 Poe Returns to Boston, by Steff Rocknak (USA) 2014. Click on image for artist site. Nevermore Forever Nevermore leaps from Poe’s suitcase. He, alas, no better master of grief than I, who greets each morning with forever. A single word engraved on my mind’s front door. Like hazardous weather, it ghosts my hours, pricks my eyes, allows the Raven’s deep-pitched raw raw raw to tear into my spleen. For a moment, I thought I’d cornered grief, wrapped it safely in an old quilt, stuffed it into a worn, brown suitcase. Now, it’s burst out again, wild wings batting the air, dropping feathers, ruffled memories. Nevermore a shadow forever on the kitchen floor. Sandi Stromberg Sandi Stromberg has been a devotee of The Ekphrastic Review since she discovered the biweekly challenges in January 2019 and has recently joined the publication as an editor. Her poetry has been nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize and twice for Best of the Net. Most recently, it has appeared in The Orchards Poetry Journal, The Ekphrastic Review, Panoply, MockingHeart Review, San Pedro River Review, and the anthology woodlands: nature-magic-mystery-myth. Her poetry collection, Frogs Don’t Sing Red, is due out later this year from Kelsay Books. ** Poe in Purgatory Eternity is lasting way too long. I tire of these modern humans, their lewd profanity, their murder of grammar. This must be Purgatory. I’ve already lived through Hell. If it were Heaven, my dear Virginia would be in my arms. Instead, this blasted bird insists on being by my side every long minute of the day and night. We need no sleep or food, so I read to him. About a century ago, Raven stopped repeating the one cursèd word I gave him after I agreed not to call him Damned Raven. My biographer is the one who should be damned. I realize that I owe much of my growing literary stature to Raven, but made the mistake of saying so. Now he puffs himself up, stays a step ahead of me, puts me in his shadow. Do these changes mean we’re moving closer to judgment? Or maybe reincarnation? I’d like to be a writer again if I could but know the secrets I know now. Alarie Tennille Alarie Tennille graduated from the first coed class at the University of Virginia, where she earned her B.A. in English, Phi Beta Kappa key, and black belt in Feminism. Alarie has long felt an affinity for Poe. She took a tour of his childhood home when she was eight and already knew snippets of “The Bells” and “The Raven” from her mother’s recitations. She read his stories in high school, then went to the same university that Poe attended. They were both seen as misfits in different ways, but she managed to complete her degree. The University of Virginia maintains one of the original dormitory rooms, number 13 of course, as it would have looked in Poe’s day, which is not very different from how those coveted rooms look today. ** Poe Felt Stuck and Story-less Poe is traveling, from one editing job to another, often fired for drunkenness. He carries another story to sell in a plain suitcase. His love for sherry, his bane, too often in bars, makes him jobless once again. He is on his way to meet N.P. Willis in New York City to talk about being a subeditor to the New York Mirror. He is in a train, watching the landscape pour as cherry. His gaunt face and in the window have dark rings under his black eyes like coffins. He promised his wife about drinking, nevermore. The train wheels on metal rails reminded him, nevermore, nevermore, nevermore. He searches the soul of the passing landscape for an idea for his next short story. He needs the job, the money, clacks the train on rails. He is as dry as an empty sherry bottle. Just a taste of sherry, just a taste of a story, just a taste, just a dram, money, a place to settle. Poe tries to focus, not be a fall-down drunk in a graveyard, moaning over Lenore. When he saw that name, Lenore, on the carved gravestone, his black coat flapped open like wings. One too many drinks, he shuddered in the howling rain-wind, one too many. His face on the window floats ghostly over the passing fields. The mind plays tricks on people, he concludes gloomily. Perhaps, ask for some cherry when he arrives to lift his spirit. N.P. waits for his magic with words. He promises the dead if they gave him something to show N.P., he’ll stay drink-less. Melancholy houses ghost by. When he arrives at Penn Station, he accidentally drops his battered, worn-to-the-fray suitcase, and out flies a raven, as big as night terrors and withdraws. Martin Willitts, Jr. Martin Willitts Jr