding back into her past , those few who were not secretly reading magazines or napping at their desks. It was cold outside; frost flowers decorated the large windows on the windy side of the building. Mother had a slack shawl around her bent shoulders. She leaned forward over the desk. Eyes twinkling in the bit of her little wrinkled face visible in the wimple, the room grew quiet, and she began to speak. I wondered which tale of her childhood she would tell. She usually talked about her calling to the sisterhood, but on that frosty winter day in 1958 she opened up another chapter of her life to us—her childhood, when on a frigid day like this she and her friends went ice skating at a local pond. Her smile seemed to erase the wrinkles, and I saw her face, fresh and smooth, pink with cold, laughing, laughing. This dear lady who needed our help to manage the stairs up to our classroom, talked of walking past the train station, leaping into snow banks with her friends, watching a horse drawn sleigh carry the minister to church to get ready for Christmas, making snowballs to throw at the boys, as they waited for the train to pass through the main part of town so they could finish the walk across the tracks to the pond. In her breathy voice she described how, braids swaying behind her, she danced on the ice once there, her steel blades making figure eights. Dancing, stomping her feet as she waited for the train to pass, racing, making snowballs, playing “crack the whip,” and I was there with her. When the bell rang for the study hall to end, I leapt up from my seat to help Mother down the steps and back to the convent. I wanted to hear more about her day. I didn’t want to give up the scene of horse-drawn sleigh, the train coming. I could smell the smoke, feel the hard snowballs, now, those were just her hands clasping mine as we navigated the short walk back to her place by the window where she watched the modern world go by, a much less interesting place in my estimation than the one she knew as a child. I think even with her weak eyes, she knew which of us were listening to her. I wanted to ask, “what colour was your hair then?” But I did not. Crossing the yard back to the convent, the magic thread to her past was wound back inside her again. I gave her a hug as she settled into her chair to wait until the next time she was needed in the classroom and I returned to long division, classmates talking of movie stars. It's been years since I lived that moment, felt the magic of the past coming alive in Mother’s voice. This painting brought back both the magic of that day and also allowed me to travel once again into Mother DeSales’ childhood. I wonder if Maud Lewis knew Mother DeSales or if she, Maud Lewis, simply also knows the secret of creating a past so alive we can step into it. After all, such time travel is the natural landscape of artists, poets, and older women whose eyes still sparkle with youth. Joan Leotta Joan Leotta plays with words on page and stage. Internationally, including in The Ekphrastic Review, published as essayist, poet, short story writer, and novelist, she’s a two-time nominee (fiction and poetry) for Pushcart and Best of the Net. As a story performer she offers folktale programs and a one woman show, Louisa May Alcott Gives an Author Talk. You can find her on Facebook, Joan Leotta, or contact her at [email protected] ** My Next Christmas Card Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, There is a field. I’ll meet you there. —Rumi My next Christmas card will spark joy brighten with the enchantment of a winter scene welcome like the setting of dreams where sleighs skaters and passersby amplify community. My next Christmas card will display a time-honored place embody the shape of crinoline silhouettes glow with the simplicity of kerosene lamps underscore the old-world charm of a railway town. My next Christmas card will rouse the senses echo the rumble of a steam locomotive resonate with neighs whinnies and the jingle of bells evoke the fragrance of a pine forest enliven with the aroma of wood as it kindles warmth in a potbellied stove. My next Christmas card will punctuate colour comfort like a mug of hot chocolate hearten like a long-lasting hug be an offering of peace out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing. Jeannie E. Roberts Jeannie E. Roberts is the author of several books, including The Ethereal Effect - A Collection of Villanelles (Kelsay Books, 2022). On a Clear Night, I Can Hear My Body Sing is forthcoming from Kelsay Books in 2025. She serves as a poetry editor for the online literary magazine Halfway Down the Stairs. ** With Arthritis Hands With arthritis hands like balls of knotted wool Maud Lewis painted just what she liked. With paint squeezed straight from the tube On boards of wood, she would cut herself Her miniature artworks are a means of self-expression. Of her Ohio, Nova Scotia life out in the wilderness She loved the railroad outside the family home. The Baptist church appeared against the clouds. Her blue shadows, images painted in the snow, Show a willingness to live and survive. No, you can't give up out here! You got to smile and look up. Nothings impossible If you learn that subsistence is a painter's gift. Maud loved the hustle and bustle of the locomotive. The people thereabouts where she would sell fish And she would sell painted Christmas cards Life was tough, but painting was a means to uplift. Others and, more importantly, herself, soul and body. Mark Andrew Heathcote Mark Andrew Heathcote is an adult learning difficulties support worker. His poems have been published in journals, magazines, and anthologies online and in print. He is from Manchester and resides in the UK. He is the author of In Perpetuity and Back on Earth, two books of poems published by Creative Talents Unleashed. ** Trained Through Need The Poor Farm watchman not alone, in keeping eye out, on the doors, for her of nature, entry point, to jewels’ sparkle in the drab. Provincial scenes of childhood still, nostalgic, optimistic themes, just as the first sales, door-to-door of Christmas cards, her sense of cents. He peddled fish as she sold cards, her wish to expand popular, so beaverboards and cookie sheets were joined with Masonite as base. A white background, infilled from tube-- so primary, no mix or blend, arthritic size, not stretcher plied, to even pride in White House size. How apt that frame of postage stamp-- the plays, films, music followed on-- as did museums, folk art schemes in Nova Scotia where she lived. So much was grim except the bright alighting on the vibrant seen; thus folk break out of poverty, through need, trained creativity. 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 curated and published by on-line poetry sites, printed journals and anthologies, including The Ekphrastic Review. He has, like so many, been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. His blog is at https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com ** 15 Dec 1850 Dear Mam by the grace of God I arrived safely here in Philadelphia the crossing on the ship was most dreadful many perished from the fever red with rash and lice and delirium I live in a room in Kensington Street with Aunt and Uncle and the six Cousins every night I pray for you all to come through the great hunger o Mam! to see Norristown from the train so bright and cheerful a place it was great craic to watch the pony sprinting the gentleman away up over the snow and sparkle to the church it made me think when of a Sunday young Tommy O’Neill passed on his horse Branna and tipped his hat to me you wouldn’t credit it Mam America is covered with gold even on locomotives and houses and windows and ladies dresses it must be dreadful heavy I miss you Mam maybe someday please God we’ll meet again tell Da I’ll bring him a long smooth scarf the colour of sunrise and you a fine warm wool pink coat with a fur collar I’ll get with all the easy gold I’ll be finding here in America your loving daughter Mary Jane Gallagher Janice Scudder Janice Scudder lives in Colorado. Her work has appeared in The Prose Poem. ** Traveling Through the Snow: a Scene In this scene, people trust one another, leave their doors unlocked, to be sure. And there’s beauty on the snow-laden hillside; in this scene, trains begin to replace the horse, but of course if we look anew, we might see other changes too. (I vowed not to wax eloquent about the good ole days.) But since you heard the train coming through, lets look again at the young woman in her gown-- see, she has suitcases at hand and is leaving the town; her sister must go alone in the sleigh, up the slope on her way to the church. I hope there’s been no falling out. How have they parted, one from the other? And how smartly does the vicar welcome the one at the door? She surely arrives shivering and wet, but warms to the gold of the candlelight; she awaits the Good News—(it’s truly quite old) but oh, so reassuring to hear! The cheer of the scene as the New Year approaches—the scene as cozy as a mini-hut, a laced glove, or a cup of hot chocolate set in the snow—it lets us know life continues well beyond the things new industry brings, past wars and rumors of wars, and other such matters. It scatters our fears and relaxes the stresses. We could, if we