 The Serpent, by John Slaby (USA) 2024 Dear Writers, In The Serpent, artist John Slaby offers a true smorgasbord of daily life for your imagination! He and I look forward to all your responses and hope you enjoy the journey. John Slaby was born in Brooklyn, New York, and has been a Houston resident for almost 40 years. Trained as an engineer (he holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering), he splits his time between his profession and his art practice. He is mostly self-taught as an artist and has exhibited his work in the Houston region since his first outdoor art show in 1989. He has been a member of Archway Gallery, Texas's oldest artist-owned gallery, since 1993 and has had many solo exhibitions there. Happy writing! Sandi ** 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 Serpent, by John Slaby. Deadline is August 1, 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 SLABY 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, AUGUST 1, 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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 Spirits of Prisoners, by Charles Altamont Doyle (England) 1885 Sunnyside Prison Only an after when once was before, and during shadows board in between. Joyful I collapse in star-sand, yet they, here, want an obey; transforming all that falling in to steadier views. Walls dark - even on days - as memories destroy a distance. How they rebuild our film of wishes here. Sanity in spirit, an impressive gift to daily sketch. Delicately. Never will I cascade, down their brainy stairs. Hardly they listen. Today, I just smooth the beard, laugh my smiles and water- colour with stone compeers balancing. The ones who ask the good questions. Better than butterfly ruins: the crows that hope. Voice and cosmos, together, open up clearly; a history of now and then — though never may I unravel. A cell is not sunny in the end. Kate Copeland Kate Copeland’s love for languages led her to linguistics & teaching; her love for art & water to poetry. She is curator-editor for The Ekphrastic Review & runs linguistic-poetry workshops for the International Women's Writing Guild. Find her poems @ https://www.instagram.com/kate.copeland.poems/ plus @ TER, WildfireWords, Gleam, Hedgehog Press [a.o.]. Kate was born in harbour-city, and adores housesitting in the world. ** Imprisoned Prisoners of our own imperfections Chained to our fantasies In the tightened straitjackets of our illusions We're only fatally flawed humans Even imps and greater demons Colonizing our surroundings — Parasites — living inside our mortal hearts Are doomed Unless redemption is sought... Will the Maker Give us a second chance In the reality of an as yet unfathomable Other world of freedom? Z. T. Balian Multilingual French-Armenian author, Z. T. Balian, holds and MA in English Literature from the American University of Beirut. After a career as a university lecturer, she now devotes her time to writing. Waiting for Morning Twilight (2023) is her first collection of haiku poetry in English, and her 199 Haiku Poems in Western Armenian was published in 2022. Her poetry in English has previously appeared in Hope: An Anthology of Poetry (2020) and Setu Mag's Poetry: Western Voices (2021-2023). She is also the author of two novels, Three Kisses of the Cobra (2016) and Fallen Pine Cones (2023). She is currently working on a collection of poems in English which will be published in October. ** Top of the Tower She felt no need to retrofit her solitary status accustomed to the confines of plentiful arts ideating her private nest when she risked a brief glimpse beyond she imagined legion of souls escaping, banshee shrieks assaulted her, tempted her to follow the chill, the other, the unkept confusion of freedom beckoning, as evil does, to a prison of “you should” out there nowhere Unseen in her upper room she chooses her boundaries, her single purpose her bountiful joy Cathy Hollister Cathy Hollister is the author of Seasoned Women, A Collection of Poems published by Poet’s Choice. A 2024 Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominee, her work has been in Eclectica Magazine, Burningword Literary Journal, Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, and others. She lives in middle Tennessee; find her online at www.cathyhollister.com and Instagram cathy.hollister.52 ** Phantasm at Sunnyside Asylum Morpheus glazes the moon’s blue patina in serene morphine the porcelain stars craze spiraling below chimneys ghosts tumble from Hermes’ gable in paralyzed flight in serene morphine the porcelain stars craze the inmates sing dreams deprived of sight from Hermes’ gable in paralyzed flight conjuring spectres compound windows watch the inmates sing dreams deprived of sight giants strangle screams of pleasure conjuring spectres compound windows watch at their leisure amorphous horses infants giants strangle screams of pleasure spiraling below chimneys ghosts tumble at their leisure amorphous horses infants Morpheus glazes the moon’s blue patina Denise England Denise England’s passion for languages, art, cultures and connections inspires her writing. She studied in Bordeaux, France and holds an M.A. in French literature. Her poems have been published and are forthcoming in Cave Region Review, UAMS Medicine and Meaning, The French Literary Review, SLANT, and Ekstasis Magazine. She enjoys sharing and developing her poetry within communities of other poets and artists including The Poets Roundtable of Arkansas and Spectra Arts. www.pw.org/directory/writers/denise_england ** Dreaming of Freedom In the gray -blue hour of early morn before a day is fully born, I watch the spirits flee climbing on what seems to be a beanstalk spiral grown from dreams, rising from its start as magic beans. As the wraiths rise up toward the stars, out of bondage beyond walls, I note the smiling cloud- a benign face urging them on to a better place. Before sun sucks up the hopes of night these must reach dipper’s cup to complete their flight. Have any climbers reached stars’ dipper cup stars arranged to shelter, guide those who float up? Sadly, of those still climbing up when sun appears most will fall from the withering vine, back into living fears. Some will escape again to stars, climbing dream vines at night; others will discover how to become free in day’s bright light. Joan Leotta Joan Leotta is a poet and story performer who loves writing and performing to the inspriation of art and has been a frequent contributor to The Ekprahstic Review. ** Artist The artist will not be at work today. He has called in sick. He’s closed his door and his eyes. And is resting in his revery. Everyone is in a muddle. The attendants are not attending. The patients are getting impatient. The quiet is cresting chaotic. Somewhere: Stories unravel into warp and weft Jack and Jill fall off the roof Titans flee Mount Olympus The spirits sputter. The sprites succumb. Somewhere: People go about their people things. Nature nurtures naturally The poet writes her homage poem. The artist dreams He dreams he is An artist locked in a tangled world Of nested syntax and illusion. So many parts To puzzle out. Kaz Ogino Author's note: An homage to Sarah Kay’s “Astronaut." Kaz Ogino lives in Toronto. A lifelong artist, her practice has been enriched with poetry. Her practice is all about the discoveries and wonders of the process, in making art and crafting poems. Kaz’s art and visual poetry can be seen on her Instagram accounts; artbykaz.ca and artbykaz.play. ** The Pause Found guilty of a lifetime of never, the laughter of always and the stink of getting used to being used, the jury saw fit to sentence her to a hefty burden. She accepted it as would the donkey owned by a master who took pleasure in regular overloading, along with the whip, extending her pain and regret because he could. Upon her back, secured in ropes of heavy hemp, she carried those she had wronged who cried out at the least provocation: the man who beat her until at last she paid him back, in spades, the baby she had never asked for, the husband she hadn’t wanted those who daily dressed her in the flaws and transgressions of her life or rubbed her face in larvae-laden ordure of any kind or source or etched graffiti on her soul simply from the habit of being in this place with no one she could truly trust and still with fourteen years before release if she were lucky. By some mental skill, perhaps from an atavistic trait before sapiens claimed ascendancy, she could sleep at night without having to revisit what brought her there. Yet the dead who writhed and swore, raining excrement and threats for what they’d do when they regained mastery of her mind remained largely unheard as they hung like unwashed laundry entangled in the cable of souls she’d cast off in the dark. Except for the sense that the air—sighing from the barred windows— might carry some unholy essence, she could spend the entire night unwaking innocent again, for a while. Linden Van Wert Linden Van Wert has been writing since high school but has only recently considered regular submissions. Her work has appeared in Muleskinner Journal, One Sentence Poems, Ekphrastic Review and Orchards Journal among others. Originally from New England, she is a teacher now living in California where four deer and a turkey have elected to live in her backyard. ** Never Say Never After the jump from the top floor window of a hotel near Central Park shreds you into 100 pieces, will someone attach to the sill a small plastic shrine secured with red and white bakery twine, interstitched blue and pink plastic flowers, and a small index card calligraphed in black Magic Marker, NVR Alone? Over time, will the hotel, etched with your shadows, be listed on the National Historical Register? On designated holidays, will the public cry red, white, and blue tears, God loves you, God loves you? Janice Scudder Janice Scudder is a poet. She lives in Colorado. ** The Genius Inside Hide me away from prying eyes Awkward questions, your shameless lies Block your ears to my anguished cries I will not let you break me Lock me up but you cannot crush The spirit flowing through my brush The voice inside that won’t be hushed I will not let you break me Shut me in with iron bars Beyond my gaze, the moon and stars Imprisoned till I breathe my last I will not let you break me Berni Rushton Berni Rushton works in the health sector in Sydney, Australia. She writes poetry and short fiction and is working on her first novel. Berni enjoys the outdoor life, running and theatre. Follow Berni on Instagram @berni_rushton ** Spirits The moon’s gray-blue glow Somberly lights the curved dormer On the three story stone building Coats its walls in cold sterility Stars flicker outside its’ windows Barred to thwart escape With just enough view for some To allow yearning Swirling downward from rooftop to ground driven by Dante’s demons Tumble writhing spirits Of all things lost in that building Humans, animals, non-humans and souls Inside, unseen, the moans of human Suffering, as law requires, Fill each room With stifling air One man, held there For episodes not criminal Paints images from his time spent as protest Sends them to his family How people are selected To occupy this building And who wields that power Is unclear Only a sleuth could uncover those facts Dean Luttrell Dean Luttrell, a Houston poet, pianist and artist has been writing poetry since high school. His work has most recently been seen in the The Ekphrastic Review and has been published in the Archway Readers 20th and 25th Anniversary Anthologies. In 2016 he was awarded Third Prize in the Houston Poetry Fest’s Ekphrastic Poetry Competition. ** A Constant Battle Locked in his head Fear of the outside world Feeling of falling Waking nightmare Daily fears Caught between Health and madness Freed from his dementia Emotional rationality of painting Stopped him Today he didn’t fall May be tomorrow He won’t fall either Navigating the World Of Mental Health Is a constant battle Jean Bourque Jean lives in Montreal. One of his hobbies is painting. For the past seven years, as an amateur painter, he has sent paintings to the Canadian Mental Health Halifax-Dartmouth Foundation in Nova-Scotia. The Foundation holds an online painting sale every fall to raise funds. In October, it will be their 27th Annual Mosaic Sale: https://www.cmhahalifaxdartmouth.ca/mosaicformentalhealth ** A Shrine of souls- under low clouds, faith’s brittle scaffold. Its walls in whispered prayers against the slow settling grey- truth tumbling out, the ground unravelled. A hollow husk of hoarse hope. 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. ** If I Have Freedom in My Love... Richard Lovelace, 1642 "Then dawns the invisible, the Unseen its truth reveals; My outward sense is gone, my inward essence feels Its wings are almost free -- " The Prisoner, Emily Bronte When do our ideas become ghosts of where we've been? Like the wings of parrots flying in colours, their original meaning cloaked in fog? To begin, there is the actual-reality of what we can create ourselves the faces of children, too soon grown. I stand alone on the roof of the grey prison, an unexpected muse in your 19th century depiction of falling like a fool caught by a strange interpretation of a midnight Pegasus, or was it a pale horse of the Apocalypse? No matter. I hung on like tomorrow in the sisterhood of heartache, watching lines of poetry falling all around me -- how could I live, my life caught in a summer storm, impetuous as a poet I'd loved Old Thunderbolts (or should I have called him Lightning Bolt?) How can a storm be lyrical? There was music in the garden. Spring flowers. A dove calling -- why wasn't it afraid, and why wasn't I? With Lovelace's mandolin, how to compare my fate, Stone walls do not a prison make/ Nor iron bars a cage. Al the world's a stage say Shakespearian scholars. I suppose I could add Quoth the Raven, Nevermore! (a Gothic blackbird's Americana with rib vaults) a way to identify what I can't forget that lines of poetry are the spirits that lie within us -- what you take into your hands you take into your heart -- those early days when girls were the birds in a gilded cage, the lace on my grandmother's pantaloons, self- made, cotton from southern cotton fields where love stopped to pick me, lame from Civil Wars -- Lady Stumbleton -- my lineage faded into spirits; poems I wrote to try to change what seemed unholy in my future: Days I pray And in my soul am free/ Angels alone that soar above, Enjoying such liberty. Laurie Newendorp Honoured multiple times by The Ekphrastic Review's Challenge, Laurie Newendorp, at eighty, has endured entrapment, both real and emotional. The lines from Richard Lovelace's 17th century poem, “To Althea from Prison,” defends the freedom of thought as a means of survival though the body is imprisoned. A more violent example -- contemporary as the tribes of Israel and Iran continue to fight battles older than Lovelace's poem -- comes from Bruno Schulz's "Street of Crocodiles," 1933, an example of the way a Polish-Jewish writer, born in the Ukraine, used his imagination and the power of thought to encounter his death, a prisoner of the Nazi Regime. ** One Man’s Madness… The stoic man in the starbright sky oversaw it all: the painting the ramblings the protestations of insanity between doctor and patient Look, the artist said see the precision in the brick and the panes not a mullion out of place even the shadows are cast with architectural perfection But the smokeless stacks, said the doctor and the bright blue sky and the Great Bear made of stars with no darkness — not to mention the array of blue fairies and men, dogs and horses even a baby falls from the roof tossed over the edge by a demon! That’s a fairy, the artist corrected, without malice, and those are the columns on the roof of this hospital you treat as a temple and there is love and shouts of exultation at the prospect of freedom Kaila Schwartz Kaila Schwartz runs an award-winning high school theatre program in the San Francisco Bay Area where she has spent the past 24 years with her spouse and their kitty overlords. Her work can be seen in Hippocrates Awards Anthology 2020, The Ekphrastic Review, Moss Piglet, Waffle Fried, and in the upcoming The Yelling Continues,, a Procrastinating Writers United Anthology. ** A Nurse, a Cop, and a Priest Walk Into an Asylum... A nurse, a cop, and a priest walk into an asylum... And we see them every morning with a long line behind ‘em At two in the morning from our high-rise sadness We can see them badging in when the work shifts change They've all come for their own reasons