edits the Comstock Review. Nominated for 17 Pushcart and 14 Best of the Net awards. Winner of the 2014 Dylan Thomas International Poetry Award; Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, 2015, Editor’s Choice; Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, Artist’s Choice, 2016, Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Prize, 2018; Editor’s Choice, Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, 2020. His 25 chapbooks include the Turtle Island Quarterly Editor’s Choice Award, “The Wire Fence Holding Back the World” (Flowstone Press, 2017), plus 21 full-length collections including 2019 Blue Light Award The Temporary World. Among his many collections is his exphrastic full-length poetry collection, Three Ages of Women, Deerbrook Editions, 2021. His new book is Not Only the Extraordinary are Exiting the Dream World (Flowstone Press, 2022). ** Poe on the Square I watched him stride across the square. Collar popped, valise in hand, and the look of determination of a man striding toward an uncertain reception at his destination. Perhaps one he has simultaneously anticipated and dreaded for a long while. Planned, packed, and ready for what may come. He didn’t notice the trail of books he was emptying on the ground until stopped by a passerby. The raven hovered around, squawking as the man gathered his belongings. His aggravation was evident as he haphazardly shoved the items into his bag. The latches strained against the weight, threatening to burst open again. The raven turned, facing away from the man, watching the passersby, randomly pecking the ground for discarded morsels. In what was undoubtedly exasperation and likely aggravation, the man stood and slid his belt off with a flourish. Wrapping it through the case’s handles, he pulled the worn leather into a knot, securing the contents. He crossed to a bench near me and sat, followed by the raven. Drawing from an inside pocket a packet of biscuits, he idly pinched off pieces for the bird. The bird seemed more relaxed of the two, ignoring the man repeatedly picking and pulling at his coat and jacket. I watched openly, staring. Impolite? Certainly. In my youth, my Nanna would have been instructing me to look away, mind my own business, and not be so gauche as to stare. I’m grown, and Nanna gone now for more than a year. But I know she would have been observing the man and bird from under her lashes, peering over the ever-present fan she carried. An object to cool oneself, Nanna flung it open any time she wanted to feign disinterest all, the while gazing intently. Where was he going? And who was he? He had the look of one who should be familiar to me. Certainly, the bird companion was an oddity. Perhaps I’d seen him in the Globe or the Daily Record. But the bird. The bird seemed oddly possessive of the man. And who has a large bird that travels alongside them? The bird was curious, looking everywhere, responding to every noise on the square. The man was seemingly nonplussed by anything around him. He pulled a small book from inside ,his overcoat and at last he located a pencil stub from the woolen depths. He's a writer. That’s it. Even though I had many errands, I remained seated, observing the pair. What was to happen next? A man approached from the rear, the bird noticing him first, a loud squawk heralding his arrival. “Poe? Is that you, old man?” He turned slightly and nodded acknowledgment, then returned his attention to his writing. “What brings you to Boston? I thought you loathed it here. Best not show your face to the literati here. The reception won’t be a warm one, I fear.” Poe shrugged. I couldn’t hear his response, but he seemed not to care about the man’s assessment of his visit. The two spoke for a minute or so, and suddenly the man reached for Poe’s small book. “No!” Poe said loudly and withdrew the book from his reach. Simultaneously, the raven flew next to the man flapping his wings wildly while cawing loudly. Slipping the book and pencil back into his overcoat, Poe turned away from the man. The raven positioned himself on the ground between the two men. The man laughed but backed away from the bird. “This bird should be shot. Nuisance and a menace.” Poe didn’t engage with him. He turned and strode away in my direction, shouting over his shoulder, “Don’t expect an invitation to Concord, Poe. Those writers are beloved by Boston.” The implication hung heavy that Poe was not loved here. The raven squawked loudly once again at the man and hopped up to perch on the back of the bench beside Poe. Poe