like, simulate, of course: hire horses and sledges and sew us long dresses. We could go back in time and pretend. Yet some things remain forever the same-- the snow is still snow. (And the two sisters will forgive one another and mend, I know.) Carole Mertz Carole Mertz has poetry in various journals and anthologies. She's happy to be included in Luzajic's Starry Night collection. Her review of Saunier's The Wheel will appear in the January issue of World Literature Today. She resides with her husband in Ukrainian Village, a lively area of Parma, Ohio, where the youth paint scenes on the exterior of enterprises. ** Train of Thoughts Through the Mind’s Town The train ferries the warmth of firewood and the pale siren of smoke into the soft morning. Breathe in the swirl of mist, the pure drift of calm. Older thoughts alight at their stop and newer ones occupy their place. Faith and dreams and second chances clothed in pink and yellow gowns, brown overcoats and orange mufflers, colour the present while the past shrinks into pale blue shadows. The town holds on its strong shoulders the mantle of delicate snow. The horse draws, through the white wilderness, the sled of promise – tomorrow’s vermilion-yellow. The bare tree stretches its arms to touch the sky, as the sunshine of spring clothes its limbs of winter. The train chugs along its tracks to the highway on the west, makes the right turn, into the doorway of the distant future. Emeralds and jades flourish in a forest below the cerulean horizon of hope. Preeth Ganapathy Preeth Ganapathy is a software engineer turned civil servant from Bengaluru, India. Her recent works have been published or are appearing in several magazines such as The Orchards Poetry Journal, Last Stanza Poetry Journal, The Ekphrastic Review and various other journals. Her microchaps A Single Moment, Purple— have been published by Origami Poems Project. Her work has been nominated for the 2023 Best Spiritual Literature. ** Simply Put It was a simpler time the way I remember it and our bright little town, flat out uncomplicated no harsh contrasts or stark shadows, no hints of decay or vanishing points. In a way, everything seemed to stack up almost magically with fanciful stories of the couple no one knew but everyone wanted to be, and the ever-hopeful figure waiting at the station the thrill of a train filled with adventurous dreams set amidst the smooth homespun snow a horse and carriage flying uphill and appearing to be leaping over a cloud of smoke from the train an evergreen hilltop and homes on the hill looking like bird houses up in our favorite tree the cat, who cast a soft bluebird shadow, overseeing it all from the catbird seat. Linda Eve Diamond Linda Eve Diamond is an award-winning poet whose latest publication is The Art of Listening Anthology, a free collection of listening-themed poetry and visual arts by more than 60 creative contributors. Find her website at http://LindaEveDiamond.com and The Art of Listening at https://www.lindaevediamond.com/art-of-listening. ** The Memories We Keep No one-horse sleighs ever dashed through the snow of my childhood. Tidewater Virginia was too warm for that. What little snow we got was more likely to show up in February when camellias and daffodils were already in bloom. We enjoyed our own holiday magic – sailboats strung with Christmas lights that sparkled in the harbor. My favorite holiday memory is the one Mama saved for me. There’s no way I could remember being two. The noise in the kitchen grew louder and louder. Parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles crowded the smoky room. The clink of ice and bawdy laughter almost drowned me out, but Mama raised a finger to her lips and pointed to me. In the living room, I knelt in front of the Christmas tree, tiny palms pressed together, praying to Baby Jesus. Silence. The adults wiped their eyes. Alarie Tennille Alarie Tennille was a pioneer coed at the University of Virginia, where she earned her degree in English, Phi Beta Kappa key, and black belt in Feminism. She has now lived more than half her life in Kansas City. Alarie received the first Editor’s Choice Fantastic Ekphrastic Award from The Ekphrastic Review, and in 2022, her latest book, Three A.M. at the Museum, was named Director’s Pick for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art gift shop. ** sightseeing the past as we paint it with our memories is flat, layered, simple surfaces become parallel, without any depth, complexity we leave out the con tradictions that render dim ensional space-time was the sky so blue? the snow so white? the journey so unobstructed? all the shadows are perfect ly cast and untouchable 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/ ** Two Worlds Small, arthritic hands Painting straight out of tubes Figures, brightly cheerful Warm in scarves and cosy coats Sleighs dash jauntily Up steep hills of virgin snow Firs in immaculate, pure white cuffs Stand sentinel while trains huff and puff. A life of poverty, of limitation Your daughter adopted, fate unknown Peddling fish and paintings A world of pain and loss Yet you created a cosmos Of hope where joy is boss. Sarah Das Gupta Sarah Das Gupta is a writer from Cambridge, UK, who has had work published in many countries in North America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. ** Woken by Silence With summer approaching here in the subtropics, accompanied by the unavoidable Christmas songs in the supermarket, tinny voices singing: Buy, buy, and buy some more… Red-cheeked Santas with cotton-wool beards in big red winter coats and hats, while we are peeling off the layers in the sudden heat. Before my nostalgic eyes I see winter things: Christmas markets, horse-drawn sleighs, pine trees and snow-covered mountains, steam trains huffing uphill, warm coats, bobble hats and woolly gloves, fur-lined boots that crunched their way home, skiing to school… Going further inward, my real snows appear, those nights of flurries and muted sounds, the luminous dark, the sky’s crystal lights sending messages only for a child to hear, making promises only they can keep. Woken by the silence at three in the morning, standing by the window, my breath clouds the glass pane, the smallness of my hand that wipes to see the wonder, only to leave watery droplets. The world is slumbering under its new white blanket. I hear the earth breathing, In-- Out-- In-- Out-- calm and at peace. Finally at rest, preparing the succulent feast of spring. 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 eight poetry collections. Her poetry has been published widely in mostly US poetry reviews (online and print). She is a Pushcart and Best of Net nominee. Her eighth book, LIFE STUFF, has been published by Kelsay Books (November 2023). A new MS is brewing, and a new fun chapbook has been scheduled for publication in 2025. https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/ ** Sparks Blue light sparking off the wheels of subway cars in New York, flashing in the gloom of the tunnel, glowing in my sight like little embers of hope, little flecks of immortal beauty in the sad, dark city, blue like the sky when night is in the process of falling, blue like a river that might flood and wash everything clean. In Queens, when it snowed, the wheels would spark off the subway rails with a blue light that flitted inside of me like a flash of recollection of something I had always known. Then one time in Italy, just a couple of days before the end of the 20th century, I was riding on a train at night as it climbed up into the Alps, approaching the border with Slovenia. Firs or pines covered with thick, fluffy snow stood motionless on either side of the tracks. I watched spellbound as the blue light sparked and sparked off the wheels. Without these bursts of blue, everything would have been dark. The sparks illuminated the snowy trees, flashing for a split second against snowflakes falling through the air, suspending them, freezing time. I had left Milan without securing any Slovenian money, nor a Slovenian phrasebook, and my enchanted December train stopped in Ljubljana between three and four in the morning. Apologetically, I handed my cab driver a wad of lire, possibly way too much. None of these problems exist anymore, but those Alpine snowflakes remain suspended in the still blue air. And then a year later, on a train from Kyiv to Prague, sweeping across a wide Slovak valley that led to the High Tatras mountains. This time it wasn’t snowing and the wheels weren’t sparking much, but there was a full moon and everything was covered in snowy moonlight, or moonlit snow, a snowmoon-blue expanse and then a vertical craggy wall, also of snow and blue. A train, and snow, and blueness, and light. Blue and white, and light and dark, and the ability to move. Katrina Powers Katrina Powers decided she was a writer in first grade. The road has been rough and rocky, but she is still a writer. Along that road, she lived overseas, learned languages, and earned a PhD from the University of Chicago. She currently lives in Indiana with two small furry animals. ** Picture Perfect? I wasn’t in a brand new eggnog-yellow coat and toasty mitts, bearing bountiful gifts in overflowing designer suitcases. I wasn’t waving at welcoming neighbours, beyond excited to be in this