too intimate to explain But from our perspective, we aren't the only ones with some madness One prays at the door Another pretends to ignore the stains on the floor And the other has a gun without a receipt One cries at breakfast alone Another calls his kids at home When the other buys rum from across the street One reads a book about body parts While another steals pills from the clinic's cart As the last mumbles to everyone in made up languages One avoids all the others The big one talks poorly of her mother And then there's the one who flinches when opening packages But these three have helped us all to decide That maybe this place is not only for the insane on the inside And that our purpose here comes from the man floating behind the columns - to watch over a nurse, a cop, and a priest as they walk into an asylum… Brendan Dawson Brendan Dawson is an American born writer based in Italy. He writes from his observations and experiences while living, working, and traveling abroad. Currently, he is compiling a collection of poetry and short stories from his time in the military and experiences as an expat. ** Relics My eyes are sightless, my mind swimming in a sea of grief. My body, weightless, shrinks, tries to disappear. I haunt myself into transparency, ghosted as part of a script that has been erased, its pages scattered inside a vortex of wailing wind. I am a shadow of keening. I am imprinted into the fabric of an unrelenting night. I have lost the details of who I could have been and the direction of where I could have gone. I am an unfinished absence that only appears when seen in a certain unconjurable light. mirror shimmers—moon reflects rising tide’s abyss swallowing 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/. ** Keep Steadily In View Keep steadily in view the detention of the unusual person, whose art is ascribed wholly produce of a MADMAN thrown aside like those that escape from the towers of Montrose Asylum, would you say deficiency of Intellect when viewing the intricate detail of window and arch, is this art or depraved taste, these phantoms, prisoners as unseen as fairies silent among us If you can find a single evidence of either, madness or lack of normality in thought, then mark it where the detritus of sane society floats away, record it against me fill a ledger with the sum of unjust confinement of caged spirits but as to the angels, the sooner they get away the better for themselves. Daniel W. Brown Author's note: The lines in bold are from the writings of Charles Altamont Doyle. Daniel W. Brown is a retired special education teacher who began writing poetry as a senior. At age 72 he published his first collection Family Portraits in Verse and Other Illustrated Poems through Epigraph Books, Rhinebeck, NY. Daniel has been published in various journals and anthologies, most recently Jerry Jazz Musician, Chronogram Magazine and Kinds of Cool, an anthology of jazz poetry. He has hosted a youtube channel Poetry From Shooks Pond and was included in Arts Mid-Hudson's Poets Respond To Art in 2022-23. Daniel writes each day about music, art and whatever else captures his imagination. ** Strange Casement* Sheer interlocking bodies sway Silently down from walls of stone. I paint beneath the sign of fay; My study’s starlit. I have known Adventure's spirit – stymied now; Liberty's ways are hard to learn. To be or not to be? This bow Is not my last: I will return. Yes, I’m the father of a son Certain to trust these faeries too: The blind and jealous will make fun Of him; they call me MAD. Do you? Look at my work: can you not see In what dire homes they’re holding me? Julia Griffin *Charles Altamont Doyle, the father of Arthur Conan Doyle, provided illustrations for his son’s first Sherlock Holmes publication. Afflicted by depression and alcoholism, he protested desperately that he was not “a MADMAN”; he died in a mental asylum. Julia Griffin lives in south-east Georgia. She has published in several online poetry magazines, including Light, Classical Outlook, Snakeskin Poetry, and The Ekphrastic Review. ** Hoping We Can Levitate Without Falling to the Ground Spirits of prisoners rattle their chains. It’s a golden age for stolen bones and faceless devils. And killers committing homicide It’s a golden age for orphans eating gruel and neglecting school It’s a golden age for cotton mills. And the workhouse for malnutrition And the death penalty, it’s a golden age. For infantile deaths before the age of seven For poor sanitation and harsh living conditions Dreaming of a skylark behind the clouds Spirits of prisoners rattle their chains. It’s a golden age for long hours, low wages, And widespread suffering While the wealthy enjoyed advancements Of the Industrial Revolution Others face numerous diseases without doctors It was a golden age, and not that unlike today. When I see the homeless in the street And people, people neglected in hospital corridors It’s a golden age for sure. It’s the reality for many, especially the poor. There's a lack of necessities. If you're working class It’s your cross to bear. Okay, there’s no more death penalty. There have been improvements along the way. And slavery has been long gone, too. But we’re all enslaved by a minimum wage and despair. Hoping we can levitate without falling to the ground. Hope there’s a silver lining to that dark cloud, maybe. 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. ** On The Spirits of the Prisoners Watching from on high as if a cloud, a well-known face, this “bearded apparition” within a cloak which soon would be his shroud, resided there, but not by his volition, for magistrates determined his transgressions, results of years of alcohol addiction, were far too dangerous for more concessions, while deep depression furthered his affliction. He sketched and painted wonderous works of art in many notebooks, most unsigned, undated; some offered as presentments on his part, decrying his immurement was ill-fated. Inscribed above the painting where souls flee, the spirits of the inmates carried there, to Sunnyside, sights he alone could see, beneath the constellation of Great Bear. Sometimes, his illustrations found the sun; “Our Trip to Blunderland,” by Lewis Carroll, and there’s a Scarlet Study by his son about a great sleuth known by his apparel. His last ten years were in asylums’ halls. Sir Arthur’s words, “his playful wit undone by weaknesses. We all heed our own calls.” He died within when only sixty-one. 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. ** Free Free from gloom from dark walls reek of mold inedible food filth and decay Kept for years dressed in rags unwashed unshaven left to rot shivering Scourge descends sickens many not much difference from days inside cells stink of death or at least illness Finally taken spirits flee no more filth disease cured by the hand of death finally free Julie A. Dickson Julie A. Dickson is a long time poet and YA writer whose work is prompted by art, music, nature and memories. Her work appears in Lothlorien, Masticadores, Blue Heron and The Ekphrastic Review, among other journals. Dickson shares her home with two rescued feral cats, Cam and Jojo. ** Letter to Arthur Conan Doyle From “The Home For Intemperate Gentlemen,” April 25, 1882 My Beloved Son, Here I sit, a prisoner in the Home for Intemperate “Gentlemen,” although I use that word loosely. One of my fellows kept me up until the brink of dawn, bellowing and laughing by turn until I almost succumbed to drink, an “Intemperate” one at that: Pure grain alcohol mixed with soured grapes that a guard offered in exchange for my silence about the bellowing. I just discovered the loudlouth, the French dissident Lemond, is the father-in-law of the guard! He is probably right to attempt to hush me, Lemond is on his last leg here! I’m sure McDaniel and his wife have no intention upon bringing him home, what with their six barins already terrified at the thought of his last visit, whereby he stuck the tines of a fork into the hand of an offending grandson who was too quick to grab the finest piece of Lamb from the platter of a Christmas feast. Don’t fret, son, I didn’t fall victim to the temptation, as hard as it was. Only the thought of your probable dismissal of me as the illustrator of our second story kept me away. It was in many ways like a miracle from God when you engaged me to illustrate the first, “A Study In Scarlet,” and to see the fruits of our labour in the Beeton’s Christmas Annual, was almost too delightful to bear! Even your sacred mother stopped by to congratulate me! Better than the publication was your visit. So many eyes agog at my fine-figured Doctor Doyle, my own laddie! I’ve never been so proud in all of my life, Artie! The way the nurses and caretakers groveled for a seat near you! They would sooner cut off a limb than be near me in most circumstances. And then you paid me the penultimate compliment, myself, labelled as a ne'er-do-well father, and a drunkard, you said to me “Faither, you did a fine job with the illustrations, Holmes and Watson are drawn exactly as I pictured them in my mind.” Jingo! Aye, the baw-faced McDaniel was mouth agape. I know he lent me some respect at that moment. Thank you for that, Artie! As for your auld man, I am doing the best I can while here, waiting everyday to be sprung out! I sometimes draw for the newsletter for the captives, and even the fine lady McGinnis sat for a portrait, left her study where she does Lord God-knows-what to keep this place from running amuck. Your mother gets my County Pension, and gives a spot to her for my “care.” I still receive some small compense from the illustrations of my first twenty-some books, when they are reprinted. So your dear mother gets by with the barins crawling all over the house. I do miss them all, especially of a Sunday afternoon, the loneliest time to be among the inmates, when the sun comes down on our families, after church, a fine meal and perhaps a hike. One day I hope to render these feelings into a lithograph,showing the spirits of these men, dying to be free and among loved ones. Alas, I am one of them. As for you, young man, fare thee well! I am holding onto your words to keep me as sane as I can be under the circumstances of my lodgings. I keep your last letter close to the vest, the one in which you wrote “I was sitting at my desk, looking through your many illustrations while having a smoke, when the idea for Sherlock Holmes came to me, as clear as if he were standing right there, in front of my open window.” Godspeed, Doctor Conan Doyle! Haste Ye Back! Your Loving Faither, Charles Alamont Doyle Debbie Walker-Lass Author's Note: Arthur Conan-Doyle was not yet a knight in 1882. Although he took a dim view of his father while young, he came to greatly admire and respect him and his art when he became a man. Charles illustrated the first Sherlock Holmes, and a few of Conan-Doyle’s later books. Debbie Walker-Lass, (she/her) is a poet, collage artist, and writer living in Decatur, Georgia. Her work has appeared in The Rockvale Review, Green Ink Poetry, The Ekphrastic Journal, Punk Monk, Poetry Quarterly, The Light Ekphrastic and The Niagara Poetry Journal, among others. Debbie was proud to be nominated by TER for the Best Small Fictions, 2023 anthology. She is an avid Tybee Island beachcomber and lover of all things nature. (Except Spiders) She recently presented an Ekphrastic Poetry workshop for her local Dekalb County library. ** Released As though escaped from the chimneys of their red brick prison, like drifts of smoke or steam from some internal furnace, a roiling stream of dream-like phantasms turn and twist their way to freedom. Fantasies and nightmares curling and uncurling on ladders of midnight air, dressed only in their garments of grief and isolation, remembering tales both bright and dark of long-gone childhoods and years of hope, unwinding like tangled threads or knotted hair- unruly as disordered thoughts, discordant dreams and offenses too unmannerly and wild for reason’s measured dance, While midnight holds its breath, their bodies sleep- heavy beneath the leaden thumb of dull soporifics, their souls eloping like fog rolling under the doors, through every crack and loose connection- the night a recess from grief and sorrow, delicate and brief as any moonlit vision fading in the sun. Mary McCarthy Mary McCarthy is a retired Registered Nurse who has always been a writer. Her work has appeared in many anthologies and journals, including The Plague Papers, edited by Robbi Nester, The Ekphrastic World, edited by Lorette C. Luzajic, The Memory Palace, edited By Clare MacQueen and Lorette C. Luzajic, and issues of Verse Virtual, Third Wednesday, Earth’s Daughters, and Caustic Frolic, as well as others. She has been a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee. Her collection, How to Become Invisible, an exploration of experience with bi-polar disorder, is available from Kelsay Books and on Amazon. ** A Silent Convocation In the stillness before dawn, they assemble, the nameless, the faceless. A collective born of need. The world beyond them faded by the sharp angles and edges of this soft blur of unity. They gather together not for war, but something more, much more, deeper. A communication among souls now untwined from the flesh. In this dark predawn, they hold the space between breaths, until the call comes to evanesce. Then they become one with the morning breeze. Nivedita Karthik Nivedita Karthik is a graduate in Immunology from the University of Oxford and a professional Bharatanatyam dancer. Her poems have appeared in many national and international online and print magazines and anthologies. She has two poetry books to her credit (She: The Reality of Womanhood and Pa(i)red Poetry). Her profile showcasing her use of poetry was recently featured in Lifestyle Magazine. ** Dear Writers and Readers, Our annual marathon is coming up on Sunday... Scroll below for details and registration. Don't miss this epic opportunity for a wild day of pure creativity. The Ekphrastic Review  Join us for the epic event of the year. You won't be sorry. It is wild, exhilarating, exhausting and wonderful. A day of pure creation. Play. Brainstorming. Join us on Sunday, or do it on your own time over the following weeks. This year, to celebrate ten years of The Ekphrastic Review, an optional Champagne Party follows the marathon on zoom. Details are below. Perfect Ten: an Ekphrastic Marathon Try something intense and unusual- an ekphrastic marathon, celebrating ten years of The Ekphrastic Review. Join us on Sunday, July 13 2025 for our annual ekphrastic marathon. This year we are celebrating ten years!!!!! This is an all -day creative writing event that we do independently, together. Take the plunge and see what happens! Write to fourteen different prompts, poetry or flash fiction, in thirty minute drafts. There will be a wide variety of visual art prompts posted at the start of the marathon. You will choose a new one every 30 minutes and try writing a draft, just to see what you can create when pushed outside of your comfort zone. We will gather in a specially created Facebook page for prompts, to chat with each other, and support each other. Time zone or date conflicts? No problem. Page will stay open afterwards. Participate when you can, before the deadline for submission. The honour system is in effect- thirty minute drafts per prompt, fourteen prompts. Participants can do the eight hour marathon in one or two sessions at another time and date within the deadline for submissions (July 31, 2025). Polish and edit your best pieces later, then submit five for possible publication on the Ekphrastic site. One poem and one flash fiction will win $100 CAD each. Last year this event was a smashing success with hundreds of poems and stories written. Let's smash last year out of the park and do it even better this year! Marathon: Sunday July 13, from 10 am to 6 pm EST (including breaks) (For those who can’t make it during those times, any hours that work for you are fine. For those who can’t join us on July 13, catch up at a better time for you in one or two sessions only, as outlined above.) Champagne Party: at 6.05 pm until 7. 30 on Sunday, July 13, join participants on Zoom to celebrate an exhilarating day. Bring Champagne, wine, or a pot of tea. We'll have words from The Ekphrastic Review, conversation as a chance to connect with community, and some optional readings from your work in the marathon. Story and poetry deadline: July 31, 2025 Up to five works of poetry or flash fiction or a mix, works started during marathon and polished later. 500 words max, per piece. Please include a brief bio, 75 words or less Participation is $20 CAD (approx. 15 USD). Thank you very much for your support of the operations, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review, and the prizes to winning authors. If you are in hardship and cannot afford the entry, but you want to participate, please drop us a line at [email protected] and we'll sign you up. Selections for showcase and winning entries announced sometime in September. Sign up below! Perfect Ten: annual ekphrastic marathon