once again retrieved his small book and pencil. Although I had errands, none were pressing, so I continued to sit and watch the pair. He never looked up, but the raven scanned the square, a lookout it seemed, rather like a watchdog protecting its master. I wondered about the man who had approached Poe. Were they friends at some point? Was he, too, a writer? My curiosity nearly compelled me to cross over to Poe and introduce myself. Restraint and the thought of Nanna’s insistence on proper decorum at all times kept me in my seat. I was almost sad when Poe stood, gathering his belongings, and strode off. He passed me within a few yards. Never looking left or right, he walked briskly by. The raven flew up in the air, making lazy circles as he followed the man. He dipped down toward me after Poe passed. The low rattling call seemed like he was bidding goodbye. I resumed my day, if not entertained by what had transpired, I had certainly been thoroughly engaged for a bit. Nanna would admonish me that where he was going and what transpired with the nameless man was none of my business. My last glance at Poe was of his overcoat whipping behind him. And the raven flying close behind. M. Lynne Squires M. Lynne Squires is a Pushcart Prize-nominated Appalachian author. Her books include the award-winning Letters to My Son – Reflections of Urban Appalachia at Mid-Century. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies and journals, including the anthology Voices on Unity – Coming Together, Falling Apart, and the Anthology of Appalachian Writers – Wiley Cash Volume X. She is the host of the WV Library Commission television program WV Author. Writing happens overlooking a sugar maple and bird feeder, while fending off her two cats, Scout and Boo Radley. ** Ravens Can’t Read “That’s quite a raven,” thought Poe looking down. But of course it needed to be large to collect up all the pages all the words he had written. And then, what then, what will happen next when all those words are collected up and made ready to be consumed for Evermore. Ravens can’t read after all. Lynn White Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud 'War Poetry for Today' competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, 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/ ** Sonnet—To the Muses In this wondrous world, death can only fail when we honor the muses and their arts. Anyone—or thing—can burst through the veil, stride alongside the absence in our hearts. What has the raven to do with being black? It should cease to be a sign of mourning. It flies ahead, instead of looking back-- rising, as the sun that greets the morning. Death need not bring us into nothingness. None of our fondest memories need end. Preserved in artifacts, they are deathless thanks to the artists, as they seek to mend. Join them, and celebrate what’s come before. And so, ensure death’s grip is nevermore. Becky DeVito Becky DeVito is a psychology professor at Capital Community College in Hartford, Connecticut. After working her way through trauma by writing poetry, her doctoral dissertation investigates the ways in which poets come to new insights through the process of drafting and revising their poems. Her poetry has been published in The Ekphrastic Review, Frogpond, Modern Haiku, Ribbons: Tanka Society of America Journal, and others. She is currently working on a novel series. Join her on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. ** I Return To my birthplace "Nevermore" afraid Of vacant courtyards, Idle hallways- Suspended reminiscences In broken threads Of moth-eaten frames. I carry death I resurrect Fear no more the noises, The yellow chills Buried in my pages- Trailing behind as in a dream A banner of silk Inscribed with nothing- Prayer flags drooping Off the rusted railing By the third floor terrace. It is many years since I heard the bangles rustling, Smelt the pentagon box Of dried leaves- Outstretched wings darkening The moon, in my home Black smoke marking the dead Before time. I ascend the truth of circling mist, The school bus moving past The same day and night. 