wonderland, for this season of inglenook warmth. I wasn’t blinking in pristine sunlight as snow cloaked gentle hills, skies carolled and the whole town gleamed. No, I was forced from home against my will in threadbare jeans and coat, penniless, bone-weary, stomach growling. I’d drained my savings, yet boats and hopes sank, trains bellowed and fumes belched in biting rain, minus twenty, darkness. All my plans for life uprooted. Like a horse rearing up. Lke a train crash. Like logs mowing me down to a cold shadow. Helen Freeman Helen Freeman loves trying her hand at some of these challenges and then reading the different interpretations chosen by editors. She currently lives in Edinburgh and her instagram is @chemchemi.hf ** Depot The old gothic station now stores appliances: washing machines and ranges. Such merch the natural outcome of a passion for plumbing; run by the son of a son of the banker named Bowen, who once warned my mother her account was overdrawn while standing at the four corners in front of the fountain before it was melted down for ammunition. Once upon, green lined the sweep of lines carting lions, gymnasts and clowns carried to town in cars swirled with gold tangerine and crimson, dotting the scene on their way to the fairgrounds. And ladies in their pheasant-feathered finery, transported to tea in the city, bid farewell to the men from the armory proud in their khaki, while they passed the pandemic crisscrossing their path. Time was, the station welcomed the woods, maple and poplar, cast into caskets at the factory next to the tumbling tracks. With smokestacks of coal spewing their ash. Ashes to ashes. All to the caskets! The station, a building storing appliances, now clad in graffiti waiting for business. Cynthia Dorfman Cynthia Dorfman draws from memories of her childhood and depicts changes in the world since then. William Blake's "Jerusalem" inspired her to write "Depot" in response to the Maud Lewis painting. Her work has appeared before in The Ekphrastic Review and elsewhere.  CAN/CAN‘T by Pascal Möhlmann (Switzerland) 2024. Click image for artist site. 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 CAN/CAN'T, by Pascal Moehlmann. Deadline is December 21, 2024. 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 [email protected]. 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 MOEHLMANN 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. 7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 8. Deadline is midnight EST, December 21, 2024. 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 for challenge submissions. 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.  The Dream, by Marc Chagall (France, b. Belarus) 1939 Where an Angel Hovers and a Rooster Crows In navy turmoil the sky churns and the wind roils as she clings to ropes. Her grip weakens releases the mulish mass of aluminum. The propeller strikes a submerged stump as the hull hits an outcrop of granite. In navy turmoil her dreamscape shifts enters a medieval realm mossy village darkened with misshapen doors and windows where flowers reform the narrative relax her angst. In navy turmoil the sky churns and the wind roils as she clings to hope slides into safety a setting of softness where refuge arrives bestows an angel a rooster and the tenderness of touch amplifies renaissance with gentle strokes. Jeannie E. Roberts
Jeannie E. Roberts is the author of several books, including The Ethereal Effect - A Collection of Villanelles (Kelsay Books, 2022). On a Clear Night, I Can Hear My Body Sing is forthcoming from Kelsay Books in 2025. She serves as a poetry editor for the online literary magazine Halfway Down the Stairs. ** Sound & Vision Blue, blue Bowie cooed, while on the bed we sat and wrapped our arms around one another. It had been his favourite song, so we played it often and loud hoping, somehow, he would hear it, know we were thinking of him. We said nothing. What was there to say? Instead, we bent our heads. As I bowed my neck, the blues flooded from me and submerged the world underwater. I lived in Atlantis now; surrounded by silent, blue-bricked houses mossed with dull algae. Clouds dripped in shades of astronaut and ship cove. The flowers on the nightstand bloomed in sonorous hues. Even you, with your raw, red face, were cloaked in navy, as though your grief was turned inside out and propped up on display. But if you listened carefully, in time with the rhythm guitar, you heard the soft beating of wings. He had returned to earth, like some angelic alien descended from the sky, full of wisdom and hope. He reached out with open hands and kind smile. I felt his presence near my shoulder, wiping away the sadness with a flick of feather. He was so close. Come closer, closer, we were waiting for your gift. Blow my mind. I didn’t dare look up or open my mouth, but I was positive he heard me. The song stopped. He pulled away. Outside, a hen cruelly crowed; its beak slashing through the thick covering of blue. From the gash, colours oozed like blood. Louise Hurrell Louise Hurrell (she/her) is a writer based in Scotland. She has work published or forthcoming in The Circus Collective, Oranges Journal and From One Line's The Unseen anthology. Her short story "The Lonely Fan's Guide to H.G Wells" was shortlisted at the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival's Writing Awards. ** Finding the Light Blessèd are those who peel back the darkness, see beyond chaos, shine light into the deepest corners of fear. Blessèd are those who fill their hearts with memories, with love, with the promise of a better tomorrow. Even if they delude themselves, they may enjoy another day, month, perhaps a lifetime of hope. Blessèd are those who generously share the gifts of their genius, who ignore those who would steal it from them. They understand that genius can only be given, not taken away. Grateful are those who embrace the dreamers, who feel the magic that comes from spreading love, from making darkness sparkle with colour. For they shall feel the earth healing. Alarie Tennille Alarie Tennille was a pioneer coed at the University of Virginia, where she earned her degree in English, Phi Beta Kappa key, and black belt in Feminism. She has now lived more than half her life in Kansas City. Alarie received the first Editor’s Choice Fantastic Ekphrastic Award from The Ekphrastic Review, and in 2022, her latest book, Three A.M. at the Museum, was named Director’s Pick for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art gift shop. ** A Train in the Winter Passing A train passes, and the cold sky opens room for the freezing rain that turns to cascades of snow and returns to winter showers that make the waiting earth moist, flood, and raise the river moving past. Each form changes itself into another. The trees along the fields are mistaken. It is not yet the season of rain that sweeps from the desert of stones. That expected hour has not yet come, though these trees misunderstanding seem to have burst into blossom early, arranging their white bundles of petals along the twigs and the black bark, as if the result of a sudden Spring. Things around us melt into each other. The customary wind from the west cuts deep. And the sound of the storm front leaves behind it a silence, as if the earth were holding its breath, as the great, ancient oak came down. The cloudy evening's weary light shows us the tangle of fallen lines sparking, and twisting like live snakes. We look bewildered on this scene of ruin. And you, your eyes glow delicately in the impending darkness we face. Something once tightly held us, holds us, and gave us a shelter, with spread arms. But now I stand alone. It is God who delays, beyond these storms, the one we seek and who remains silent. Our souls sought that love, trying to follow that longing. And now we are found. Royal Rhodes Royal Rhodes is a retired educator, poet, and essayist. His work has appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, Allegro, Red Eft Review, Lothlorien Poetry, Ekstasis Poetry, and the Montreal Review. He remembers the long winters and heavy snows of his boyhood. ** In Your Dreams I float above the village green reflection in the slit of an old goat's eye I whisper whisper I think I love you Prove it he bleats My laughter shatters the spaces between my bones and his soul Donna-Lee Smith Donna-Lee Smith writes from an off-grid cabin with a much loved and much revered old goat. ** The Chagall Dream Where the night song flows on angel waves, where the radio of the universe sends out tinkling voices drunk with happiness, where the cow can jump over the moon and where the chicken flies out of its coop to hurry towards the lovers who shyly embrace in a sea of silent star sound; where the village houses dance the khorovod and windows watch the unfolding of blue magic. 