CA$20.00
Celebrate ten years of The Ekphrastic Review with our annual ekphrastic marathon. Fourteen drafts, thirty minutes each, poetry, flash fiction, or CNF. You'll choose from a curated selection of artworks chosen to challenge, inspire, and stimulate. The goal of the marathon is to finish the marathon by creating fourteen drafts. Optional: you'll have time after the event to polish any drafts and submit them. Selected works will be published in TER and a winner in poetry and flash fiction will each be chosen and honoured with $100 award. Following the marathon, exhausted writers can join our Champagne Party on zoom to celebrate an amazing day.  Dances, by Arch Hades (United Kingdom) 2024. Click on 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 Dances, by Arch Hades. Deadline is July 18, 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 HADES 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, JULY 18, 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.  Rainy Day Rainbow, by Kaz Ogino (Canada) 2024 Pixelated Rain pours from paint clouds, each a hue of the colour wheel. My window mullions bisect the transitions of pixel drops between green and blue, purple and red. The rain drips not in streaks but as genesis of fantastical shapes. I cannot help but smile. I don’t have to turn the round colour wheel. It is here in front of me, rectangular, moving with its own force. I poke my finger into the shapes. I enter the glass, let curlicue and musical note pigments wash over me. I am all colours, cartwheeling from pane to pane until I rainbow. Barbara Krasner Barbara Krasner recently saw the Van Gogh immersive experience and marvelled at the movement of pixels from one hue to another. She is the author of two forthcoming ekphrastic poetry collections, Poems of the Winter Palace (Bottlecap Press) and The Night Watch (Kelsay Books). Visit her website at www.barbarakrasner.com. ** Rainy Day Rainbow
On the eve of the Summer Solstice I see a rainbow turned upside down, everything backwards--- tilted. The summer caterpillars are purple as a queen’s robe and I become royalty as I tend my garden. The pigs roll in the grass, and turn green as Mother’s Depression glass, and yes, I miss her. I am blue watching my sailboat sail away without me, but looking down, the sea amazes me with its life. I scream when I read the news-- It throws me perpetually sideways with rage and droplets of regret. I can only hope the dance moves that come to me when I hear Blowing in the Wind brings answers, will fill in a new rainbow of glee, shouts, hugs and waves, the color wheel of the future. The eve of the Summer Solstice that turned everything upside down, empties my pockets of everything I do not need. Beth Fox Beth Fox loves being connected to the arts and the community of poetry in New Hampshire. Her work is found in The Poet’s Touchstone, The Seacoast Anthology, Covid Springs II, Silver Birch Press, New Verse News, and The 2010 Poets Guide to NH. Her chapbook, Reaching for the Nightingale, was published by Finishing Line Press. A finalist, Beth helped seniors in Wolfeboro publish their work in an anthology, Other Voices, Other Lives. ** Room of Colours A room of colours Red, orange, yellow, green, blue The colours blind me Sophia Smith ** A Horror Movie Soundtrack Life’s music rainbow Echoes in bright treble clefs - Just the silence of Disembodied illusions And schizophrenic nightmares Rose Menyon Heflin and Robert Bergmann Originally from rural, southern Kentucky, Rose Menyon Heflin is a poet, writer, and visual artist living in Wisconsin. Her award-winning poetry has been published over 250 times in outlets spanning five continents, and she has published memoir and flash fiction pieces. She has had a free verse poem choreographed and danced, an ekphrastic memoir piece featured in a museum art exhibit, and two haiku published in a gumball machine. Among other venues, her poetry has appeared in Deep South Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, and San Antonio Review. An OCD sufferer since childhood, she strongly prefers hugging trees instead of people. Robert Bergmann is a retiree from Madison, Wisconsin. Although he thoroughly enjoys reading and writing, this was his first time venturing into poetry, and it is his first foray into the wilds of publication. ** I See: a Sijo Sequence I. I see red, fury pulsing through my veins, a river of hot rage. I see orange, and I grow antsy, craving summer on my tongue. I see yellow, and I think softly - fondly - of spring sunshine. II. I see green, and I grow calm, fight or flight ebbing from my muscles. I see blue, and I trust in the honesty of sky and water. I see indigo, and I feel strong, persisting through the pain. III. I see violet, and I wonder, wanting only to wander. I see a refracted miracle in a sky whose tears have stopped. I see the past and future as one only can in the present. IV. I see possibility. I see mystery. I see old pain. I see new joy. I see justice. I see love, and I see pride. I see it all through my window in one arching, endless rainbow. Rose Menyon Heflin Originally from rural, southern Kentucky, Rose Menyon Heflin is a poet, writer, and visual artist living in Wisconsin. Her award-winning poetry has been published over 250 times in outlets spanning five continents, and she has published memoir and flash fiction pieces. She has had a free verse poem choreographed and danced, an ekphrastic memoir piece featured in a museum art exhibit, and two haiku published in a gumball machine. Among other venues, her poetry has appeared in Deep South Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, and San Antonio Review. An OCD sufferer since childhood, she strongly prefers hugging trees instead of people. ** Discordant Harmony Dancing musical notes tossed in a cocktail tin-in-tin, shaken, rattled and poured no longer a composed tune. Now liberated from their staff dizzy dark scribbles spill down multicoloured panes like a jigsaw of misshapen clefs and rests; this new arrangement surprising, unstructured thrives like an ideal alternative-- free and unlabeled. Elaine Sorrentino Elaine Sorrentino, author of Belly Dancing in a Brown Sweatsuit (Kelsay Books, 2025) has been published in journals such as Minerva Rising, Willawaw Journal, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Gyroscope Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Quartet Journal, ONE ART: a journal of poetry, Etched Onyx Magazine, and Haikuniverse. She lives in Massachusetts, holds a journalism degree from Suffolk University, and is facilitator of the Duxbury Poetry Circle. ** Intervals with a nod to Anne Sexton Your muffled pulse gallops like a seahorse through remnants of ruptured waters. The cardiotocograph squiggles lines on a paper scroll and I cradle my pregnant belly and crave the comforts of outdoors, and childhood swims back to me-- surprise rainbows against a slate blue sky, scarlet roses and lavender, honeysuckle vine, the scent of wild onion wafting. Picking blueberries. Grasshoppers startled from the hedge. Antepartum nurses ask if I'm thirsty, if I need water, but I'm overflowing with baby, with imagined sips of Nehi Grape and Cherry Slurpee, lemonade and berry Kool-Aid. The shifting hues of gobstoppers. My offered tongue blue like a skink's. I wait for the hour when you'll thunder from the deep, neck lasso'd with cord and a wail of song escaping. This stormy morning we're tethered, the rhythm of rain beating the windowpane and all you do is kick. Heather Brown Barrett Heather Brown Barrett is an award-winning poet in southeastern Virginia. She mothers her young son and contemplates life, the universe, and everything with her writer husband. She is a member and regular student of The Muse Writers Center, a member of The Poetry Society of Virginia, and a former board member of Hampton Roads Writers. Her work has appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, Literary Mama, Yellow Arrow Journal, formidable Woman sanctuary, and elsewhere. She’s the author of Water in Every Room (Kelsay Books, 2025). Website: https://heatherbrownbarrett.com/. ** To Kaz Ogino Regarding Rainy Day Rainbow Where otherwise the sun would preen by shifting shadow shapes and sheen, your muse amid the overcast foresees the moment storm has passed and hears still echoed distant rains symphonic on imagined panes where sun that peeks through clouds in flight is piecing spectral shards of light together as the remnant blur of forces that became the whir reminding idled, yearning soul of all the things it can't control and yet of beauty still to find by faith more tempered left behind. ** sunlit spectral blur silent as symphonic echo sings to storm and lull 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. ** Ink Sink Skin This art cannot be boxed. In the splay of two-dimension, time stops. The brain reconfigures. You lay one form against another, and filters of light flit like a dance on water. The colour is layers of solid and juice. Primary, secondary. A pollen of marks, a song that stole in. Hues are notes and notes are hues. Violet swoons into scarlet that smooches crimson. Cobalt tiptoes into violet, rubs right up against it, indigo is born. Green strokes the flank of cobalt like a brush on paper. They hold hands, create harmonies of jade and leaf. Ink and space wait for the artist. To dilly dally them about then declare it just so. Pointillism and other tongues. Lay to rest in the air-drying afternoon. Musical notes, gone awol. ‘Cause Debussy is all over this piece, infused between polyphonies. The song left echoes in its wake. When it quivered the ink that married the skin. Nina Nazir Nina Nazir (she/her) is a British Pakistani poet, writer and artist based in Birmingham, UK. She has been widely published online and in print. She is also a Room 204 writing cohort with Writing West Midlands. You can usually find her with her nose in a book or on Instagram: @nina.s.nazir. She blogs regularly atwww.sunrarainz.wordpress.com ** Rainy Day Rainbow The first shard of nascent light touches the intermittent slow pour of grey. The sky pitter-patters in the soft whispers of water-colours. The fine print of dew, the spray paint of rain pattern the square panes. The closed window turns into a coloured mosaic of possibilities. Scrawled on the glass, with the ink of change is the signature of dawn. Ardent prayers usher in a spectrum of calligraphic answers. Preeth Ganapathy Preeth Ganapathy is from Bengaluru, India. Her works have been published in several magazines, more recently, in Pensive, Braided Way, The Orchard Poetry Journal and elsewhere. Her microchaps A Single Moment, Purple, and Birds of the Sky, have been published by Origami Poems Project. Her work has been nominated for Best Spiritual Literature. ** Rainy Day Rainbow Today I’m going to say, I see a rainbow— even though the sky at noon has no colours-- because I know puddles can shine with the splendor of a clearing sky’s mixed hues, and the cloudy streams in the gutters by roads can gleam with reflections violet, indigo, and blue. I think that I’ve always wanted the horizon to become a vibrant canvas, wished sunlight would bend and slow until the air glows. As nearby church bells ring in the town and soft voices of a children’s choir drift toward me, the northeaster speaks in a sorrowful language, reminds me of losses, and is far too loud. Hymns blend with the incessant patter of the deluge, the rattle of shutters, the noisome cascade that smears the window panes. Lawns and side streets flood. In the forested hills beyond them, branches of evergreens and poplars sag, then break, yet I envision them coming back to their unspoiled form, picture an iridescent arc above them, believe that promises of hopeful beginnings will emerge after every storm. Gregory E. Lucas Gregory E. Lucas lives on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. His fiction and short stories have appeared in magazines such as Blueline, Sparks of Calliope, and The Horror Zine. ** Palette Doubt - a Broken Sonnet Smeared into a slurry Of water floated fragments The dreams from decades of our marriage Oozed down glass canvas Cascaded from pain to pane Shifted shapes from memories made Stirred words we never said Then puddled into perfect squares Although we etched what we hated Into tear salted gutter troughs At rain's ends, I believe we'll see Past our own separation thoughts To a clear view of our palette And the rainbow of us that we should never doubt Brendan Dawson Brendan Dawson is an American born writer based in Italy. He writes from his observations and experiences while living, working, and traveling abroad. Currently, he is compiling a collection of poetry and short stories from his time in the military and experiences as an expat. ** Through Looking Glass Here’s pane-full insights, outside in, boundary-bursting breaking through, edge-walking on the lip of words. A teeter, totter, waver swing, the toddle wobble, quiver quake, reel weave careen sway as fore-seen. ’Tis scenic mind-map, mindful been, a quaver maybe, not galumph, as clomp towards the trompe l’oeil. Yet delicately waddle on with glyphs a-plenty, blended inks, to spin the spangled, treasured sap. See window onto where folk been as listen, draw, conclusions sought; their images must be proclaimed. Though mizzle, drizzle, falling drain, precipitating what moods reign, it’s brainpower whirls us into safe. Though edgy, striding into strange where strangers met are walking on to find the rainbow, golden end. An alchemy etched on our screen, as letting spreads our sprinkled dream, and what deemed secret soon revealed. 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 ** Summer Rain It’s June and every storefront has a rainbow on the door, music bouncing off windows and sliding down panes; a smattering of quarter notes, clefs and staffs, splatterin’ and sweatin’ in the steamy colors of jazz; greens, reds and purples belting out the blues, dancin’ and a’singin’ like rain upon the roof; and every drop that falls – every small part of the whole – is a shower of joy in a summer of pride. Mark Hendrickson Mark Hendrickson (he/him/his) is a gay poet and writer in the Des Moines area navigating the Sturm und Drang of daily life through wordcraft. His work has appeared Variant Lit, Vestal Review, Modern Haiku, Spellbinder, and others. He has a background in music, psychology, and marriage & family therapy. Mark worked for many years as a Mental Health Technician on a locked psychiatric unit. Follow him @MarkHPoetry, or visit his website: https://www.markhendricksonpoetry.com ** A Window to Escape Prisoner of my thoughts My head swims My thoughts roll Rock like a boat On the tumultuous waves Of the Newfoundland ocean Overflowing from my head My thoughts are looking for A window to escape Jean Bourque Jean lives in Montreal. He just comes from a two-week trip in Newfoundland where he had the idea for this poem after a boat tour to the Icebergs. ** iterations sky changes randomly outside my window-- compressed into hushed anticipation, then spinning out, tangled, reconfigured by weather patterns beyond any control—I wait for the air to conjure itself into chromatic saturation-- but what emerges is gone almost before I notice it was there-- a luminous moment, shining in an uncertain configuration of light 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/. ** Haiku music conversation —she listens in the rain K. J. Watson K. J. Watson’s stories and poems have appeared on the radio; in magazines, comics and anthologies; and online. ** Windowpanes Music fills the windowpanes, notes bulge and curve boisterous chords seep through edges, squeeze through gaps, pour through every opening * window tries to keep control unruly colours, flower bed bursting its borders, snail circus celebration sheet music, sleet music, strike up the band * rainmelt drizzles red, blue, purple, green, speckled like strawberries fat calligraphy draws us outside the lines gushes over sash, jamb, and sill * dance tilt, frost widget, glass dissolves into laughter sketch marks topsy-turvy, syncopated message we can almost read signed with a flourish by the rain. Cindy Bousquet Harris Cindy Bousquet Harris is a poet, photographer, the editor of Spirit Fire Review, and a licensed marriage and family therapist. Her poems can be found in Clamor, California Quarterly, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Unlost Journal, Black Bough Poetry, and several anthologies. Cindy lives in Southern California with her husband and family. ** This Year, Winter Didn’t Dawdle Spring taps at my window – pitter-pat, pitter-pat, pat-a-pat-a-pat, pat-a-pat. At first, a soft lullabye, before full joy bursts forth. A treble clef blows up like a balloon and sails right through the pane. Curvaceous notes follow, changing costumes like dancers at the Folies Bergère. The entire chorus line rushes onto stage. (You DO know that young, flirty girls can’t resist trying on every color of the rainbow?) Sure hope their show has a long run. Keep singing and prancing, girls! I’m giving a long standing ovation. 