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, here and elsewhere. Having spent her growing up years in small towns of northern India, she currently lives in Bengaluru. ** Mr. Poe's Mysterious Death The suitcase opened at the elbow, a casualty. What he never wrote in gutters instead of him dressed in soiled suit and delirium dreaming, no inkling of the danger. Julene Waffle Julene Waffle, a graduate of Hartwick College and Binghamton University, is a rural public school teacher, an entrepreneur, nature lover, wife, mother of three boys, three dogs, three cats, a bearded dragon, and, of course, she is a writer. She finds great pleasure in juggling all these things and seeming like she has it together. Her work has appeared in The Adroit Journal Blog, NCTE’s English Journal, La Presa, The Ekphrastic Review, and Mslexia, among others. She was also published in several anthologies, and her chapbook So I Will Remember debuted in 2020. Learn more at www.wafflepoetry.com, Twitter: @JuleneWaffle, and Instagram: julenewaffle. ** E.A.P. A statue carved, again at home, A man once flesh, then only stone, I played with sticks, now lay with bones, Once here, once there, often alone. Past waters dark, I roam the streets, With swirling thoughts, caught under speech, Roads narrowed tight, rooms out of reach, I stumble low, high ravens screech. A single pen, my anchored oar, I compose life, ‘pon tavern’s floor, With drunken prose, from grief to lore, These stories short, then nevermore. Corrie Pappas Corrie Pappas is a small business owner living outside Boston. Her poems have appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, and she is the author of the children’s book, Come Along and Dream. ** More I told him, satchel in hand strolling Faneuil Hall, bricks underfoot echo steps, never but return I must, booksellers I trust will welcome back their son lost to time, tale to tell and still his voice murmurs never but from where it tears at leather seam, beak trying at clasp, ‘cross common, city - onlookers speak in whispers, black cat in arched doorway, tail thumps heartbeat in chest rhythm, I need still more walk each square, whilst satchel sways in my grasp, pass by church steps, sentries stand to usher in passersby, history to tell then a far off bell, like a dream of death, red rivulets run, blood red streets, more I repeat as heels hit pavement, beat tattoo but then it bursts forth - screams, never as books scatter on bricks outside market on stark day I am but of a crowd, returned home for more. Julie A. Dickson Julie A. Dickson is hooked on ekphrastic poetry, and has been writing since her early teen years. Dickson holds a BPS in Behavioral Science, has been guest editor for several journals, served on two poetry boards and is a Push Cart nominee. Her work appears in Last Leaves, Misfit, Blue Heron Review and The Ekphrastic Review, among others. ** Poe at the airport security check Sir, you are not allowed to import wild creatures in your carry-on. Did you not read the rules? We can’t have alien ravens roaming around at will. You only have words? That’s the problem with you poets, you create insurrection, disobedience, madness, and chaos. ‘Only words’? Sir, we have seen what your kind has contributed to order. You reject even the order of sentences, of an orderly march of words on a page, clear thoughts in a paragraph, pragmatism on a page. Your words lead into dark alleys, rallie the discontent, condemn our well-intentioned leaders, mock the solid bourgeoisie… your words have even been known to confuse the mind and make people think, or scare them into nightmares and worse. Sir. we deny you access to our well-ordered State. Go back to Boston. Entry denied. Stamp. Next… 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 seven poetry collections. Her poetry has been published widely in mostly US poetry reviews (online and print). She was twice nominated for a Pushcart. Her latest: DO OCEANS HAVE UNDERWATER BORDERS? (Kelsay Books July 2022), WHISTLING IN THE DARK (Cyberwit July 2022), and SAUDADE (December 2022) are available on Amazon. https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/ ** Literary Baggage Within the suitcase of our minds we carry the music of The Bells the melancholy of The Raven the horror of The Tell-Tale Heart; releasing these words and images relies upon our determination to claw open the latch, spill what’s inside onto the pavement, risk scrutiny and censure or embrace focus and purpose, strutting resolutely town to town shedding our singular light on the world. Elaine Sorrentino Elaine Sorrentino, communications director by day, poet by night, has been published in Minerva Rising, Willawaw Journal, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Ekphrastic Review, Writing in a Women’s Voice, Global Poemic, ONE ART: a journal of poetry, The Door is a Jar, Agape Review, Haiku Universe, Sparks of Calliope, Muddy River Poetry Review, Panoply, Etched Onyx Magazine, and at