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 eight poetry collections. Her poetry has been published widely in mostly US poetry reviews (online and print). She is a Pushcart and Best of Net nominee. Her eighth book, LIFE STUFF, has been published by Kelsay Books (November 2023). A new manuscript is brewing, and a new fun chapbook has been scheduled for publishing summer of 2025. https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/ ** Consolation Nostalgic for my childhood guardian angel, white and light who soon left my shoulder. This one seems out of control, arms outstretched to break her fall on a huge pillow. Other dreams transpired before this encounter. A pastoral was tacked to my wall at university, happy labourers behind a crazy green man, nothing like the foliage I hunted in medieval English churches. This small pastel / watercolour arrived at the beginning of a war with no walls or roof, with nothing to resist intruders. Small wooden houses are slipping off the mountainside as the news broadcasts mudslides, floods, explosions. ‘Don’t worry, it’s a dream.’ Is that what the angel has to say? The dark skies of climate change hang over the couple repeating ‘je t’aime’ and holding each other while the world slowly unravels around them. John Bennett John Bennett has worked for New South Wales National Parks and has PhD in Poetics. He moved from Sydney to regional NSW over a decade ago and immediately involved himself in the cultural life of the region, including citizen science (birds and native forests). A documentary on his working practice, Poetry at first light was broadcast by ABC Radio National’s Earshot, 2016. His work now often incorporates video and photography into texts. A forthcoming multi-media exhibition explores a reclaimed wetland. ** Wedding Night Silenced by angels bestowing blessings—angels with open palms— the rooster clamours and squawks no more. Hallowed blue night falls. He holds me gently—shy as he bends me back for a first deep kiss. I dream of houses: a tumble of blue houses descending the hill to shelter and welcome us. In the clock-tower’s windows, last light of evening flickers out. A soft bell tolls, yet tells no time: nor shall the rooster crow on awakening. For this will be our own time: our night, and ours alone. Lizzie Ballagher One of the winners in Ireland’s 2024 Fingal Poetry Festival Competition and in 2022’s Poetry on the Lake, Lizzie Ballagher focuses on landscapes, both psychological and natural. She was a Pushcart nominee in 2018. Having studied in England, Ireland, and the USA, she worked in education and publishing. Her poems have appeared in print and online in all corners of the English-speaking world. Find her blog at https://lizzieballagherpoetry.wordpress.com/ ** The Dream: 1939 Mamaleh, mamaleh, say what have you been dreaming? There’s sunlight in our little room and flowers by the bed. Tateleh, tateleh, I’ve seen an angel falling; The streets are creeping up on us, there’s trouble overhead. Mamaleh, mamaleh, there’s nothing here to scare you; Our neighbours all are friendly, it’s a home where we belong. Tateleh, tateleh, the window frames are shaking; There’s writing on the rooftops and the shape of it is wrong. Mamaleh, mamaleh, we’re rooted and we’re growing; We’ll raise our seed in pride and joy as all His creatures may! Tateleh, tateleh, I’ve heard the angel calling: Wake up, wake up, you innocents! It’s done. You cannot stay. Julia Griffin Julia Griffin lives in south-east Georgia. She has published in several online poetry magazines, including The Ekphrastic Review. ** Nuntius The angel, with no time to slot his wings on, Grabs two big petals and comes hurtling down; The rooster, in his haste quite self-forgetful, Bursts out more like a pony or a clown. The wall-eyed homes are trooping down the hillside, And so a couple's bedroom's thrust to view, In all its rosy privacy; beyond it, The outlook is cadaverously blue, Which doesn't promise well for either human: The white-faced girl, the clasping husbandman. There's writing on the wall if they can read it; First comes the star and after that the ban. If you're permitted an Annunciation, Rise up and head for Egypt while you can. Ruth S. Baker Ruth S. Baker has published in a few poetry journals. She has a special love for animals and visual art. ** The Dream Mother tells me good night; her fingers are cold, long nails that push my pores and dig into my skull. She holds me tight and tells me stories of Cinderella and the fairies and I wish for a midsummer night dream where I am Puck and I dance, stupid yet happy whilst I bray at the moon. My eyelashes are rough and seep into the crevices of my eyeballs, I feel I have not slept in hours, days, weeks. Yet Mother is there to tuck me in and tell me to rest. When I awake the mossy trees smell of hunger, sucking me into the little town with little people who vibrate like a string. Mother is the puppeteer. She is kissing my forehead now, and I wince at her touch- she feels like spiders against my skin that creep and dance against my follicles. Mother’s rouge smells like citrus and rubs against my cheek, flakes of chalk dissipating from her person. One day I too want rouge, so I touch my face and “O”- I gasp at my wrinkles, little mountains of a tiny clock that runs too fast. My hair strips off my scalp, sobbing, miserable. I weep in Mother’s arms at my loss, grasping the pitiable pieces of my beauty that have escaped me. She holds in her palms sweet scented chocolate candies whose innards rot with the scent of persecution. I take a piece, my ever expanding guilt a cavity that bites my lungs when I try to swallow. Mother stares at me, unmoving, and the hole grows bigger. In my ear, she whispers sweet things to me, soiled cough drops buried in dirt. Mother leaves. The minute worms that surround my heart begin to relax their tight hug, and I drift off to sleep. This sleep is real, I am sure. In my dreams I dance with the fairies, creatures that kiss my brows with their wings and steal me away to amazon skies. Anika Mukherjee Anika Mukherjee is a 17 year old student writer based in Utah. She writes poetry, fiction, and screenplays. ** The Moment The angel—clad in cloudy billows, wings like ghosts of leaves—speeds down, spurred by an earthly gust, his right hand stretched, but not yet touching the dreaming woman inside the dream he’ll fade to black, his left hand cupped to gather her in. She will not hear the rooster’s crow at dawn. But at the precipice of this moment, she still dreams: a ruddy sun-kissed lover comforts her on a bed as white as the angel’s wings, as her own pale face just tinged with fever. Amongst the not yet angel-visited hovels of the little village huddling together in the blue-black night, she sleeps for a jeweled moment more, breathing in the glow of the dream. Judy Kronenfeld Judy Kronenfeld’s sixth full-length books of poetry include If Only There Were Stations of the Air (Sheila-Na-Gig, 2024), Groaning and Singing (FutureCycle, 2022), Bird Flying through the Banquet (FutureCycle, 2017) and Shimmer (WordTech, 2-12). Her third chapbook is Oh Memory, You Unlocked Cabinet of Amazements! (Bamboo Dart, 2024). Her memoir-in-essays-and-poems, Apartness, is forthcoming in February, 2025 from Inlandia Books. ** The Dream The shingled rooftops sag under the weight of the amethystine sky. Clouds tumid with rain crowd the night, so that when the boy, a cherubic child of ten, gazes out from his window, he cannot see a single star. Pressing his cheek against the pane, cool with condensation, he angles for a better look but still sees nothing except those looming clusters of grey. His parents retired to bed some time ago. The boy recalls his mother reading to him. The copy of his favorite book—whose title is on the tip of his tongue, whose letters on the cover he cannot discern—hangs off the nightstand’s edge. He recalls listening to his mother’s tender soprano while he warmed under the covers, though he cannot remember how long ago that was or how he slipped into slumber. When he crawls back into bed, the boy hears the first drop. A plonk that echoes through the room. It is silent for a few seconds. Another drop dribbles, then a second, a third. A trill dances across the roof, soon followed by an even thrum, a vibrating whoosh that subsumes all sound. The ceiling begins to melt. An aureole of plaster turns slick and bulges in the centre. The water forms into a bead, stretched like putty by gravity, until it is severed from the ceiling and plummets to the floor. The boy watches the puddle grow. He lapses into a momentary trance—the metronymic drip hypnotizes him. As the tempo quickens and sets him free, he hurries to his closet, empties his hamper, and puts it below the leak. The sussurating storm swells in volume. The boy returns to bed. In his mind, he calls out for his parents but cannot hear his own voice, so he wonders if he has shouted anything at all. Amidst the deafening hum, the roof lets out a catarrhal moan. In an instant, it ruptures open, with the hollow boom of a thunderstrike, and the rain gushes inside. Down goes the roof, disintegrating into ash around the boy. The clouds seem to brush the top of his head, so close he can almost touch them. The feeble walls hem in the water, which rises and rises and rises. The boy’s bed rocks like a boat on the waves. Pieces of furniture, a lamp, dirty clothes draped over chairs, and wooden toy cars float along the frothing flume. The boy grips the headboard. His moss-green pajamas cling to his skin. Loose curls stick to his forehead. His tears disappear with the rain. He can feel his fingers losing strength, sliding off the oak frame. Squeezing his eyes shut, he tells himself to wake up; he convinces himself that when he opens his eyes again, it will be