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, MO.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. In April, Alarie was proud to be named the 2025 Muse of The Writers Place. **  Spirits of Prisoners, by Charles Altamont Doyle (England) 1885 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 Spirits of Prisoners, by Charles Altamont Doyle. Deadline is July 4, 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 DOYLE 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, JULY 4, 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.  After the Storm, by Sarah Bernhardt (France) 1876 ٹنکا سارہ برن ہارٹ (فرانس) کی تصویر "طوفان کے بعد" کی طرز پر گنیش کے نام ہلدی رنگ پُتلا اُما کی گود میں بے جان-- شیو کی خلاصی: ہاتھی کا سر بچاؤ کو؛ دانا گنیش کا جنم! سعد علی ۳۱ مئی ۵ ۲۰۲ء ** Tanka for Ganesha turmeric golem inert in Parvati's lap-- Shiva’s redemption: elephant’s head to rescue; birth o’ Ganesha, The Wise! Saad Ali Saad Ali (b. 1980 CE) is a poet-philosopher & literary translator from the UK and Pakistan. He holds a BSc and an MSc in Management. His new collection of poems is Owl Of Pines: Sunyata. He has translated Lorette C. Luzajic’s ekphrases into Urdu. His work appears in The Ekphrastic Review, The Mackinaw, Synchronized Chaos, Lothlorien, Lotus-eater, BRAWL Lit., Pandemonium Journal, Immagine e Poesia, and Poetry in English from Pakistan by Ilona Yusuf & Shafiq Naz (eds.). He has been nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology and Best Microfiction. To know more: www.facebook.com/owlofpines ** After the Storms, the Surface Uncertain The boy pretends to stumble, then flops across my lap, tongue lolling. He is poking fun at me for needing to stop and rest. “I’m simply ex-hausted!” he croaks in an old-lady voice, then shuts his eyes, feigning sleep. I’m glad he still thinks this journey is an adventure. He never heard the late-night grumbling. Never suspected that some of the others are no longer content to dine on bats or whatever we can catch in the nets we made after retreating underground. Now the boy is having trouble keeping a straight face—he clasps my cloak to keep from cracking up. I still think of him as the boy, even though I call him something else, this waif I found after we all fled the storms on the surface. He is mine now, and I bend over him, “Blech! What’s that smell? I must have snared something rotten in my net.” He laughs, then says, “Tell me again what my name means,” and I reply, “Well, you are my sunbeam. You look like a Ray.” His smile is luminous as he stands, and we resume our upward climb. Together, we approach a world he cannot recall, and I cannot fathom. Tracy Royce Tracy Royce is a writer and poet whose words appear in / are forthcoming in Bending Genres, Does It Have Pockets?, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Scrawl Place, Villain Era, and elsewhere. She lives in Southern California where she enjoys hiking, playing board games, and obsessing over Richard Widmark movies. Find her on Bluesky. ** Sioulder Bras ar re-mañ a davas, hag e voe ur sioulder bras Luke 8:24, Breton version (and the storm came to an end and there was a great calm) Look at the catch: my little sea-star, Per, Just as I’ve dreamed. He always was too quick. No flesh on him, but see his hair: so thick, A man might fish with it. His mother’s hair. They caught him in the nets tonight. She’s gone Long since, my daughter, in another storm, Thank God. His hand’s curled up, but it’s not warm; He used to glow like fire. The sea goes on. I dreamed once of Our Lady: she looked young, Although her boy was grown. For near a week I’ve seen it coming and I’ve held my tongue. We nodded, in my dream. We did not speak. We understood each other, and we sat, Minding our words. Good night, Perig. Noz vat. Julia Griffin Julia Griffin lives in south-east Georgia. ** Pieta Mary, the Blessed Mother, the Theotokos, the God-bearer, holds her son, Jesus, the Paschal Sacrifice, the Word made Flesh, Lamb slain from the beginning of the world. But it could be any mother and her son A mother whose son washed ashore after a storm A mother whose son did not come home from war A mother whose son was on the plane aboard A mother whose son did not wake up one morn A mother whose son, happy and healthy for the first twelve years of life, only to give way to slurred speech and neurological decline. Mothers offering up their sons on the altar of life’s painful circumstances. A sword pierces her heart. For he became sin who knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God. He left his throne in heaven and humbled himself, taking the form of a servant, esteeming not equality with God a thing to be grasped. And we do not have a Great High Priest who is incapable of empathizing with us in our weakness. We serve a God who suffers with us. Lila Feldman Lila lives in Upstate New York with her husband. She currently works as a school nurse. She enjoys creative writing in her spare time, mostly prose and memoir. This is her first submission to The Ekphrastic Review. ** The Drowned Child I told him not to go You’re only a child I told him As he left my home for the sea With his delicate hands and soft skin He said he was ready For a fisherman’s life He didn’t know the hell Salt, winds, and stormy seas Could wreck upon his face Upon his body and the heaviness Of the nets filled with the sea’s Offerings entangled him instead Poor child swept overboard Poor child caught like a fish Writhing against the currents Unforgiving sea throwing him Back ashore, I found him face down In the sand and carried him home, his tiny fists clutching my skirts, Hoping his strength remained, Then his body lay still, Frozen like marble, Frozen across my lap, Is this what Mary felt When they brought her Son down from the cross His bloody fingers furled Around her blue robes? Laura Peña Laura Peña is an award winning poet born and raised in Houston, Tx. She holds a BA in English Literature and an MA in Education. She is a primary bilingual teacher as well as a translator of poetry into Spanish. Laura has been a featured poet at Valley International Poetry Festival, Inprint First Fridays, and Public Poetry. She has been published both in print and on-line journals. She has been a workshop presenter at VIPF in the Rio Grande Valley, Tx. and People's Literary Festival in Corpus Christi, Tx.. One of Laura's annual traditions is to write a poem a day for August Postcard Poetry Festival and has participated in the fest for the last 12 years. ** Apres la Tempete On the shore a pieta, a drowning: the wet body returned, wrapped in nets. It is still a child’s, slender and broken. The sea’s a liar, it stole his warmth with cold fingers, but the heart knows no boundaries and his life lies beating in this mother’s heart, never to be taken, though green surges batter the beach and the long shoreline shakes with the pounding, in this heart the child lives, lives still. Martin Rieser Martin Rieser is both a poet and visual artist. His interactive installations based on his poetry have been shown around the world. Published: Poetry Review; Write to be Counted; The Unpredicted Spring; Magma 74; Morphrog 22, Poetry kit; Primers, Artlyst Anthology; Pendemic; Alchemy Spoon; FFF Anthology; Shortlisted: Frosted Fire; Charles Causeley Prize; Runner up Norman Nicholson; Winner of the Hastings Poetry Competition; Shortlisted Wolves Poetry Competition; The Ekphrastic Review; Steel Jackdaw; Acumen; Obsessed by Pipework; Allegro; Cerasus Magazine Anthology; Vole Spring Anthology; Ink Sweat and Tears;Brussels Review; Longlisted Erbecce Prize; Shortlisted Artemesia Arts Poetry Competition and Anthology. ** After the Storm A sculpture carved entirely from white marble, the image captures a scene of intense emotive gravity, rendered with precision in mineral permanence. The stone surface, cool and luminescent under studio lighting, exhibits an even matte finish across the bulk of the sculpture, with only isolated zones of gentle polish — the bridge of the elder’s nose, the young man’s shoulder blade, the fingertips grasping fabric — betraying a slight glossiness born from incidental contact or intentional buffing during final toolwork. The overall hue is a uniform alabaster white with subtle gradations caused by the interplay of light and concave recession: folds in drapery fall into shadow with soft gray dimming; interstitial spaces, such as beneath the boy’s outstretched arm or between the netted fabric and the elder’s thigh, exhibit deeper zones of shade, verging toward bluish tones at the farthest recession points, a phenomenon of both sculptural carving and photographic lighting artifact. The composition consists of two principal human figures: one upright, seated with an inclined forward posture, and the other supine, limp, and draped laterally across the lap of the former. The seated figure — older, clothed, turbaned — gazes downward with head slightly tilted leftward, brows knotted with chiselled concavity, upper eyelids pressed low in a gesture of somber witnessing. The turban is sculpted with parallel ridges of stone that wrap circumferentially about the cranium, each band deeply undercut at its boundary to accentuate fabric layering. The face emerges from this encirclement with a prominent nasal bridge and slightly sunken cheeks; the lips are pressed into a tight horizontal line, not parted, not sealed, with the upper lip incised more deeply than the lower to cast a shadow and define its curve. The figure's shoulders are covered by a thick mantle, carved with deep vertical pleats that fall from a loosely gathered collar region. The folds descend in diagonals across the torso and terminate over the knees, which are bent and level, serving as a platform for the boy’s collapsed body. The younger figure is positioned with an arching of the back, the left arm dangling toward the base with open fingers, the right arm stretched across the robed knee of the older figure, the wrist angled unnaturally downward. His head is completely slack, neck hyperextended such that the chin nearly touches the clavicle, and the eyes are shut — lids carved with barely perceptible creases. His hair is mid-length, parted roughly at center, each lock rendered as a wavy, narrow ridge, tapering at the ends. These striations, flowing back from the forehead and clustering in flattened waves around the ear and neck, contrast with the smoothness of his forehead and jaw. The mouth is slightly parted, lower lip fuller than the upper, subtly shadowed to suggest the slackness of death or unconsciousness. Both figures share a common base, irregular in shape and carved with vegetal and rocky motifs. At the lower left, two sheep heads or lambs emerge from the stone, barely raised in relief, their fleece represented with tight spirals and low mounds. These organic inclusions — symbolic perhaps — are not given the same dimensional prominence as the human forms but ground the scene in pastoral or Biblical suggestion. The boy’s garment consists only of shorts or a draped piece about the hips, detailed with an open netted pattern over the right thigh. The individual diamonds of the netting are cleanly bored through the marble, revealing darkness beneath and enhancing the sense of fragility. The net, though stone, appears as if it could flex or tear, its intersections knotted, the threads thickened at junctions. The fabric beneath is smoother, loosely hanging, with scalloped edges and minor vertical creases that collect in depressions as it is pulled by the boy’s falling weight. The elder figure’s right hand is clenched against his chest, index finger bent at a downward angle, as though recently moved or about to shift. The hand is not fully relaxed but shows tension in the thumb’s compression against the folded palm. The left hand is buried beneath the draped torso of the youth, not visible except for a glimpse of the wrist emerging near the lower ribs of the younger figure. The elder’s exposed chest is bare, delineated by muscular striation and planar geometry, a stark contrast with the bulk of the robe, whose weight is indicated by deep, plunging folds that shift abruptly at the contour lines of the seated knees. The base plane upon which the sculpture sits is a rectangular plinth, bevelled at the top edge and unadorned except for surface toolmarks, fine striations running at oblique angles likely left from rasp work or sanding. The composition is triangular, with the apex at the turbaned head and the base defined by the arc of the younger figure’s body. The centre of mass lies low and toward the front, creating a forward-leaning momentum that underscores the gesture of collapse and support. The entire sculpture is positioned against a matte black background, which amplifies the white stone’s radiance and allows the shadows cast by the folds and limbs to take on greater spatial presence. No armature, external prop, or restoration marks are visible; the figures are complete in themselves, unified in gesture, and isolated in silent stasis. Albert Abdul-Barr Wang Albert Abdul-Barr Wang is a Taiwanese-American Los Angeles-based experimental writer, conceptual painter, photographer, sculptor, video, and installation artist. He received a MFA in studio art from the ArtCenter College of Design (2025), a BFA in Photography & Digital Imaging at the University of Utah (2023), and a BA in Creative Writing/English Literature at Vanderbilt University (1997). ** This Sculpture is Not Representative My mother called me Sarah Bernhardt. All those times she believed I was overreacting to a telling-off or when I didn’t get my own way. Stroppy, sulky, I knew no other response. I was six or seven and Sarah Bernhardt meant nothing to me but the tone of her voice and the look on her face told me my mother’s comment was not meant in kindness. Years later I found out she was a famous French actress and I viewed my mother’s jibe another way: as a complement. Perhaps my drama or melodrama was particularly convincing to have summoned the name and likeness of someone so accomplished. Maybe I should have followed her to the stage. But I didn’t and so I live with my mother’s voice in my ears. Critical, dismissive – and not in the least maternal. Berni Rushton Berni Rushton works in the health sector in Sydney, Australia. She recently came back to writing poetry, as well as flash fiction and is also working hard on her first novel. ** Pieta Have you noticed how statues round here never weep? Okay, they have stone tears fossilised on marble cheeks, a narrative of misery. People who pass by nod in approval at grieving acted out in stone, but show them grief in the raw, wet and red as meat slapped on a slab, they turn away. The widow has nowhere to turn. The sunshine and the spring leaves are mocking her tears. How can she find sympathy in stone? Statues may not weep, but neither do they heal. She is her story and the passers-by pass by, as cold as marble tears. Edward Alport Edward Alport is a retired teacher and international business executive living in the UK. He occupies his time as a poet, gardener and writer. He has had poetry, articles and stories published in various webzines and magazines and performed on BBC Radio and Edinburgh Fringe. His Bluesky handle is @crossmouse.bsky.social. His website is crossmouse.wordpress.com ** What Sarah Saw There’s joy in catch for fisherfolk, as witness lore of fishing smacks, the fleet’s return with crew on board, shoal haul continued, sacrosanct, trawl, school, buoys, pots, gull hover nets. So beach scene greeting Sarah’s view - an overlap of fish, flesh cost, in slumped despair, family loss, forlorn with cradled cruciform, but draped, pietà, hanging free. A limb entangled in the web - that network on which trade relies - patella hinge of dangled limbs, no reflex, angle, shin to thigh, like ankle dangle unattached. Sea urchins, starfish, pebble dash, here’s trigonometry of grief, grandmother’s boy still, garment gripped like crab caught in entanglement, as she might grasp imagined gasps. Both stranded, bare, a beach bereft, with lanky strands, sleek silky hair, a selkie now of nether world. Bedraggled, rag doll, flap fish flop, beyond once nestle of that lap. A marble marvel of distraught, that dead can grow from slab to life, a living vein to bloodless corpse; awaiting, too much, hope for soul, in anguish for one laid before. 