wildamorris.blogspot.com. She was featured on a poetry podcast at Onyx Publications. ** Edgar You heard the raven speak saw his shadow, a dark wing rising, even in the brightest sky. You were driven, intimate, in love with nightmare, her body’s sweet scent, her pallor fine as moonlight, a fall of silk, a whisper heard at midnight, irresistible. You knew the secret of the tell-tale heart, beating under the floor, behind the wall, the pulse insisting it will make the worst of us- legacies of guilt, revenge, desire, an inheritance of losses you could not escape- the masquerade that took you room by room, hour by hour into the last black chapel of blood and sorrow, last step in your life-long dance dark prince, bridegroom, master of our most intoxicating dreams. Mary McCarthy Mary McCarthy is a retired Registered Nurse who has always been a writer. Her work appears in many anthologies and journals, including The Ekphrastic World, edited by Lorette Luzajic, The Plague Papers, edited by Robbi Nester, and recent issues of Verse Virtual. 3rd Wednesday, Blue Heron Review. Earth’s Daughters, Gyroscope, and Caustic Frolic. She has been a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee. ** Bound Breaks Free Spilling volumes, strapped leather case, how could the raven be contained, enclosed in baggage, papers, page, bursting, such larger life than he? Poe returning, ghosts break free, homeward, bound like trail of texts left in his train, from station walk, marking steps since he first left. Adoptive, in short story form, consumptive for child cousin bride; patina, Verdigris of bronze, once journeyman, now sett apart. It’s no tea party, reading fear - a nevermore. Finality. Stephen Kingsnorth Stephen Kingsnorth (Cambridge M.A., English & Religious Studies), retired to Wales, UK, from ministry in the Methodist Church due to Parkinson’s Disease, has had pieces published by on-line poetry sites, printed journals and anthologies, including The Ekphrastic Review. His blog is at https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com/ ** Edgar Leaves Home Sometimes we have to leave what we know to begin to know ourselves. So it is with Edgar who left Boston, like a prophet who could not garner honor in his hometown. Led by his iconic Raven, a symbol of his writing, larger, greater, in the minds of many that the works of those who rejected Edgar. Raven’s claws have sprung his case’s latches spilling out the books and poems deemed unworthy by Boston’s literary Brahmins. Edgar does not look back as he walks away, casting off the dust of the place that rejected his prophetic introduction of the public’s love for mysteries for stories of his style. I can hear Raven shouting as Edgar strides away, “Nevermore!” Nevermore will he return to Boston. Sadly, neither will he conquer his inner demons, although his spilled out works as they trail behind him shout, “Evermore, evermore you will be remembered.” Joan Leotta Joan Leotta plays with words on page and stage. She performs tales featuring food, family, and strong women. Internationally published, she’s a 2021 and 2022 Pushcart nominee, Best of the Net 2022 nominee, from The Ekphrastic Review) and 2022 runner-up in the Robert Frost Competition. She is on the board of Indelible, a London-based literary journal. Her essays, poems, and fiction are in The Ekphrastic Review, Brass Bell, The Lake, Verse Visual, Verse Virtual, anti-heroin chic, Gargoyle, Silver Birch, Active Muse, The Wild, Synkroniciti, Ovunquesiamo, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Short Humour, Yellow Mama, and others. Her chapbook, Languid Lusciousness with Lemon is from Finishing Line Press and Feathers on Stone, is out from Main Street Rag. https://mainstreetragbookstore.com/product/feathers-on-stone-joan-leotta/ ** Verdigris …Cast in metal, settled to a verdigris blue, you stride purposefully. We see your coat afloat on the breeze, knees flexed in wrinkling pants. Glance towards the family happily waiting for you to return home again when they can read your latest story, glory in its originality, immortality assured as the raven erupts, disrupts our view through With feather and claw. ‘Nevermore’ croaks the bird, unheard as books fall, sprawl fanned, unplanned on the ground, unbound from your case. Face intent, bent on a course, perforce away from the frog pond, beyond the literati you’ve surpassed… Alison R Reed Alison R Reed has been writing for many years, but came to poetry in the last few years, and only recently discovered Ekphrasis. She won the 2020 Writers Bureau Poetry