morning and the sky will be a cerulean blue and the sun will trickle in, teasing the approach of spring. Just before he sails over the cascade—crashing down the sides of the house—a being, a flit of white among the palette of greys, swoops from the sky and plucks the boy out of bed by his nape. Before he can see the torrents submerge the town, the boy is carried into the clouds. His vision is hazy. His eyes squint through the wispy whites. Catapulted from the humid limbo, the boy soars into the atmosphere. He is suspended in mid-air. On either side, he sees fluttering, feathery wings. He cannot be sure if they are his own, if they have sprouted from his own shoulder blades. Beneath him is the celestial ground. Tufts of cotton, convex with a plushness that reminds him of his bed. The boy does not hear the constant hiss of rain anymore; he hears only the wings, swishing through the air. All around him is the ethereal expanse. For the first time that night, the boy smiles. As he and that winged being fly through the fertile nothingness, he giggles and opens his mouth. The zephyr inflates his cheeks and turns them ruddy. Higher and higher, the two travel into the realm of dreams. They travel towards an escape. Daniella Nichinson Daniella Nichinson is a fiction writer from the Philadelphia area. ** Chagall’s Dream, 1939 Grim green of death pollutes the blistered sky Then tumbles downwards tainting earth and homes in its wake. Homes hug the ground as they tilt Dark and precarious like boulders Defying gravity. War hovers on the horizon. Its white blasts grip the crest, balloon into the sky Masking moonlight. A messenger flutter-kicks from the heavens Resistant to earthly forces Wings luminous with other-worldly light. Hugging the heart with one hand The other extends, fingers furled In incandescent blessing. Suitors dressed for flight Are shielded by sturdy headboard and pearly pillows And the gravity of love. A lowly rooster floats upwards Looks toward the lovers And awaits the signal to declare dawn. Bill Richard Bill Richard is a docent at the Phoenix Art Museum and has loved art since he sat on his dad’s lap as a toddler and looked at books of paintings. He is also a standardized patient for medical schools, helping prepare healthcare professionals by giving them feedback on their communication skills. Bill’s husband Kent is an infectious disease doctor. They share their home with their dogs Staccato and Presto. His poems have appeared in publications such as Red River Review, Ilya’s Honey, and National Catholic Reporter. ** Our Wedding Night Made in the Image of a Novelty Napkin I am embarrassed for my forehead. For the lies that I fed to your parents. And the deafening absence and swell of my conscience. For the mice traps that punctuate my enticements. And whisker-kiss my ancestors from their sleep. For the weight class of my pillows. And the rain that airs its grievances on the slate of the roofs. I am embarrassed for not taking the dog’s threats more seriously. For the lack of any coasters. Or thimbles. Or any of those tiny mints. The white of your willpower. Any road maps of Prague. And its most reliable tailors. Or astrologists. For not including your neck in the trust. Or reserving the last sweet for the brother who’s determined to spend eternity in a cellar. And will soon resemble a turnip. Or a pinto bean. For the mechanical chicken whose heart I dinged up. And whose prehistoric shins I still sing to. For the soot and the cab fare and the inference of moon and the lack of any goat besides the dried blood and mud it’s tracked in on the sheets. I’m embarrassed for the loan I took out on the flowers. For the late hour of my calling. And for the look my landlord continues to give you over his newspaper. Which he studies like the lease of a dollhouse. I’m embarrassed for the trouble I caused blue. And its allegiance to the sea. For our Savior’s nonexistent sense of balance. And His questionable hygiene. For the short supply of any fun facts. Or floors to stack books. Or our hundreds of fur lined boots. For the craftsmanship of the windows. The angel’s lack of any tact. And the small bat it nurses at its chest. For leaving the door ajar. And still insisting the wind keep our place. As the universe applauds the modest size of our vows. Mark DeCarteret Mark DeCarteret has been a member of City Hall Poets for 30+ years. ** To Marc Chagall Regarding The Dream You paint as only soul could see the truth of known reality as fate and fear and faith disclosed that hope envisions juxtaposed against the darkened in-between where unforgotten and foreseen are woven into circumstance becoming here and now the dance transcending time and space as bond to Love unending far beyond from which it sprang as life renewed by will that left its time imbued with promise still the precious worth of Grace preserved as Heaven's earth. Portly Bard Portly Bard: 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. ** In Chagall’s Dream an ocean of mermaid clouds swimming reefs of cobalt cacophony of slate and tile village tumbling hillside a wobble-legged rooster floating on betrayal an angel earth-falling lungs breathing twilight a bedstead beach-anchored on floral encrusted quilt peach tones bleeding pale skin tattooed in sorrow a lover’s arm in velvet reassuringly calm the world slow-spinning to overtures of war turmoil rolling into fugue discordant-dark foreboding Kate Young Kate Young lives in England and enjoys writing poetry, painting and playing the guitar, ukulele and mandolin. 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 pamphlets A Spark in the Darkness and Beyond the School Gate have been published by Hedgehog Press. Find her on Twitter @Kateyoung12poet or on her website kateyoungpoet.co.uk ** The Dream My dear, all life is a gift towards death. Do you hear the angel’s wings open like the wind harp’s dark saying? He wears them as the dove tree wears its flower and he has the body of a boy whose blue eye yearns for the blue flower. We are each born onto this earth by our forebears, who breathed before, into us, that we may breathe in time into the time in front of us, shrouded in morning’s blue mist, dark and cold like deep sea, and salty as the origin of life, staining the white cloth wafting from our bodies, the cock’s moongleaming feathers that makes it float a little and forbear from crowing so the floating houses don’t need to return to gravity, solidly bound to their feet, and we, dreaming in the great Dreaming, are spared from farewell for a moment, held in a long embrace. For a long moment bees bated in the lilac on our bed table burrow into the burning blue depths and buzz out, unseen, at four a. m., pollen in their faces stinging their composite, rainbow gaze. The boy’s golden hair has snagged wisps of cloud colored like the undersides of swallows, who don’t have feet, who are therefore spared a little more from gravity. The boy opens his arms. We cannot see the future in front or behind. All we can see is the morning is not yet here, the hawk moth is still sucking the ever-replenishing flower’s blue nectar that bears it towards death over to the bluer beyond. All we know is we are being towards one another. Lucie Chou Lucie Chou is an ecopoet from China whose work appears or is forthcoming in Entropy, the Black Earth Institute Blog, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, The Ekphrastic Review, Transom, Tofu Ink Arts, Halfway Down the Stairs, Kelp Journal, Sky Island Journal, Plant-Human Quarterly, Slant: A Journal of Poetry, Wild Roof Journal and Poet’s Lore. A debut collection, Convivial Communiverse, came from Atmosphere Press. In August 2023, she participated in the Tupelo Press 30/30 project where she fundraised for the indie press by writing one poem each day for a month. ** Ordeal Day one What a dream-come-true to encounter Chagall’s Dream out of the blue! Surreal mainstream persistently insane triggering migraine – the Chagall cocktail is not a fairytale – it’s so madly spirited – you are left limited to sob or spook. Before you know you’ve been framed. But the gist is bent – only roosters, angels and love souls can gravitate, your wingless landing depends on lots of perilous acrobatics constantly risking absurdity just as by Ferlinghetti. I remind myself it’s art brushed cold stalled, yet, quietly leave, rather – unfold. Day two Curiously, I find myself again savoring the Chagall cocktail with a couple explaining to each other the meaning of love dreaming. And that the dream makes us human! At the same time the Dream couple can’t comprehend why all their appeals to the night watch of the dreamland are in vain! They are strictly framed! But they are adamant! To make it real again! Oh, Dream couple, comprehend – the surreal of Chagall is your real hall of fame! Day three Afternoon free – ultimate Dreaming spree I’m alone, it seems here too at three everything stops for tea. The Dream gist that spirits my mind is insane but brushed a heart vein. The two scuffle for a second. I try hard not to scream and boldly proclaim: Hey, Dream-Souls, take your chance – here is the key to unlock the real – DYI - Donate Your Ideal! To the American dream, actual on earth as it is in your heaven! Rain roosters angels and sweet hearts! Before I suggest more acrobatics, a bunch of young fans flood