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 ** A Fist's Grip on Hope – a Ballade The peasant family's home was worn Against Breton's wind and water jets A night like this was often the norm Even though the stage was already set When the grandmother saw a boy's silhouette Mangled and tangled in knotted rope Her scream shook the pale moonset He still has a fist's grip on hope In the scattered scene after the storm Wrapped in an old fishing net Laid the boy slumped upon the shore Covered in sand; all cold and wet Blue and limp; as never to forget His grandmother lifted him to her robe But the story doesn't end just yet He still has a fist's grip on hope The child must have not been warned Or perhaps he had a stubborn mindset To dive from the docks even if informed Where loosened lines were a sure bet And fishing gear had shifted and offset Then reappeared where the sea crashes the stones But with one arm stretched across his grandmother's garment He still has a fist's grip on hope So, fishermen, don't be rigid with regret The storm is at fault for what broke And the boy's fate remains unmet He still has a fist's grip on hope Brendan Dawson Brendan Dawson is an American born writer based in Italy. He writes from his observations and experiences while living, working, and traveling abroad. Currently, he is compiling a collection of poetry and short stories from his time in the military and experiences as an expat. ** Bernhardt Portrays Love Scene What the sea gives: salt and seal pups, crashboom of spangled water, pearl-white oyster shells, and floating remains of wreckage: bottles, seaglass, driftwood. And a boy fisher along the Breton shore, tender-muscled, just past safety of women’s skirts and helping to bake their sweet butter cakes. Storm swells so deep broke waves so high, gales no fishermen would try. Alone, he cast a wild net, tore him out, washed him in. Portrayed in marble, luminous death, theater piece, as his mamm-gozh breaks toward him. Lynn Axelrod Lynn Axelrod’s poetry has appeared in journals and outlets such as The Ekphrastic Review, California Quarterly, Orchards Poetry Journal; was featured in the San Francisco Chronicle; and is in the James Joyce Library Special Collections, University College, Dublin. Her chapbook Night Arrangements was described by Kirkus Reviews as “evocative and lushly detailed.” Lotus Earth on Fire, (2024, Finishing Line Press) was praised by a poet-reviewer as “an unflinching witness to the hungry and the homeless, to floods, fires, and the untold injustices of man to man.” She's been a disaster-readiness community organizer; weekly newspaper reporter; environmental NGO staffer; and a happily- and early-retired attorney. ** During the Creative Storm my mind kept spinning thoughts and moved in all directions. Even upside down to navigate through complex dreams and theories The subject matter flowered around me. Half in light, half in shadow. I flared with thirst, a ruby sunrise, an emerald spring but my brilliance shattered into stillness. My mother held me in her arms and wept. Not a goddess but a fragile pieta. I stared at her with the seed dark eyes of a bird -- knowing I needed rest and time to return becoming merely human. Wendy Howe Wendy Howe is an English teacher who lives in California. Her poetry reflects her interest in myth,, women in conflict and history. Landscapes that influence her writing include the seacoast and high desert where she has formed a poetic kinship with the Joshua trees, hills and wild life spanning ravens, lizards and coyotes. She has been published in the following journals: The Poetry Salzburg Review, The Interpreter's House, Corvid Queen, Strange Horizons, The Acropolis Journal and many others. ** My Grand Child I heard the harpies singing after the storm After you washed ashore You lay across my marbleness In shrouded god's lament I gave you my lungs I gave you my pulse I lashed my sorrow to the mast I heard the harpies singing after the storm Never more Donna-Lee Smith DLS writes from l'île de Montreal where storms from the mighty St. Lawrence may wreak havoc. She dedicates this poem to her sister. ** An Idol, an Icon. Sarah Bernhardt My Idol. I have been impressed by Sarah Bernhardt for years. Perhaps that is why a trilogy about her came to my mind, my heart and my soul: The actress, the sculptor and the feminist. In my mind, the actress As a former speaker on academic success in schools and at conferences for many years, I was influenced by Sarah Bernhardt’s modesty as an actress. Every time I gave a lecture or a workshop, I had stage fright. Once a colleague told me this charming anecdote about Sarah Bernhardt: One day a young actress asked her if she had stage fright before performing. She answered that she always had stage fright before going on stage. The young actress, boastful and naïve, said that she never had stage fright. Sarah Bernhardt told her this wonderful reply: “Those who are talented have stage fright, others don’t”. I kept preciously this tasty reply, hoping, before each of my lectures, that I had some talent. In my heart, the sculptor I didn’t know that Sarah Bernardt was a sculptor. Her splendid sculpture, After the Storm, reminds me of mothers and fathers in countries at war who are “In the storm”. They are desperate and overwhelmed by a dreadful pain that ravages them While they are seeing their children dying from lack of food and trapped in the (fishing) nets of horrible wars. In my soul, the Feminist Sarah Bernardt, with her multiple talents, disturbed male artistic circle or her time. Isn’t the same situation today when women have to fight for their rights and their place in a patriarchal world? She particularly disturbed famous male sculptor Rodin who was not kind to her. He would have said that her sculptures were “filth”. Despite the criticism, she never gave up. She «continued anyway”. It was her motto: to continue anyway. From now on, I will make this motto mine. It’s not too late…even at seventy-five years old. Jean Bourque Jean lives in Montréal. French speaking. Even if it's difficult, he continues to learn English anyway. ** The Courage and the Beauty I hold you draped in my arms. White is your skin of divine mystical grace. Visions of the world at peace with itself. You swoon with the beauty of alabaster . Untouched and unspoiled. Blessing me with your body of purity. We become one as forces of spiritual beauty remake our lives. You have come to teach, to bless and to keep holy. Behold the vision man has made. Grant me the courage to see your wisdom. To not be afraid. To inhabit our shared souls. You were created by the master of creation. We live together in this one life now and forever. Sandy Rochelle Sandy Rochelle is an award winning poet, actress, and filmmaker. She is a recipient of the Autism Society of America's Literary Achievement Award. Sandy produced and narrated the documentary Film, ARTWATCH, about famed art historian James Beck. Her poetry has appeared in: Wild Word, One Art, Amethyst Review, Impspired, Verse Virtual, Dissident Voice, Connecticut River Review, Haiku Universe, Indelible, and others. Her chapbook, Soul Poems, was published by Finishing Line Press. ** Cradled Before Standing Even in black-and-white, shades of gray in relief, the last gasps of consciousness, satin marble for smoothness, grip the soul. A mother’s love piercing, crying out to her gods, unheard above the crashing waves upon the shore. Like a stone net, chiseled salvation, an alabaster eternity cleaves their souls under- neath a just- clearing sky. Todd Sukany Todd Sukany <[email protected]>, a two-time Pushcart nominee, lives in Pleasant Hope, Missouri, with his wife of over forty years. His work has appeared in Cantos: A Literary and Arts Journal, Cave Region Review, The Christian Century, Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal, eMerge Magazine, and The Ekphrastic Review. Sukany authored Frisco Trail and Tales as well as co-authored four books of poetry under the title, Book of Mirrors, with Raymond Kirk. A native of Michigan, Sukany stays busy running, playing music, loving three children, their spouses, seven grandchildren, caring for a rescued dog, and four rescued cats. **  Join us for the epic event of the year. You won't be sorry. It is wild, exhilarating, exhausting and wonderful. A day of pure creation. Play. Brainstorming. Join us on Sunday, or do it on your own time over the following weeks. This year, to celebrate ten years of The Ekphrastic Review, an optional Champagne Party follows the marathon on zoom. Details are below. Perfect Ten: an Ekphrastic Marathon Try something intense and unusual- an ekphrastic marathon, celebrating ten years of The Ekphrastic Review. Join us on Sunday, July 13 2025 for our annual ekphrastic marathon. This year we are celebrating ten years!!!!! This is an all -day creative writing event that we do independently, together. Take the plunge and see what happens! Write to fourteen different prompts, poetry or flash fiction, in thirty minute drafts. There will be a wide variety of visual art prompts posted at the start of the marathon. You will choose a new one every 30 minutes and try writing a draft, just to see what you can create when pushed outside of your comfort zone. We will gather in a specially created Facebook page for prompts, to chat with each other, and support each other. Time zone or date conflicts? No problem. Page will stay open afterwards. Participate when you can, before the deadline for submission. The honour system is in effect- thirty minute drafts per prompt, fourteen prompts. Participants can do the eight hour marathon in one or two sessions at another time and date within the deadline for submissions (July 31, 2025). Polish and edit your best pieces later, then submit five for possible publication on the Ekphrastic site. One poem and one flash fiction will win $100 CAD each. Last year this event was a smashing success with hundreds of poems and stories written. Let's smash last year out of the park and do it even better this year! Marathon: Sunday July 13, from 10 am to 6 pm EST (including breaks) (For those who can’t make it during those times, any hours that work for you are fine. For those who can’t join us on July 13, catch up at a better time for you in one or two sessions only, as outlined above.) Champagne Party: at 6.05 pm until 7. 30 on Sunday, July 13, join participants on Zoom to celebrate an exhilarating day. Bring Champagne, wine, or a pot of tea. We'll have words from The Ekphrastic Review, conversation as a chance to connect with community, and some optional readings from your work in the marathon. Story and poetry deadline: July 31, 2025 Up to five works of poetry or flash fiction or a mix, works started during marathon and polished later. 500 words max, per piece. Please include a brief bio, 75 words or less Participation is $20 CAD (approx. 15 USD). Thank you very much for your support of the operations, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review, and the prizes to winning authors. If you are in hardship and cannot afford the entry, but you want to participate, please drop us a line at [email protected] and we'll sign you up. Selections for showcase and winning entries announced sometime in September. Sign up below! Perfect Ten: annual ekphrastic marathon
CA$20.00
Celebrate ten years of The Ekphrastic Review with our annual ekphrastic marathon. Fourteen drafts, thirty minutes each, poetry, flash fiction, or CNF. You'll choose from a curated selection of artworks chosen to challenge, inspire, and stimulate. The goal of the marathon is to finish the marathon by creating fourteen drafts. Optional: you'll have time after the event to polish any drafts and submit them. Selected works will be published in TER and a winner in poetry and flash fiction will each be chosen and honoured with $100 award. Following the marathon, exhausted writers can join our Champagne Party on zoom to celebrate an amazing day.  Rainy Day Rainbow, by Kaz Ogino (Canada) 2024 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 Rainy Day Rainbow, by Kaz Ogino. Deadline is June 20, 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 OGINO 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, June 20, 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.   Transmogrification, by Donna-Lee Smith (Canada) contemporary Black Into White Within just thee minutes, black into white Transmogrification, as it has been named What secrets were all hidden in negativity Now being exposed to us with no privacy With a face and identity that’s unashamed Of what now can be observed in the light There seems no reason for this odd change Maybe it’s the image being self deprecating A little frustrated with so few details shown Yet since inception, many years have flown And just be dissatisfied with all that waiting But its choice of representation was strange A subject or object, one may choose which Relieved to be seen however one might feel Now as a picture that is almost abstract art As a strange conception from the very start Perhaps a chance to be viewed as more real And even trying to scratch that creative itch 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. ** Manifesto He carries my wound like a badge of honour, holding me up as an example - of what? of resilience? domination? of his own cruelty? All that is obvious. But what he doesn’t see, what this monster doesn’t know, is that what he sees as a scar ripped across my face is actually a tool. A brush. A makeup brush that fools him into believing he has me in the palm of his hands. That I am stuck on his canvas. He is oh, so wrong. I am not even there. I am a painting of my own creation and as I leach myself of darkness, I transform him. My eyes glow at his screams as my brush becomes a scalpel. Turning him into the object he believed I was. Until he is nothing more than my shadow. And his wound becomes my mask. Kaila Schwartz Kaila Schwartz runs an award-winning theatre program at a secondary school in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she has spent the past 23 years. Her poem Chaplaincy was selected for commendation in the Hippocrates Open Prize for Poetry and Medicine, and was published in the Hippocrates Awards Anthology in 2020. Her poem promise in the garden will be published in the June edition of Moss Piglet. ** Arresting Arresting woman, hiding behind images, protecting herself. ** Reflection Deep attractive eyes, staring into the blackness, judging reflection. 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. ** Transmogrification Re: model, yes, remodel, morph, but more than indication brought, a grifter casting telling spell - witch moves, transforming which we see - the moment what might be revealed, in manner magical it seems. Those dark arts frame the ghostly wight as pales into significance, a play on what enlightens us, the stage, the script, that cast again. Is there a shadow armature, some patent, type, prepared before, a stock for grafting other fruit but rooted, tapping common source? I sense the Easter Island heads, those moai stones of ancient craft, great monoliths, hung ears and nose, as if each knows their tribal part. Whatever medium your art, exhumed whomevers from your past - hear spirits of their vocal hearts, with black cat moggy in your sights. 