competition and has been published in several local anthologies and online, including in The Ekphrastic Review. She enjoys experimenting with different poetic forms, especially ones which take her out of her comfort zone. She is a long-time member of Walsall Writers’ Circle. ** Breath In Charleston, only one ghost tour company has access to the old Unitarian Graveyard. Tonight, an old guide leads the tourists in through its metal gate. The path is overgrown and they all use their cell phones to light their steps, to check what insects are stuck to their calves, and to try and read the names on the headstones. At the back of the graveyard, the guide instructs the tourists to sit on a wide concrete step. Here the guide tells them that Poe once lived in Charleston, that this very city was the kingdom by the sea turned sepulcher—for Anna, the young woman Poe had fallen in love with long ago, a young woman buried in this very place. Many of the tourists are not listening. A woman turns to her husband, discussing dinner plans. “I will not eat anywhere that serves creamed chipped beef.” “In fact,” the guide says, “Anna’s ghost might breathe in your ear if you’re calm enough.” This quiets the tourists. Now they sit with their cheeks tilted upward, as though steeling themselves for a kiss. The guide needs them to move along. “The concrete step you are sitting on, folks? That is the lid of a mass paupers’ grave.” They’re up, startled, frantically brushing the dirt and beetles from their legs, ready to move on, and no one is feeling for Anna’s breath on their cheek anymore. Except for Edgar. No matter how many times he has heard the guide tell this story, he believes. The old guide used to recite Annabel Lee here in the dark for the tourists. And Edgar could somewhat feel her then, hearing his words aloud. On those nights he’d fly into the star-studded black like a winged seraph and feel like he might nearly, finally, break through. But then the guide stopped reciting it. Someone said, “Aren’t you the one who could recite Annabel Lee from memory? We remember you from years back,” and the guide said, “I don’t do that anymore. It started to change the air.” When his Anna fell sick, her father, who had disapproved of their love, hid her unmarked grave in this churchyard so Edgar could never find it and properly mourn her. Nightly, Edgar has sought her breath above every palm-swayed stone. He flings himself at every one, seeking her, lifting his ghost-cheek to every breeze, aching to feel her current. Tonight’s tour group is almost gone. Stragglers, a husband and wife, slowly make their way out along the churchyard’s jungly path. They are just two lights from phones bouncing among the palms. “Not as good as the ghost tour we did in Boston,” the man says, and the gate clanks closed and they are off to argue over dinner plans. Boston. Edgar had forgotten about Boston. He had come to Charleston after death to seek her—he was always seeking—but now that word, Boston, was coming back to him like a bomb on his lips, an explosion—that was where he had found himself, years after her death. Where he had stopped only seeking and also learned to conjur. In his writing she had become a raven, a bell, a heart in his ears. He is moving up the coast now, letting the raven of his spirit lead him back to where he learned to write. This is who we see walking now down the brick path, acid green with determination, his bird ahead of him to scout, to announce, screech and warn, that in death, too, if he cannot find, he will create. People see him outside the bookstore and think he’s rooted to the brick walk. But he moves. He moves an inch each night, his spirit pages trailing behind him, until one day he will be inside the bookstore. Suddenly he’ll be beside you, and you’ll go for your phone to take a selfie but find your hand instead reaching for his book on a shelf. Your hand will know just where to find it, and his hot breath on your neck will compel you to read Annabel Lee aloud. And there she’ll be. Diane Zinna Diane Zinna is a writer and teacher from Fairfax, VA. She is the author of the novel, The All-Night Sun (Random House, 2020), and her craft book on the art of writing our hardest stories, Letting Grief Speak, is forthcoming from Columbia University Press. Write with her at www.dianezinna.com. ** Dear Boston I never blended with your gentlemen, or ladies donned with pearls; If only I’d been born a duke or held the title of an earl. You turned blind eyes to written page; you cared not for my words; I could scream