the space as if it was Nothing Really Matters. Their bouncing thrill unframes Chagall. The new normal. No ordeal. Just deal. Ekaterina Dukas Constantly Risking Absurdity is a poem by the Beat poet Laurence Ferlinghetti. Nothing Really Matters is a name of American cocktail bar brand. Ekaterina Dukas, MA in Philology and Philosophy, writes poetry as a pilgrimage to the meaning. She is an enthusiastic contributor to ekphrastic poetics and her poems have often been honoured by TER and its challenges. Her collection Ekphrasticon is published by Europe Edizioni. ** Dreaming On a blue night all the town houses lean together in a rough tumble as if to listen sharing secrets trading gossip resting in the lap of white mountains rising like shoulders to surround them while the folk sleep safe enfolded in blue layered comfort and one couple wakes embracing on the edge of their simple wooden bed weightless as moonlight beneath a barefoot angel who shines not like the seraphim with coruscating fire but in ordinary trousers and a plain shirt- white winged–reaching down to them in tender benediction Mary McCarthy Mary McCarthy is a retired Registered Nurse who has always been a writer. Her work has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including The Ekphrastic World, edited by Lorette C. Luzajic, The Plague Papers, edited by Robbi Nester, The Memory Palace, edited by Lorette C. Luzajic and Clare MacQueen, and recent issues of Gyroscope, 3rd Wednesday, Caustic Frolic, Inscribe, the Storyteller Review, and Verse Virtual. Her collection How to Become Invisible, that chronicles a bipolar journey, is now available from Kelsay books, amazon, and the author. ** Visitation Angels need no maps of the stars, no compass to locate the forces of infinity-- they are the not that is, a geography larger than what can be written down. No compass is necessary to locate the forces of infinity that gravitate, pull, and repel inside a geography larger than what can be written down. Larger than shadows, veils, and mirrors, they gravitate, pull, and repel time. They ride on invisible strings woven through air, larger than shadows, veils, and mirrors. Their landscape inhabits their very being, riding on invisible strings woven through air, moving on currents of skywind and dream magic. Their landscape inhabits their very being, alert to the pauses and imperfections of the light. Moving on currents of skywind and dream magic, they become feathers and wings-- alert to the pauses and imperfections of the light, they become vessels and messengers. They become feathers and wings. They balance the world as it slumbers and waits. They become vessels and messengers. They become what is seen with closed eyes They balance the world as it slumbers and waits, echoing and reflecting the pull of the unknown. They become what is seen with closed eyes, the outline filled with what isn’t there, Echoing and reflecting the pull of the unknown. They are the not that is, the outline filled with what isn’t there. Angels need no maps of the stars 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/. ** Temporary Shelter of Dreams, 1939 Let us exist in now hair unbound, desire afloat, unanchored, we sail from the winter-whipped world, the thunder-boots and snarling-dogs of endless night; hold me tight, as angels pass over-- announcing life-tidings or foretelling death in plagues and wine-red seas, in transit, we drift in delphinium light on a counterpaned barque of fools and dreams as the rooster crows once in practice twice with vigor, and then over and again in warning. Merril D. Smith Merril D. Smith writes from southern New Jersey. Her full-length poetry collection, River Ghosts (Nightingale and Sparrow Press) was a Black Bough Press featured book. ** "why I get confused between smelling salts and dead African violets" I dream that I am dreaming of sleeping in the street, but I am not asleep and my bed is a boat adrift in the blueness of the dead of night I dream of a night adrift from walls, from constraints, free from the prying sight of the droopy-eyed sad faces of the houses holding the village's closed minds and vacant stares I dream of vacant stares and empty stairs, empty rooms in a deep gloom under a blue-grey pall I dream of a blue-grey pall, made from a palette of hues mixed from the ashes of emotions, love-hate-lust-anger-longing-despair-desperation I dream of lying under a night sky a particular shade of blue, the colour of the African violets in the blue vase once their blooms wither, their dying petals falling, shrivelling, falling, always falling I dream of a dream within a dream, a night visitor dressed in blue velvet with a red face and white hands. I love-hate-want-despise this demon, who is a version of me in another guise I dream that I am dreaming within a dream, I am the angel that watches over me, I am floating above, approving, announcing, protecting, advising, distracting, tempting, goading, reproving myself, and my other demon-self, while angel-me records it all on the unending scroll that captures every second of my life, just like the angel-self of every one of us keeps on updating our individual permanent records forever I dream of the arrival of a white horse, a red horse, a blue horse, any horse galloping into the night, a horse that always arrives in my dream, a horse that saves the day, a mare, a nightmare, a horse that's not a horse but in this dream has become the cockerel that will bring the sound of the break of dawn and awakening, but the cockerel is here now, and it is still the dead of night I wonder if the cockerel is really there? What do I even mean by that? I know this is a dream, even as I dream it within my dream. I know I am me, I know that I am also the red-faced demon, I am the angel and I am the cockerel, I am the village and the sad-faced houses and I am the blue night I wait for the horse - did I say there's always a horse? I wait for the inevitable horse that I will mount and ride through the blue night till I wake up at the break of dawn when I wake up I will write a poem called "why I get confused between smelling salts and dead African violets" Emily Tee Emily Tee is a writer from the UK Midlands. She particularly enjoys ekphrastic writing and has had some pieces published in The Ekphrastic Review challenges previously, and elsewhere online and in print.  Train Through Town, by Maud Lewis (Canada) c. 1967 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 Train Through Town, by Maud Lewis. Deadline is December 6, 2024. 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. Scroll down to donate $5CAD (about $3.75 USD). 4. USE THIS EMAIL ONLY. Send your work to [email protected]. 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 LEWIS 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. 7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 8. Deadline is midnight EST, December 6, 2024. 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 for challenge submissions. 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. **  In the Studio, by Marie Bashkirtseff (France, b. Poltava Governorate, Russian Empire, now Ukraine) 1881 Lady's Man I’m being John the Baptist this time round. We’ll soon have tea. I hope there’s madeleines, Not just tartines. This fleece may come unwound – They'd have a subject for their paint-pots then! Maman says it’s my first real job; I’m paid Each week. She says, Merci, mon Dieu, mon gosse. Our landlord is a bastard. She’s afraid; That’s why I’m holding up this silly cross For these mad ladies, since they pay to look. To hear Maman, they’ll all end up alone; They’d do much better if they learned to cook, Not paint strange boys when they could have their own – And then we count the sous (some francs as well) And whisper, Mais, merci, mesdemoiselles. Ruth S. Baker Ruth S. Baker has published in a few poetry journals. She has a special love for animals and visual art. ** In the Monument I too have a tomb a lust for fame a name etched gold flakes salvaged on seraphim wing pull me down beyond decision let me feel marble soothing my ashes Donna-Lee Smith Donna-Lee Smith writes from Montreal where cemeteries grace Mount Royal, reminding us that we too are waiting. ** The Woman in Cobalt The room was an inferno. The heady scent of linseed hardly masked the stench of sweaty women bound in their soured, long dresses. Mother would beat the soil out of them for a coin if she had her way. Her sendoff that morning stung my ears. “Comportez-vous bien. They are not paying you to slouch.” I snivelled agreement as the broom handle struck my bottom. “I know, maman! Easy money. I’ll do good,” I told her. She set her jaw and glared at me. “Oui. Or there will be no food on the table for you, mom petit.” The statue pose took getting used to. I prayed the scarlet welts on my backside were obscured from the painters’ keen eyes. The red-haired woman to my right studied my ribs with an intensity that made my welts throb. Could she see the stripes etched by the broom? The thought made me queasy. I focused my gaze on the back of the room where rows of canvases hung to dry like laundry. Blocks of colour. Nude people. I locked my knees, squared my shoulders and counted my breaths. I let my peripheral vision go fuzzy. I was posed as Saint John the Baptist, the cousin who baptized the