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 ** Exposed in Reverse Order Now, all you see are my dark sides The negative of me -- I won't deny Yet, there is more going on within this shot And I want you to see below my surface laid plot I lured you into my shutter snapped shadows Even though you were hung in my red room glows You are more attracted to the leading lies on my face Than the click of my cobra bite blade, but I have more to offer, more to search for There are parts of me that can only be exposed in reverse order Why can't you just see me in the light? There are parts of me that can only be exposed in reverse order I have more to offer, more to search for Than the click of my cobra bite blade, but You are more attracted to the leading lies on my face Even though you were hung in my red room glows I lured you into my shutter snapped shadows And I want you to see below my surface laid plot Yet, there is more going on within this shot The negative of me -- I won't deny Now, all you see are my dark sides Brendan Dawson Brendan Dawson is an American born writer based in Italy. He writes from his observations and experiences while living, working, and traveling abroad. Currently, he is compiling a collection of poetry and short stories from his time in the military and experiences as an expat. ** The Final Cut Like Dorian Gray she had two personas, both with shadows, one dark, one light. Both slashed open, sliced in two divided. In the final cut she was both. 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 has been nominated for Pushcarts, 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. ** Gratitude Dear friend Donna-Lee Your black and white images take us through our own inside mirror The thin and fragile skin which envelopes our body is transmogrified It becomes our privileged and faithful channel Between our soul and our peers Transmogrification allows our breath to flow And contacts our deepest feelings Our creativity and our humanity Our Human entity…being concerned by people around us People who can transmogrify us People we hope to transmogrify by our presence It feels so good to influence each other It feels so good to be transmogrified By your inspiring vision of the environment La gratitude fait partie de la métamorphose Que nous pouvons opérer en nous Pour devenir une meilleure personne Jean Bourque Jean lives in Montreal. He is retired from Special Education. He takes English classes. He also participates in a pairing program for English and French conversation at MCLL (McGill Community for Lifelong Learning). He is paired with Donna-Lee who told him about The Ekphrastic Challenges. Merci beaucoup Donna-Lee. ** The Scar "They never forgot that even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course..." W.H. Auden, Musee des Beaux Art If I believed that my answer would be to someone who would never return to earth, this flame would move no more, but because no one has ever returned alive from this grief, if what is true I can, I can I can reply with no fear of anything...* When the pieces didn't fit they were forced to rely on intuition. It was a miracle (this they knew) the 21st century's contemporary capacity to scan the entire work of art like a puzzle drawn by heart -- but whose heart? And who had made the pieces? Alexander the Great had died at 32, by poisoning, assassination or bacterial disease which was no doubt called by something ancient and infectious, and heart- breaking. Definitely transmogrifying. The plastic surgeon looked at her birthmark, now a cavern, grown upward on her face, threatening her ear; if repaired, nerves might be cut to her eye, winking at fate above the ear that might have to come off; and O yes: she would not be able to smile. It was losing the smile that became the most fearsome as she imagined a light so bright above the eye above the threatened ear; the length of dissolving thread, commanded by the needle to bridge the gap. She had never visited Venice, the Bridge of Sighs, or made love in a gondola. Petronius, trapped within himself, had found humor in The Satyriicon (See quote at beginning of the poem to avoid footnotes) and she was known for natural humour, to laugh or die? Alexander the Great was so brave, so young and accomplished (not to mention handsome) a map of his conquests moving west to east; a part of his sarcophagus (You never vanished from my heart, antique sarcophagai*) found in Venice and finally scanned, all these centuries later, found to fit; The Star-Shield Block, found, stars winking above passages, canals of thought these memories, a bridge to a broken past, magically transformed when a poet sighs, happy on a bridge to try try try. Laurie Newendorp Laurie Newendorp lives and writes in Houston. Honored multiple times by The Ekphrastic Review's Challenge, she found Donna-Lee Smith's Transmogrification, a face, darker by night, brighter at sunrise (or revealed by ill-health during an Inquisition) to be thought-provoking. Although it is unusual for Newendorp to use multiple quotes in the body of a poem, The Scar reveals a variety of sources: Petronius, The Satyricon; You never vanished from my heart, antique sacophagai from Newendorp's translation of Rilke's Sonnets To Orpheus in the voice of Eurydice; and try try try [cry cry cry] is a quote written by Cynthia Macdonald, describing her struggle to become a poet. The Star-Shield Block was found in St. Mark's Basilica in Venice. Its likeness -- scanned and printed -- was carried to the British Museum to verify its fit in a fresco carved on Alexander's sarcophagus. ** I Find There are Bits of Me in This I see my past self in the pictures here. I cannot mold my precise, my mirror image to them, but my eyes grasp that slash of shadow sweeping from chin line upward, and I raise my hand to that place on my own face and feel the crease left as I slept, in Le Bourget airport, cheek anchoring the stiff strap of my shoulder bag when I was stranded there without funds. In the light gray of the phantom face mask I find my fear of fading into nothingness at my class reunion while they laugh over all our shared “jolly times” of which I recall none, since in those days I hid in the library surrounded by stacks of notes, frantic to recall all data for tests to keep my scholarship. Only bits of me, but yes, I am in these images. These familiar but not comforting, faces are not identical to me, at least not yet. So I will step away now before I find more bits of me scattered here and there in this work. I will place these works and my already noticed bits of past discomfort in a back drawer of my brain and will them both to sleep. Joan Leotta Joan Leotta plays with words on page and stage. She’s been published as essayist, poet, short story writer, and novelist. She’s a two-time nominee for Pushcart and Best of the Net. Her poetry, essays, and stories have appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, The Lake, Ovunque Siamo, One Art, Gargoyle, and other journals. Her shows most often highlight her Italian heritage, food, family, and strong women and has been a guest on Italian radio. Her one-woman show is Louisa May Alcott, Author, Nurse, traveler to Italy and Writer. ** To Donna-Lee Smith Regarding Transmogrification You model soul you've bared to bone by brush that dared to turn the stone exposing truth as underside both dark and blinding light could hide. beneath the good and evil known in seed the wind of fate has sown to freely bloom as conscious will and yet forever struggle still with choices one cannot undo and consequences that ensue to piece together greater sum of hope and damage we become that time completes, however strange, as frames embracing art of change. 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. ** The Dark Room Sometimes someone flips a switch and the room that held so much darkness and so many knives, is bright, and the knives reveal as soft as feathers wafting in the wind. Darkness, today, is the red of wine in a patterned glass and its fear no longer grips. Last week I was drowning in that glass, where the wine was blood and the shadows were a curse. Every step contained its own argument that near was far, that less was more and the darkness was a parasite heavy on my back. This week the light cascades around me and the dark is just a drift of feathers. The knives are sheathed and the wind is a caress, but it has the promise of the week gone by and the week yet to come. And I still bear its scars. Edward Alport Edward Alport is a retired teacher and international business executive living in the UK. He occupies his time as a poet, gardener and writer. He has had poetry, articles and stories published in various webzines and magazines and performed on BBC Radio and Edinburgh Fringe. His Bluesky handle is @crossmouse.bsky.social. His website is crossmouse.wordpress.com. ** My Black Soul Black is the colour of my soul. It is the mask that I cleverly use to disguise my face. I live with the undesirables fooling all who try to approach me. My smile is rancid and cold. Sinister is my game. I will disgrace you if you look my way. Stay away from the evil within me. I am cold to the touch- no skin here. I am plaster and paste-no blood in my veins. No heart and no soul to love. I am here on an expired passport. Listen to me child. Some praise my alleged beauty -but that is just a trap. A myth discussed among the living of the world. Those with blood in their veins and a clean heart and soul. I am my own entity. Touch me if you dare. Observe me if you must. You have been warned. Sandy Rochelle Sandy Rochelle is a widely published poet, actress, narrator and filmmaker. Her documentary film Silent Journey is streaming on Culture Unplugged. Publications include: Wild Word, One Art, Verse Virtual, Dissident Voice, Connecticut River Review,Haiku Universe, Impspired, Indelible, and others. ** Concealment Cento The veil a device, Which hides my future life from me- God, the unity of everything, my hands and eyes- All they can see is my toes and my hair- I’m hiding, I’m hiding- I have wings flattened down and hid- I raise the darkened veil Subtle as light The sudden, first unfurling, That I may have the sky. Debbie Walker-Lass Line 1)The Marble Veil, by Paul Batchelor Line 2 & 7) “Oh, Could I Raise The Dark’nd Veil” by Nathaniel Hawthorne Line 3) “Onset” by Kim Addonzinio Lines 4 & 5) “Hiding” by Dorothy Keely Aldis Lines 6 & 8) “The Bridal Veil” by Alice Cary Line 9) “Dreams” by Grace Greenwood Line 10) “Before I Got My Eye Put Out” by Emily Dickinson Debbie Walker-Lass, (she/her) is a poet, collage artist, and writer living in Decatur, Georgia. Her work has appeared in, or soon will appear, in The Rockvale Review, Green Ink Poetry, The Ekphrastic Journal, Punk Monk, Poetry Quarterly, The Light Ekphrastic and The Niagara Poetry Journal, among others. She is an avid Tybee Island beachcomber and lover of all things nature. (Except spiders, not yet.) She’s recently provided a rollicking poetry workshop for her local Dekalb County library. ** Amnesia How is it I have misplaced my memories? Is it that the shadows merged with my bones? If I make myself very still, very quiet. My thoughts are grey. I keep failing to escape from these labyrinthine dreams. The horizon moves farther and farther away. Yet I cannot stop moving. I am walking on a bridge inside a revolving door. I go and go and go and go nowhere, spiraling within the formless silence of obliteration. have I lost my mind? where did it go? the mirror laughs; life abandons me 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/. ** Tectonic Face I carry my face in my hands, hoist it onto the dining table, ready my knife and fork. My eyes, dark and brooding, stare at the black-and-white plate. Nothing has taste for me anymore. I suck in my cheeks as I prepare to bite. into gray food. I jut out my chin to make sure I don’t dribble. But then light bites my face, forces my eyes shut. A bright beam sears my right cheek, penetrates my skin, leaves a fault line from glabella to jowl. Like lava, the heat creeps beneath the skin until it enters from behind the eyes and shoots out. I am sprouting fireworks. My face is alive. I am alive. Barbara Krasner Barbara Krasner earned a World Art History certificate from Smithsonian Associates as she grappled with the confluence of chronic illnesses. Writing in response to art, especially surrealist art, helps her heal. Her work has been featured in The Ekphrastic Review, MacQueen's Quinterly, and elsewhere. Her first ekphrastic poetry collection is forthcoming from Kelsay Books. Visit Barbara's website at www.barbarakrasner.com. ** Transmogrification Sometimes she would say that the next time she’d see herself in the mirror, she’d have a different face. Her eyes were the darkest brown, almost as dark as the Black Oaks she often imagined the fiend within her hiding behind. Sometimes she would say that the next time she’d see herself, her face would be radiant, and her eyes would gleam with the glory of the angel she often imagined hiding behind Japanese Maples with their lovely coral bark. Sometimes she would say that the next time she’d see her reflection in the pond behind her home, the under-eye circles formed during sleepless nights, when the fiend and the angel inside her battled, would be gone. Sometimes she would say that the next time she’d see herself in the surface of a window at midnight or on a car’s shiny hood, the war within her would be over, that magic could change her into someone she’d never known. Gregory E. Lucas Gregory E. Lucas writes fiction and poetry. His short stories and poems have appeared in many magazines such as The Horror Zine, Sparks of Calliope, and previous issues of The Ekphrastic Review. He lives on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. ** Penumbra There are two sides to every being. To every shadow self. Something unspoken works upon you as dusk falls. An unmuttering of whispers. When it’s time for all your doings. Shadow selves do shadow work. They embalm, they bury, burn candles, make offerings. When the moon glows pink. When the night of the dead looms high. Sometimes, you hear the whooping. You spot a lone falcon during the day. Messenger. A sign. Time for ritual and remedy. The runes fall sideways, face up, sunlit. Always telling you the same thing. Protection. Quiet time. Soft spells. A time for fasting. Scrying. Reckoning. You are not alone and you never were. The falling night brings a shedding of self. You are fond of all the ways. You, shadow woman, leave behind what no longer serves you. The chameleon selves that never were you. You grow into she of the four directions. Future crone, she who loves. Deep, secret, unceasing. She who bestows her benediction upon the passing traveller. To vanish the moment their back is turned. Do not look into her eyes too long. You would forget your purpose. She becomes a mystery. She shed so many selves, she cannot be known. Not anymore. Those she loved she left, or they left her. Through will, death, circumstance. She is centuries old. At one with the wildflowers in bloom. The moon at half-mast. The forest at the edge of the world. Nina Nazir Nina Nazir (she/her) is a British Pakistani poet, writer and artist based in Birmingham, UK. She has been widely published online and in print. She is also a Room 204 writing cohort with Writing West Midlands. You can usually find her with her nose in a book or on Instagram: @nina.s.nazir. She blogs regularly at www.sunrarainz.wordpress.com ** Breaking Out I was tired of always, bored with day after day, with showing in shadows a mask to go inside frames and expectations people carry as they measure me with a glance to see how I might fit. Then a light dawned inside, brightened until it cracked my mask like a cocoon, forced it open, and burst from my forehead, my eyes. I glared shadows away, shattered frames as I stabbed a challenge to the world: Here I am, if you dare! Gary S. Rosin Gary S. Rosin is a retired law professor now living in California to be near family. He has been writing poetry for almost 60 years, and ekphrastic poetry for about 40 years. He is a contributing editor for MacQueen's Quinterly. ** There Once Was a Mother who rejected her daughter’s birthmark, regretted her lack of grace, and sent her to beauty school to learn elegance, or at least, not to wobble in high heels. “Wasted money,” she sighed, disappointed in this girl-- and handed her a tube of Max Factor Erase. Together, they waited for the swipe of makeup to transform the duckling into a swan. To bestow glamour at eighteen, twenty-five, forty. Twice a day, the girl prayed the tube would correct her defect. But Erase was no magic wand. At bedtime and each morning, the port-wine stain still splattered across her chin like bloody shards of glass or the work of a palsied tattoo artist. Decades of fruitless efforts to cancel, expunge, delete-- no procedure more successful than the last. Until a knight errant, in somewhat tarnished armor, proclaimed he loved everything about her. She questioned his eyes but accepted his care. With time, she stopped erasing herself. Sandi Stromberg Sandi Stromberg is the author of the poetry collection Frogs Don’t Sing Red. Her poems have recently been accepted by The Orchards Poetry Journal, Panoply, and MockingHeart Review— and appeared in Pulse, equinox, Gyroscope Review, San Pedro River Review, and The Senior Class, among others. An editor at The Ekphrastic Review, she also edited two anthologies of poetry--Untameable City and Echoes of the Cordillera. A four-time Pushcart and two-time Best of the Net nominee, she was a juried poet in the Houston Poetry Fest eleven times. Dutch translations of her poems have appeared in Brabant Cultureel. ** Mirror, Mirror on the Wall stern, sabred, resurrected, remembering the undoing, the ongoing undoing, the undone morphing into the light, nourishing into being, black matter bringing forth an unforeseen brightness, a blazing unforgiving fire blinding the bearer and all who would ask the mirror. 