with all my might; you’d pretend you never heard. All I wanted was to call you home but from House to beating heart, you stuck your noses in the air, let me bleed in my own art. Alas, you know me from the grave; I stride through your public square; come face me now you hounds of hell, speak to raven if you dare. Arvilla Fee Arvilla Fee teaches English Composition for Clark State College and is the poetry editor for the San Antonio Review. She has published poetry, photography, and short stories in numerous presses, and her poetry book, The Human Side, was just released December 2022. For Arvilla, writing produces the greatest joy when it connects us to each other. ** Alter Ego Don’t drag, don’t push, mate! I’m not your pet eagle. I’m your alter ego. Remember when you were a teen how you became winged away from a wicked street prank – it was I who came to the rescue. Remember when you fell in love how your heart was uplifted from despair – it was I who took you on a fluttering fairy tale. Or, remember when your career-deciding test was about to collapse – it was I who upheld your mind and it all came to a bright growth. Until this moment. When you are acting like an opponent to my natural urge and dangle me shocked and mocked in your old broken suitcase, crushing my feathers at every step. I guess, this is a midlife crisis, mate, to tramp engrossed, deaf for nature, blind for skies, senseless for callings jammed in your own marching orders in the middle of a bare over-trodden square – you are like your spinning of myself, mate – trapped in your own mind suitcase. You know I can’t survive this test, unless I recharge my idiosyncrasies; so, like I in the past, now you let me raise out of this hoax. ‘Unleash thy wings’, calls my own alter ego. So, let your hand off thy share, mate, it is time for rebirth. Ekaterina Dukas Ekaterina Dukas, MA, has studied and taught linguistics and culture at universities of Sofia, Delhi and London and authored a book on mediaeval art for the British Library. She writes poetry as a pilgrimage to the meaning and her poems feature often in the The Ekphrastic Review, its challenges and Poetrywivenhoe among others. Her poetry collection Ekphrasticon is published by Europa Edizioni, 2021. ** Poe On His Way In a motionless rush over tired bricks billow-blown cloak in some private wind; the inverted sail of a land-locked vessel hefted earthward from The City in the Sea resists the surge of his headlong stride. Dust cemented to dust by ballast turned anchor— too many, too heavy, too deathless words behind him but never cast off. Becalmed in static fervor, he is going home. Sophie King Sophie King, is a sophomore at Hillsdale College, MI. ** Homecoming Does homecoming always include suitcases? There’s always a little bit of baggage, Because you carry yourself with you. Return implies you were able to get away. You can flee to the ends of the earth And your burden is the memory of the place you cannot leave. Your flight accomplished little, Your mind remained behind and nothing you saw felt real: You started to doubt your own sanity. The pyramids, the palms, Providence. And your home was with you, it clutched you to its hearth. No escape from your beginnings. You feel like you don’t deserve oblivion. The bottle didn’t offer it: What made you think Baltimore would? You are haunted by your past in a foreign land. You carry it all with you. And you carry heavy baggage home. Maureen Martin Maureen Martin is a senior at Hillsdale College studying English and Theatre. Her passions include yelling at period dramas for their historical inaccuracies, working on multiple theatrical projects simultaneously, and having a bookshelf of a To Be Read pile.
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 Winter Chaos, Blizzard, by Marsden Hartley (USA) 1909 We are delighted to have Sandi Stromberg back as challenge editor this time. Sandi is also part of our editorial team now at The Ekphrastic Review! We are thrilled to have her on board. ** Dear Writers, Welcome to the new challenge from The Ekphrastic Review. I have been a devotee of these prompts since I discovered them in January 2019. For nearly two years after that, I entered every challenge (43), my work sometimes selected, sometimes not. But no matter. The process of living with an artwork—then expressing in poetry whatever it evoked—buoyed me through the pandemic. Now, it is a distinct honour to offer this challenge in my new role as an editor of The Ekphrastic Review. Of course, choosing only one artwork is a challenge