risen Lord. I imagined the crisp water of the river Jordan wetting my ankles and creeping up my legs, the current rushing past fast and deep. Cool cobalt outstretched on all sides. My right arm was suddenly foreign to me—a numb appendage. I thought, how droll. I imagined myself armless, plunging Jesus into the rushing water by sheer spiritual will. After the baptism, we would feast on bread and fish with enough butter to reach every edge. Wine would be served, and I would fill myself. Friends would join us. Jesus, fresh from baptism, would share a parable. Mary, the Virgin Mother, would tap me on the shoulder and say I had conducted a miraculous baptism. She would embrace me, and her halo would cast a golden light on my face. Animated debate snapped me from my reverie. I was hit with a surge of panic. Had I moved? Would I be sent home without wages? I darted my eyes from head to head to head. I caught a thread of stray words. “Quality of shadow.” “Play of light.” Mon Dieu, I had stayed still. The air returned to my body. In relief, I studied the painters for a long moment. The women artists at L’Académie Julian appeared to see me as a bundle of lines and contours, not a boy. I had not resolved if that worked in my favour or against. They leaned over their work like bankers doing sums. Might they notice if I budged a millimetre? I thought I might be enraged if I had spent hours rendering perfect proportions to look up and find the model had moved and my composition ruined. Of course, they would notice if my hair fell out of place. I doubled my focus and scanned the room for a place to rest my gaze. I had ages before our next scheduled break. At break time, I circled the room and eyed the work in progress. I saw myself in blobs of fleshy tones in various states of doneness. Nothing about the work suggested it had not been painted by a man. The woman in cobalt locked eyes with me. I was frozen, expressionless. She smiled. I continued my tour and studied the caked pallets with their array of paint. I touched a puddle of crimson and found it was as soft as melted butter. Curious. When the session ended, I collected my things and headed toward the exit. I passed the woman in cobalt. She took stock of her supplies on the floor but paused and tousled my hair. “Such soulful eyes,” she said. Her voice was no more than a ragged whisper. I feared I might melt into the floorboards under her scrutiny, yet the tenderness in her expression held me there. “Did I get them right?” she asked. She meant for me to examine her canvas. I obliged with amazement. She waited. The uncanny realism stupefied me. In honesty, I had seen more paintings that day than ever in my ten years, but even so, her canvas was remarkable. I gaped at her. “How did you arrive at that shade of brown? Get it so lifelike?” I asked. She beamed. “Awe, you have the mind of an artist!” she said. It was my turn to beam. A flit of coughs followed. She covered her mouth and gestured an apology. “Doctor says it’s laryngitis again. Nothing serious.” The cough sounded pained, but I was glad the doctor thought it was minor because I longed to see the woman in cobalt again and again. “If you help me clean my brushes, I may share my secret,” she teased. * Years would pass before I registered that the woman in cobalt was Marie Bashkirtseff. That the prized realist painter had bestowed her secret on me, a starving boy. When art critics ask me about my signature style, I credit Marie as my first teacher. Incredible, they say. “You have caught the Bashkirtseff magic, jeune homme.” My heart flutters each time I receive such praise. “Tell us! Quel a été son sage conseil?” To that, I chuckle and say, “You will have to help me clean my paintbrushes for that secret!” Every October, I stop at Le Fleuriste for the richest blue blossoms in stock. I carry them through Champ-de-Mars, past le Tour Eiffel, across le Pont d’Iéna to Cimetiére de Passy. I sink into the frost-covered ground and tell Marie, who rests with the angels, that the critics are probing for her secrets. “Should I tell them?” I whisper. I set the bouquet close to the monument and think it might be good for the world to know Marie’s first lesson. “Do more than look,” she had said. “See people, and they come to life!” Marsha Masseau Marsha Masseau is a visual and literary artist living in Ottawa, Ontario. Her artwork has been shown and collected locally; her writing has been published in anthologies and stand-alone in both physical and digital form. She adores exploring the margins between the two forms. Marsha is an MFA in Creative Writing candidate at the University of British Columbia. ** Modèle Garçon He observes me. In a bold voice, the boy model in a fur loincloth calls out, "What is your name?" then "Is your husband rich?" Believes he must be if I have the leisure to paint. I am, I am told, pretty. The boy asks for a sou for saying so. I give him a third eye instead. He wishes to be portrayed as a gentleman in an emerald waistcoat and striped trousers, have a pocket watch and fob, and—although no one will see—curly hair on a muscular chest. One after another after another, his eyes blink. They see opportunity. "Does your husband need a little footman for your carriage?" I paint long colt legs and shiny black hooves on the boy. Giggle. "Now, prance like a high-knee pony." Giggle. His eyes are not amused. He calls me Marie Antoinette and degenerate. For that, I give him horse teeth. Seems I am not as fair as he first thought. The common boy now prefers the blonde artist in billowing sky blue who sits nearest the podium. He praises her proper, naturalistic style and how lightly she holds the brush, lauds how her lavender sachet masks the stink in this hot room. The turpentine, the dresses in need of laundering. His mother and sister take in washing. He asks me, "Madame, do you have a laundress?" Aggravating! A boy model opining and pedalling. Humph. When old enough to paint, the urchin can interpret his blonde lady in any manner he desires. He may change his name—I do not care to know what it is—to André and develop surrealism. Then, suddenly, I think he may not. May not change art nor endure what is necessary to turn away from convention and deliberately defy reason. Rather, the boy may die young. He may succumb to consumption or conscription. Wars are coming. Sad it is to paint his mouth as a round mourning brooch with a wisp of black hair and a jet stone. Without the money from his posing, how would the family survive? I draw feet under the brooch; fleet feet because his younger brothers would have to become pick-pockets. I dab two pink rosebuds on the brooch. His sister would dry her hands and scrub no more when men notice her bloom and her bosom. Sell the brooch, Bereaved Mother. Buy potatoes. I break the boy's slight figure into pieces. He snaps easily. In an act of experimentation as well as charity, I draw cubes and, in each, sketch a body part. "Come, play," I exclaim. The boy's eyes are the spinning tops he never had. He leaps down from the podium and runs to me. I can be kind. "Child, these are building blocks. How would you like me to arrange them? What would you like to become?" Silence. Shrug. He does not know. Knows only that he wishes to be painted in fine clothes. Mon Dieu. The preferred artist bangs her brush on her easel, commands him to return to posing. Still, he lingers to tell me how his mother spit-wipes his face before he comes to Académie Julian to seek work. Tempting to fight along the way, but he does not. "Boys with black eyes are not chosen." I sketch dove wings on his back to lift him above the mean streets and deliver him to the podium every morning. Still, a cherub he is not. Wink. "Soon, I will appear as a satyr and earn seven sous for standing naked." Wink. In his bold voice, the boy wonders aloud whether my husband will allow me to paint him when nude and quite a man. I do not answer. Better that he pose as David or recreate Manet's The Fifer or even The Blue Boy by Thomas Gainsborough. My fellow ladies long to dress him as a dandy in a satiny suit with bows. If they do, I will be the one who smoothes the boy's hair and pats his white cheeks to rosy-red. I will whisper to him to keep a gentle light in his three eyes, an expression of the good man he will become when—if—he grows up. Karen Walker Karen Walker (she/her) writes short in a low basement in Ontario, Canada. Her most recent work is in or forthcoming in New Flash Fiction Review, Exist Otherwise, Misery Tourism, Does it Have Pockets? and EGG+FROG. ** Apart from a Double Gin and Tonic there’s nothing I like more than a group of women freely doing what they want, the only male among them posing on a pedestal which doesn’t mean he is idolised, elevated, glorified or revered, even allowing for his youth and the fact his parents raised him to feel superior. He stands swaddled in a tiny piece of cloth undoubtedly entertaining the notion of eternal worship by the female sex. His prepubescent form, dwarfed by the power of estrogen, shrinks to an ever paler version of its imagined self. The smell of kerosine lingers long after all the brushes are cleaned of him. Linda McQuarrie-Bowerman Linda is an Australian poet who lives and writes in the coastal village of Lake Tabourie, NSW, on traditional Yuin country. Linda enjoys