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 (and rejected) widely in mostly US poetry reviews (online and print). She was several times nominated for a Pushcart and Best of Net. Her eighth book Life Stuff has been published by Kelsay Books (November 2023). A chapbook is about to be published, and a new MS is looking for a home. https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/ ** Akhlut Piebald and crouched I stalk my prey Toward the sea Leaving wolf tracks On the shore Black and white I slip transmogrified Into murky darkness Sending out a click train Through the deep Lara Dolphin A native of Pennsylvania, Lara Dolphin is an attorney, nurse, wife, and mother of four. 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). ** When I Look in the Mirror When I look in the mirror, There are two reflections. Three, four and many more Those who are going forward Those going back infinitesimally Each is like a wax letter stamp. Each is an unopened correspondence Each muttering, pray, do -open me. Now unto eternity. 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. ** In Meditation (at Mount Auburn Cemetery) Each stone An ascetic- No longer alone. Rising at dusk Rising in light Rising When there was The rain. Like the air In folds of a curtain -- Like the unborn. Illusions of a mind Confined to whirling Of a fan -- Burning with desire To be found. 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. ** Silence of Love On my first rendezvous with daylight since I moved to Colorado near Estes Park, I stir from winter’s silence, hours before a blizzard is forecasted. I recall months ago we attended a harvest fair where we encountered a tattooed artist sitting by an easel who created this clever interpretation of your portrait in black and white. We laughed at the finished sketch which you gave me as a souvenir of that crisp October afternoon. Months later I mourn the distance between us and the stars. Jim Brosnan A Pushcart nominee, Dr. Jim Brosnan is the author of Long Distance Driving (2024) and Nameless Roads (2019) copies available [email protected]. His poems have appeared in the Aurorean (US), Crossways Literary Magazine (Ireland), Eunoia Review (Singapore), Nine Muses (Wales), Scarlet Leaf Review (Canada), Strand (India), The Madrigal (Ireland), The Wild Word (Germany), and Voices of the Poppies (United Kingdom). He holds the rank of full professor at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, RI. ** An Interview for the Artist in Chiaroscuro Our understanding is correlative to our perception. ~ Robert Delaunay, French artist (b. 1885 – d. 1941) Where division meets mystery and creativity yields inner friendship, do you document your face as proof of existence, characterize your countenance as evidence? Where contrast invites interpretation and imagery explores universal belonging, do your self-portraits honor humanity, offer tribute to solidarity? Where the knife cuts and the complexities of life are lost in black and white thinking, does your lens widen with nuance, embrace the vastness of human grayscale? Based on hypotheticals, if compassion suddenly transformed the world canvas, altered societal discernment, would your likeness change, include a transmogrification of color? As the Earth turns in this light-dark framework of time, do you believe our understanding is correlative to our perception? Jeannie E. Roberts Jeannie E. Roberts is an artist, author, and poet. Her latest full-length poetry collection is titled On a Clear Night, I Can Hear My Body Sing (Kelsay Books, 2025). Her work appears in various publications, including Anti-Heroin Chic, Blue Heron Review, The Ekphrastic Review, The New Verse News, ONE ART, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Panoply, The Poeming Pigeon, Presence, Quill and Parchment, Silver Birch Press, Sky Island Journal, Verse-Virtual, and elsewhere. She serves as a poetry editor for the online literary magazine Halfway Down the Stairs and is an Eric Hoffer and a two-time Best of the Net award nominee. ** Hope Overshadowed Darkness. It clings to me like a second skin. No amount of soaking, scrubbing, washing deters its inky quality. It never ceases in its appearance. Gathering. Layering. Hardening. More, and more, and more. The weight is so heavy… But no one sees as it hides behind an illusion I’ve portrayed: a radiant smile, a helping hand, a strong façade; that no one wants to believe is false. Removing the pretenses, being open, vulnerable about the origins and reasons for this emptiness… yet you still cannot see through this white, angelic smokescreen and truly understand me… Will I forever be a prisoner of this shadow? No. For while hope may seem lost in the endless void, a light will always continue to burn at the other end of the tunnel guiding you onward. Katie L. Davey Katie L. Davey is an aspiring author from the rural parts of House Springs, MO. She has published four pieces through four separate challenges for the Ekphrastic Review, the first titled Hidden Prophecies as part of the Richard Challenge, the second titled Listen Well, Listen All, of My Tale to Caution All as part of the Vicente Challenge, the third titled I Blink as part of the Morrisseau Challenge, and the fourth title A Rocky Perspective as part of the Gabler Challenge. She has worked on Harbinger Magazine as a staff intern and is a member of Stephens College's chapter of Sigma Tau Delta. She earned her BFA in Creative Writing, with minors in Equestrian Studies and Psychology, at Stephens College in May 2024. ** Etymology of Portrait of Earth Charcoal as whole body emoting emerging the etymology of portrait of earth unfurling draw is to draft is to drag is to seize [what’s pleasing- what’s changing what’s up for grabs? DRAW from your wrist draw from your shoulder conjure ecologies of charcoal emerging from embers embers emerging emergent emerging emergency of charcoal calling on what came before us charcoal—Middle English [related to coal emerging converging smudging transforming form & transform the earth brutal and raw Jeanne Morel Jeanne Morel is the author of three chapbooks, most recently, I See My Way to Some Partial Results(Ravenna Press). She holds an MFA from Pacific University and has been nominated for a Pushcart in both poetry and fiction. Her new work is forthcoming in Telephone—An International Arts Project, On Resilience, Stories of Climate Adaptation Across Washington’s Landscapes, and Birdbrains, a Lyrical Guide to Washington State Birds.  After the Storm, by Sarah Bernhardt (France) 1876 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 After the Storm, by Sarah Bernhardt. Deadline is June 6, 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. 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Sorry. 5.Include BERNHARDT 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, JUNE 6, 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.  Die Erde & Der Himmel (Heaven and Earth), by Séverine Gallardo (France) 2024 Heaven and Earth Reality reins, into cohabitation, of heaven and earth. 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. ** Therapeutic Art That Makes Us Grow Social psychologist Amy Cuddy argues that expansive body postures increase self-confidence and the positive influence we have on other people. To help us remember to do this when speaking to another person, she suggests to “pretend there's a hat, or object, on our head that we are supporting.” I imagine for a second that I’m wearing one of these super colourful and fun head ornaments created by Séverine Gallardo. The thought of that spectacular hat on my head makes me feel like I am a steeple of a cathedral connecting with the sky. With the overshoulderarmsleeve, I feel as if I were a living part of a luminous garden. A garden that emerges from the Artist’s mind and that tends to a paradise. I feel a connection with Nature as if I were hugging a tree, but, here, it is the tree that is hugging me. Jean Bourque Jean lives in Montreal. He is passionate about nature and sylvotherapy. He particularly enjoys hugging trees, except for conifers…because of the resin. ** To Séverine Gallardo Regarding Die Erde & Der Himmel You fashion us as juxtaposed -- between the sensed and undisclosed -- as bridge connecting things observed to spirit never seen but served... ...as flesh aware yet mystified, by timeless reach of soul inside unique as force inherent free to destine as its legacy the mind, the eye, the hand, the heart becoming tools of human art to leave behind the work and worth of time's decay and its rebirth of crafted selfless sacrifice that Love intended to entice as promise kept of living Grace that we become in faith's embrace. 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. ** You Are On My Mind Swathed in the fabric of life I enter and think of you only. Tall and bright -the Tower on Pisa on my head. Swaying back and forth. You inhabit my brain and go forth in the world. The beauty of color and fabrics leads me to accolades and wisdom. I am a success in this world -tall and mighty. The vision atop my head pushes me onward to brilliance. I am observed and admired for my creative fortitude. I am acknowledged for the new heights I have reached. Talent is once again the center of my universe. My audience applauds and awaits my entrance. The awards are endless. I am the mistress of creation. My entrance is greeted by all. Cheers abound from the crowd. Hand clapping causes my ears to ring with endless applause. My hat is a supreme success -my head dizzy with recognition. I enter the room as people bend and bow. Crowds cheer and genuflect. Perfection is mine. Sandy Rochelle Sandy Rochelle is an Internationally published poet. Actress and narrator. She narrated and produced the documentary film Artwatch about Art historian James Beck. Her poetry has appeared in: Wild Word, One Art, Dissident Voice, Connecticut River Review, Haiku Universe, Impspired, Indelible, and others. Her chapbook, Soul Poems, was published by Finishing Line Press. ** The Daughters of Atlas “…Atlas... bade Hercules hold up the sky in his stead. Hercules promised to do so, but succeeded by craft in putting it on Atlas instead....he begged Atlas to hold up the sky till he should put a pad on his head.” - Apollodorus, Library II.5.11, c. 1st-2nd century CE Old tales tell of mighty men who fought to lose What women daily bear with ease and grace For men cannot balance the world on their heads Who portray each daily chore as legend But it is now strong and stately women Who hold up the sky’s unlikely colours Pastel shades of blush and dawn nourishing Towering gardens of russet and sage As women have done since before the beginning No matter what elder tales may tell Balancing life as if practicing posture Draping the world across their left shoulders A cauldron of time there heaped and expanding The world-serpent’s skin coiled around her brow Her veins gush with the wine of summer Heaven and earth a mere fashion statement Heavily felt yet lightly burdened Royal purple worn most casually With her grace and a firm simplicity For that which she bears is not all that she is Mark Hendrickson Mark Hendrickson (he/him/his) is a gay poet and writer in the Des Moines area navigating the Sturm und Drang of daily life through wordcraft. His work has appeared in Variant Lit, Vestal Review, Modern Haiku, Spellbinder, and others. He has a background in music, psychology, and marriage & family therapy. Mark worked for many years as a Mental Health Technician on a locked psychiatric unit. Follow him @MarkHPoetry, or visit his website: https://www.markhendricksonpoetry.com ** Elevate Your Thoughts When the strain of this world becomes a heavy padded cloak that sits heavily over your shoulder like the biggest epaulette ever it does not matter how lovely it is, the skill and care in its creation, the green land and the forests of it, flooded rivers running down your arm, red lava flows reaching to your wrist. The roiling mass of its primal forces and drive for survival overwhelm: it is fight or flight, kill or be killed. When this lopsided burden threatens to overcome you, contemplate heaven. Lift your mind above earthly things, the rock strata, the land, the water. Elevate your troubled thoughts to a more rosy view above, dwell on those higher matters. Unknowable portals will lead you to mystical realms beyond. This is the essence of the infinite, its strangeness unquantifiable, its exotic nature beyond our ken. We can try to imagine it, taste it, the fruit of a new kind of Eden untainted by mortal corruption. Clothe your head with meditations, send prayers to rise in spirals, make a mitre from your mantras. Emily Tee Emily Tee is a writer living in the UK Midlands. She's had pieces published in Ekphrastic Review Challenges previously, and elsewhere online and in print, including most recently in Poetry Scotland. ** A Tendency to Work in Squares I wear the office inside my window Grafting Bosch onto their burnt life Bold, risqué, exploratory graveyard The people made of victory gardens Grey of cadmium neutron absorbers The people fresh with fruit and lush Without which the system explodes With the wreckage of lasting greens Propst the rat race Daedalus for this Mismatched patch over the software Minoan Age of cheese yellow sheets Sheltering my catgut jeweling bright Bull market with hecatomb jaundice What won’t belong makes belonging Bully bullshit bullpen Chinaware era Happen by the process called longing When I’m cold I drape myself in the Whenever the body becomes a rufous Nondescript bucolic cell lit with heat Halo of kestrel and an orphic mammal Magna cum laude certificate in Excel The body also wears the leeward dive Summa of the backroom imagination Its determinate, uncertain textile rustle Starched cloud atmosphere ironed on Cockaigne resembling karst the heart The end of the world isn’t a spheroid Lithic mordant caustic a talon a claw Flat, unwrinkled, unblinking fissions A hand reaching for variegated fruits Cleaved panes resembling utopianism Without which the system explodes JDG JDG (they/them) is a writer based in Brooklyn, NY and a member of the New Haven Writers' Group. Their work has been published, among other places, in Cleaver Magazine, Prospectus, and Prairie Schooner. You can find more of their work at JustinDGoodman.com ** Easter Parade The parade was over. I was as pleased with my creation, as any creator would be, especially a mad Hatter like me! But though it was over, I wasn’t done. I had so many pieces left over, so many earthly marvels still awaiting creation, so I collaged a sleeve, modified a sweater clothed the Earth. mapped its changes and created some more heavenly art. 