seeing her poetic work published in various excellent literary spaces. ** To Marie Bashkirtseff Regarding In the Studio The classroom was for you a place disinclination would not grace with homage in expected style, but chose instead by wit the wile of composition here perceived detailing truth to be believed in circumstance as it occurred that echoed hence forever heard as moment in which you implied persistence never satisfied became by journal if not ouevre your gift unending left to serve the eye beholding kindred call to most important art of all. Portly Bard Portly Bard: 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. ** Leader of the Pack Now here’s a canvassing for art - nude studies only part portrayed - beheaded as of no account; as if distraction, forms below, commission, Julian himself, commercial, his Atelier. For in one stroke Marie displayed, where paraphernalia laid out, a self-affirming soul proclaimed as Rodolphe pays - the craft excites. Faint praise, poor protest on her part - ‘the subject does not fascinate’. Her diary-speak - as centrepiece - speaks volumes in coquettish style; ‘so taken with’, and ‘so convinced’, and ‘very amusing’ it may be. For her, recall, ‘not fascinate’ - the lady doth protest too much. Enough! ‘Never been painted’ writ, this ‘wonderful notoriety’, reluctant rôle play thus dismissed. A bright blue dress, brush, mahlstick pose, (what caused her face-turn into light?) a chair draped length, of purple fold… Another skill as advertised, she handles well, manipulates the apparatus, chemistry. The lad raised up here paint puts down - his loin cloth wrap, sheep’s clothing so? But who’s the leader of the pack? 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 curated and published by on-line poetry sites, printed journals and anthologies, including The Ekphrastic Review. He has, like so many, been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. His blog is at https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com ** The Subject The subject suspiciously eyes the skeleton to his left – and a step or two behind him. He can’t face it directly, for fear of being chastised by this wonderful femme palette of artists. A quiet stillness is his brief. He must stay “toujours comme on peut l’être.” His peripheral vision is enough. ‘Why the skeleton?’ he ponders. A mannequin of bones. ‘What does it represent? Does it act as a reminder to the artists to think about their framework first and foremost? The bare essentials. Add the tissue, skin and a beating heart in time.’ Big, deep and meaningful thoughts for a twelve-year-old boy. He feels somewhat exposed in nothing more than a tissu, though strangely secure, powerful even with staff in hand. He does sense safety in this atelier féminin. Still, that squelette and all its exposed bones! His weight shifts on to his right leg, away from the offending object, irrationally thinking he could leap from the podium and run if it came to life. Marie Bashkirtseff is in the studio. Not yet twenty-three years and she is brilliantly artistique. She seems more interested in the skeleton than the subject, so the subject thinks. Perhaps she will paint it. Does it represent how she feels? She has been quite unwell. This is known because she is so well known and respected in the Parisian arts community. They say she was an exquisite singer but illness cruelly ruined her voice. From the romanticism of opera to the realism of oil painting. Adam Stone Adam lives and loves on the Bellarine Peninsula in Victoria, Australia - Wathaurong land. He is an award-winning lyricist and published writer who relishes short story and flash fiction writing. Member of Writers Victoria, Geelong Writers Inc (Committee Member) and Bellarine Writers. ** The Women’s Guild In the Studio The women got to learn new skills in art in writing, sculpting, poetry, and paints, although the men could limit, on their part, exposure to what they deemed needs constraints. The men, of course, would override complaints that their involvement in more worldly views than those imposed on women (“due restraints”) were arguments that they could disabuse. The men, therefore, would have a broader sphere. Their subjects, mostly goddesses and saints, undressed, some details meant they must draw near, though canvases would not reveal their taints. Once finished, body painting would commence-- their models, from the Guild, took no offense. Ken Gosse Ken Gosse prefers to write rhymed, humorous verse using traditional forms. First published in First Literary Review–East in November 2016, since then he has been in The Ekphrastic Review, Pure Slush, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Home Planet News, and others. Raised in the Chicago suburbs, now retired, he and his wife have lived in Mesa, AZ, over twenty years, usually with rescue dogs and cats underfoot. **
Sheri Flowers Anderson Sheri Flowers Anderson is a writer and poet based in San Antonio, Texas. Her publication credits include Sixfold Poetry, Pensive Journal, and she's the author of a collection of poetry entitled House and Home, winner of the Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Prize, 2022, by Broadside Lotus Press. She's enamored with poetry about every-day things. When she's not writing she enjoys creating collages, playing nerdy word games like Boggle and Scrabble, and assembling 500-piece jigsaw puzzles. ** Studio Swan Song I may be the youngest in this all-female studio, but M. Julian has asked me to apply my palette to its truthful representation, to present at Salon. I am thinking about the composition, putting myself in the best light, because he did ask me to create this art, and this may well be my way to fame. First as a singer, and now as an artist, I want fame. I can paint the halo over my own head in the studio. Women here hate me for my talent, naturally-gifted in this art, while men laud me for the way I choose my color palette. I work ten hours a day, that’s how seriously I take myself and how much I want to bring this painting to Salon. Why did I wait so long to paint, to exhibit at Salon, when it was my clearest path to success and fame? I doubted my gifts, loved the wrong men, didn’t believe in myself. That is the curse of women, we can only join a female studio and gossip all day. Not me. I mix my paints, prepare my palette, conceptualize my approach to create my best-ever art. Maybe it took the trips to Italy, to refine my appreciation for art, Maybe it took falling out of love with Hamilton, an offer from Salon. Maybe it took all the traveling and moving to learn nuances in palette and experiment with life and love and hues of fame, gain acceptance and validation in M. Julian’s studio, or just maturing to appreciate myself. Grandfather is gone, my parents are useless, there’s only myself to trust. I know I’m going to die young. Not much time left for art. I have to make the most of M. Julian’s requests for the studio, give him the opportunity to showboat at Salon, place M. Julian in the Hall of Fame for producing such young talent with meticulous palette. I choose the best blue for my dress from the palette, paint all other artists in black to mourn myself. This painting won’t be my last but a milestone toward fame, because I’m already thinking about another canvassed art, a gathering of waif boys, who owe their power to females, for Salon and that will fill seats in the M. Julian studio. How I gain fame will make art: Palette in hand, my gift to myself and the Salon, my final goodbye to the studio. Barbara Krasner Barbara Krasner holds an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her work has been featured in The Ekphrastic Review, Nimrod, Cimarron Review, One Art, Caesura, and elsewhere. She lives and teaches in New Jersey and can be found at www.barbarakrasner.com. ** In the Studio Comparative writing among the arts teases our brain and challenges the senses of our talents. The delicate and charming ladies engage with erstwhile ambition. The audience and enthusiasts cheer and smile without divulging their artistic choices and desires. Such beautiful ladies not needing to rely on egos or feminine wiles. Searching the eyes of admirers, who are enthralled with the mystery of their talent. The tools of their art on the dusty floor-not ready to be seen. Only the young and charming model is allowed to inspire and participate. While invisible absent men secretly praise and conspire what they are not allowed to view. Women-known for the creative act of childbirth revel in the creation of earthly enterprise. Sandy Rochelle Sandy Rochelle is a widely published poet, actress and narrator. She narrated and produced the documentary film ARTWATCH, about renowned art historian, James Beck. She is a Voting Member of the Recording Academy in the Spoken Word Category. Her poetry has appeared in One Art, Wild Word, Connecticut River Review, Verse Virtual, Dissident Voice, Haiku Universe, Cultural Daily, Poetic Sun, and others.
Our new contest is Send in the Clowns!
Write poetry or flash fiction inspired by the intriguing history circus-themed artwork. Click here for details. https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-review/new-contest-announcement-send-in-the-clowns-flash-fiction-and-poetry |
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