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 has been nominated for Pushcarts, 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 and https://www.facebook.com///www.facebook.com/Lynn-White-Poetry-1603675983213077/ ** The Reluctant Model Why would someone do this to me? It weighs a tonne and I feel a fool. There's skill and artistry in the intricate designs, but any beauty in the detail is lost in the overall execution. No I won't smile for the camera this thing is giving me a headache and if I move a muscle it will all come tumbling down. So many problems in the world need solutions and you choose to do this to me? Juliet Wilson Juliet Wilson is an adult education tutor, wildlife surveyor and conservation volunteer based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Her poetry and short stories have been widely published. She can be found in various places online as Crafty Green Poet. ** Bluebird Liturgy Heaven reached down and touched the earth, dipped its fingertips into the soil, grasped tree roots. Heaven kissed the earth and the roots broke through the ground, blossomed into majestic tree clouds. There, in the branches, a bluebird lifted its beak in gratitude toward Heaven and sang, “Then heaven touched the earth,” again and again. Three other bluebirds in red nests caught the refrain from the west and carried the tune, passing its notes from one to the other. Then the trio sang in unison, a three-part harmony. Red petals unfurled and worms crept out of the soil to find each other. The bluebirds knew no more effective prayer than this: “Then heaven touched the earth. And all was well.” Barbara Krasner Barbara Krasner earned a World Art History certificate from Smithsonian Associates as she grappled with the confluence of chronic illnesses. Writing in response to art, especially surrealist art, helps her heal. Her work has been featured in The Ekphrastic Review, MacQueen's Quinterly, and elsewhere. Her first ekphrastic poetry collection is forthcoming from Kelsay Books. Visit Barbara's website at www.barbarakrasner.com. ** Woven in Dialectic Here I stand on firm foundations A thesis of thinking labelled on Die Erde Wrapping arms with world sensations Blocking fears, I've long been scared of And yet above I continue to contend An antithesis of angst that awaits in Der Himmel Resting where my mind has never been Imagining a worth beyond metaphysical As all my observations blend into Das Leben I synthesize, paired of the middle, woven in dialectic Brendan Dawson Brendan Dawson is an American born writer based in Italy. He writes from his observations and experiences while living, working, and traveling abroad. Currently, he is compiling a collection of poetry and short stories from his time in the military and experiences as an expat. ** ensorcelled what is it like to be a hill, a tree, a place of impossible beauty that moves into spirit expanding beyond all estimation? how to measure time when it disappears and loses its borders? when what was formerly distant pulls the outside in and speaks in voices that are not sounds but images of pure lucidity? that can only be heard in the hushed luminescence of word lessness, the cosmic hum? 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/. ** Mad Hatter? A helmet, hat, a mindset space, agenda for evolving taste, grandmother’s knee to artistry. It started in a crochet tool, repeated gestures, time again, ahead, remoulding, textile part. Beyond the screen, still reading squares, tile history, ceramic piece, or letters, alphabetti seize. Intriguing motifs, headline stuff, to cap it all, consolidate repurposed bits as galvanised. Through eye to pinpoint travelogue, flea markets through to online shop, what meets that eye are coloured threads. Yoruba for the carried weight, divinities in India, unseen and seen met native heads. A head for heights, totemic feel, do heaven, earth find unity in Séverine’s material? 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 ** pitch you can tear out the thread that weds heaven to earth & then swear on your spit of this bead it will birth & while you might speak of it as air or as breath or as spirit god holds the idea of death so high even the dogs cannot hear it Mark DeCarteret ** Die Erde & Der Himmel Smart of you, Gallardo, to place heaven & earth not in the hand & head of God but of the human, and especially – the woman, which even Zarathustra missed in his superman gist! You structured the heaven as a high hoisted fist, though carrying it for a lifetime, even if it’s only her mane, defies any rational frame, but that’s exactly why the creator has given us imagination! Only by invention she can harmonize the intricate heavenly perfection into such fair super bun and place all the big and small crusades into their right honorable places, as light shines, flowers bloom, mountains green creatures crawl and fly and sing. At the same time it’s upon her practical arm to balance and conduct all the earth’s super contrasts: deluge and drought, kernel and darnel, fresh and old, calm and storm to grab the best from each whim and turn blossom into fruit, only to then start again from seed; as authors interchange poetry with prose and, of course, turn the other way around as by the season of their ideation bound; yet always carrying the two tasks with gravitas and grace, no matter full face, profile or back – it’s always a pure poise, as Gallardo here shows! You may correct me if it’s otherwise – earth standing on her head, and heaven hanging on her arm – but, it’s, any way, an argument resolved – ‘on earth as it is in heaven’, as by the book. But Gallardo’s present open book reading wouldn’t be complete without reaching the mounting top and spice Michelangelo’s gist – indeed, man was once inspirited by God, but woman – second time by giving Birth – here facing labor alone looking calm as if it is a piece of birthday cake her poise enhancing as we speak, but if you stop…you will hear her “thanks” to heaven and earth for turning into wearable mode as her natal dress code. Ekaterina Dukas Ekaterina Dukas writes poetry as a pilgrimage to the meaning and her poems have been honored often by TER. Her collection Ekphrasticon is published by Europe Edizioni. ** What i was i was an easter egg and my falcon, a trinity In a history of eclipse i had my fibers combed into thought stacks, smoking cones years ago, riding horseback i noticed my arm was pregnant with verse, time and motion. A quisling child betrayed me to my father, unseen since the time of darkness. Silly silly me. False deserts dressed in cacti grew like mints in apocalypse, and i turned away. i was the sea and shore, near Greece overgrown with rosemary weeping, in spite of blue and green and yellow Feral Willcox Feral Willcox is a poet and musician living in Truth or Consequences, NM. Her first full length poetry collection is forthcoming from Artemis Tales Press. Her work can be found in The Mackinaw, Rogue Agent, Nixes Mate, Per Contra, and elsewhere. ** I Contain Multitudes I contain multitudes Of virtue Of sin I contain multitudes Of pleasure Of pain Of short sighs singing in the dark of night Of persistent aches echoing in the marrow of my bones I contain multitudes Of enigma Of clarity I contain multitudes Of memory Of prophecy Of toes-tangled-in-dew-drizzled-grass flickers and of arms-aloft-in-trees flashes Of wet-astreaked-cheek assaults and of depressed-dirge-drumming-heart visions I contain multitudes Of love Of hate I contain multitudes Of knowledge Of the forgotten Of calculations and of dates and of trivial fact Of names and of faces and of important lessons I contain multitudes Of sanity Of craziness I contain multitudes Of niceties Of aggressions Of “please’s” and of “thank you’s” and of held doors and of smiles Of “fuck you’s” and of “go to hell’s” and of punches and of glares I contain multitudes Of defensiveness Of offensiveness I contain multitudes Of order Of chaos Of perfectly aligned books and of washed hands and of sanitized surfaces Of randomly placed knick knacks and of dirty t-shirts and of disorganized closets I contain multitudes Of forgiveness Of resentment I contain multitudes Of joy Of sorrow Of brilliant smiles and of sparkling laughter Of poorly disguised frowns and of drip-drop-drip-drop-drip-dripping tears I contain multitudes Of calm Of fury I contain multitudes Of reality Of dreams Of hard truths Of wild desires Indeed, I contain multitudes! Multitudes! Multitudes! Multitudes Of Heaven and Of Earth! Rose Menyon Heflin Originally from rural, southern Kentucky, Rose Menyon Heflin is a poet, writer, and visual artist living in Wisconsin. Her award-winning poetry has been published over 250 times in outlets spanning five continents, and she has published memoir and flash fiction pieces. She has had a free verse poem choreographed and danced, an ekphrastic memoir piece featured in a museum art exhibit, and two haiku put into a gumball machine. Among other venues, her poetry has appeared in Deep South Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, and San Antonio Review. An OCD sufferer since childhood, she strongly prefers hugging trees instead of people. ** Heaven and Earth When the new Pope was chosen, I thought of the mitre he’d don, decorated with gold & gems, made of white linen or silk. The right to wear the pointed cap belongs only to the pope, cardinals & bishops — always men who take their roles seriously, incense wafting around robes like the white smoke that emerged from Rome before we learned his name. But what if holiness was less the terrain of pomp & gaudy display, instead accessible by donning a completely different head covering -– say, a felt stocking cap in the shape of a bouquet woven by women, displaying mountain, canopy & cloud as sun’s rays dance across snaking river bends, dense speckled soil teeming with flowers. If only I could acknowledge the forest on my head & sleeve, parade a cape of bright colors for adoring fans smitten with natural beauty – sleepy orchids & lilac bends, waterfalls, grassy peaks, blood red buds. My elevated cap would depict the universe with yarn -- every item of worship that sustains me & makes the world bearable — clematis, bellflower, banyan tree, calla lily, yarrow, honey locust, & the breath of the body, rising. Susan Michele Coronel Susan Michele Coronel lives in New York City. Her first full-length collection In the Needle, A Womanwon the 2024 Donna Wolf Palacio Poetry Prize, and is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press this July. A two-time Pushcart nominee, Susan Michele Coronel has had poems published in numerous journals including Mom Egg Review, Redivider, One Art, TAB Journal, and Spillway 29. In 2023, she won the Massachusetts Poetry Festival’s First Poem Award. Versions of her book were finalists for the 42 Miles Press Poetry Award (2023), the C&R Press Poetry Award (2023), and the Louise Bogan Award (2024). ** In the Spotlight I’ll bloody knock ‘em dead with this, not literally obviously though I could hide a fair few things up my sleeve if I wanted. Red carpet gown, my arse. They can’t upstage me. This, here, will be my centrepiece. The second I walk in, they’ll be… astounded. Gobsmacked. Wowed. They just won’t know where to put themselves. I’m not trying to steal anyone’s limelight, mind, cos mine was just a bit part, but still, my character was key to the whole plot and this is my moment too, damn it. Forget muted tones, trailing skirts or artsy black, give me all the colours! Give me asymmetry! A forest on my head! A village hanging off my arm! Guaranteed no other bugger will be wearing this. Come on, Cannes Film Festival, let’s have it, here I come. Open the doors, lock up your sons and pass me a champagne flute, waiter, por favor. I will say one thing though – it’s a good job I’m right-handed. Nina Nazir Nina Nazir (she/her) is a British Pakistani poet, writer and artist based in Birmingham, UK. She has been widely published online and in print. She is also a Room 204 writing cohort with Writing West Midlands. You can usually find her with her nose in a book or on Instagram: @nina.s.nazir. She blogs regularly at www.sunrarainz.wordpress.com ** Weary Angel Cento Because women are required to carry enough things as it is, There’s little to bear but the things I bore. I am tired of work, tired of building up I take off my skin, hang it up, There’s nothing to carry, and naught to add. Debbie Walker-Lass Line 1) Alice Duer Miller “Why We Oppose Pockets For Women” Lines 2 & 5) Dorothy Parker, “Ballade of Great Weariness” Line 3) Fenton Johnson “Tired” Line 4) Angela Jackson, "Mules and Women" Debbie Walker-Lass, (she/her) is a poet, collage artist, and writer living in Decatur, Georgia. Her work has appeared in, or soon will appear) in The Rockvale Review, Green Ink Poetry, The Ekphrastic Journal, Punk Monk, Poetry Quarterly, The Light Ekphrastic and The Niagara Poetry Journal, among others. She is an avid Tybee Island beachcomber and lover of all things nature. (Except Spiders, not yet.) She’s recently provided a rollicking poetry workshop for her local Dekalb County library. ** Revival of the Fittest After the collapse, The Revival commissioned The Gallardo to create biodegradable fabric; they were also entrusted with the development of a universal clothing system where everyone had access to clean, creative, and affordable apparel. Embellished with pearls, appliqué, and embroidery, the garments were unique and celebrated nature. Held in societal esteem, The Gallardo wore multicolored vestments. As if the living embodiment of sculpture, their winglike sleeves and soaring headdresses displayed land, sky, and ocean delights; offerings of reverence to Heaven and Earth, cacti, corals, and other organic shapes of ornamental needlework adorned the felted silk as a terrain of crocheted forms crowned the ceremonial raiment. The Revival practiced the sociopolitical ideology of anti-consumerism. The new era protected the environment and prioritized contentment over materialism. The Gallardo were instrumental in the elimination of Fast Fashion, restored environmental balance by reducing landfills of textile waste. After the collapse revival of the fittest Heaven and Earth thrive Jeannie E. Roberts Jeannie E. Roberts is the author of nine books. Her latest full-length poetry collection is titled On a Clear Night, I Can Hear My Body Sing (Kelsay Books, 2025). Her work appears in various publications, including Anti-Heroin Chic, Blue Heron Review, The Ekphrastic Review, The New Verse News, ONE ART, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Panoply, The Poeming Pigeon, Presence, Quill and Parchment, Silver Birch Press, Sky Island Journal, Verse-Virtual, and elsewhere. She serves as a poetry editor for the online literary magazine Halfway Down the Stairs and is an Eric Hoffer and a two-time Best of the Net award nominee. ** Buffet of Daffodils Aargh my arm is a flower I wished it to be a bee instead it's their dinner table well thanks for the honey honey Marc Brimble ** Of Heaven and Earth The creature slams into the door, its alien appendages puncturing the reinforced steel. I’ve thrown the bolt, but it won’t hold. No matter. Every three years this abomination comes for me with its fetid breath and flashing fangs. I’ve defeated this cosmic anomaly before, and I’ll beat it again tonight. I breathe deep and don my crown and armpiece and immediately feel the tingle as the warp and weft activate. Every thread glows with power. And even as the beast hurtles into the door again, I stand, now thrice as strong as any creature on Earth. A CRASH and the door bows inward. Let it come. I am ready, ready, ready. Tracy Royce Tracy Royce is a writer and poet whose words appear in / are forthcoming in Bending Genres, Does It Have Pockets?, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Scrawl Place, Villain Era, and elsewhere. She lives in Southern California where she enjoys hiking, playing board games, and obsessing over Richard Widmark movies. Find her on Bluesky. ** The Lady of Two Lands Roots and wings, these are the things she dreams about at night, between the unpaid bills and the unknown bank accounts still — quite probably -- in her husband’s ex-wife’s name. Shame is what she feels for thinking such thoughts, even though the animal night-brain has a mind of its own, the train’s far-off whistle in the un- seen distance. But roots and wings. . . The red-barked manzanita tree grows disks taller than Nefertiti’s own elongated trunk, sheltering the birds that sing her name — Teeti, Teeti, Teeti! Meanwhile, the red-leafed palm tree becomes a lake of fire, violet irises the size of trees become palms, and water falls in a trickle, carving its way through heavy stones that weigh the wings of her better angel. Or are they gray-grape wisterias soft as summer in a strange and mysterious land? Epaulettes of islands decorate her wings, also holding her down. Or shall we call it grounding? The pink palace of her mind reaches higher and higher with a lush green crown and dark arched windows to home those wild birds, portals for passage to a secret realm. Which song, which clicking clock-like lock, which key word will magically unlatch the door? What’s more, what is the name, she wonders, for such unspeakable resplendence? And where is heaven, if not everywhere around and inside you — in roots and wings? Greta Ehrig Greta Ehrig holds an MFA in Creative Writing from American University, where she was a Lannan Fellow and enjoyed editing (and finding art for) Folio literary journal. She also paints, sings, teaches, and holds BAs in Art and Psychology. Her writing has received support from the Maryland State Arts Council and the National League of American Pen Women. In 2024, she was nominated for Best of the Net and a Pushcart Prize in Poetry. Ekphrastic writing is her favourite kind. |
Challenges
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