in itself. As I waffled over my choice, I came across Marsden Hartley’s Winter Chaos, Blizzard, painted somewhere in the Northeast United States, probably Maine, in 1909. It immediately spoke to me. The words climate change and extreme weather filled my mind. Is there anyone anywhere in the world who isn’t experiencing, or hasn’t experienced, that in some way? But I quickly realized that “blizzards” can also be metaphorical. They may be swirling inside us, as well as outside. I hope you enjoy exploring what Hartley’s art inspires in you. Happy writing! Sandi Stromberg ** 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 Winter Chaos, Blizzard, by Marsden Hartley. Deadline is February 3, 2023. You can submit poetry, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, microfiction, or any other form creative writing you like. 1000 words max please. The Rules 1. Use this visual art prompt as a springboard for your writing. It can be a poem or short prose (fiction or nonfiction.) You can research the artwork or artist and use your discoveries to fuel your writing, or you can let the image alone provoke your imagination. 2. Write as many poems and stories as you like. Send only your best works or final draft, not everything you wrote down. (Please note, experimental formats are difficult to publish online. We will consider them but they present technical difficulties with web software that may not be easily resolved.) Please copy and paste your submission into the body of the email, even if you include an attachment such as Word or PDF. 3. There is no mandatory submission fee, but we ask you to consider a voluntary donation to show your support to the time, management, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review. It takes an incredible amount of time to curate the journal, read regular and contest submissions, etc. Paying all expenses out of pocket is also prohibitive. Thank you. A voluntary gift does not affect the selection process in any way. 4. USE THIS EMAIL ONLY.
Send your work to [email protected]. Challenge submissions sent to the other inboxes will most likely be lost as those are read in chronological order of receipt, weeks or longer behind, and are not seen at all by guest editors. They will be discarded. Sorry. 5.Include HARTLEY CHALLENGE in the subject line. 6. Include your name and a brief bio. If you do not include your bio, it will not be included with your work, if accepted. Even if you have already written for The Ekphrastic Review or submitted other works and your bio is "on file" you must include it in your challenge submission. Do not send it after acceptance or later; it will not be added to your piece. Guest editors may not be familiar with your bio or have access to archives. We are sorry about these technicalities, but have found that following up, requesting, adding, and changing later takes too much time and is very confusing. 7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 8. Deadline is midnight EST, February 3, 2023. 9. Please do not send revisions, corrections, or changes to your poetry or your biography after the fact. If it's not ready yet, hang on to it until it is. 10. Selected submissions will be published together, with the prompt, one week after the deadline. 11. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we do not send out sorry notices or yes letters. You will see what poetry and stories have been selected when the responses are posted one week after the deadline. Understand that we value your participation as part of our ekphrastic community, but we can only choose a handful of the many entries we receive. 12. A word on the selection process: we strive for a balance between rewarding regular participants and sharing the voices of writers who are new to our family. We also look for a variety of perspectives and styles, and a range of interesting takes on the painting. It is difficult to reproduce experimental formatting, so unfortunately we won't choose many with unusual spacing or typography. 13. By submitting to The Ekphrastic Review, you are also automatically joining our subscribers' list. Your submission is your permission. We don't send Spam and we don't send many emails- you will not receive forty-four emails a day! Our newsletter occasionally updates you on some of the challenges, news, contests, prize nominations, ekphrastic happenings, prompt ebooks, workshops, and more. 14. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges! 15. Please share this prompt with your writing groups, Facebook groups, social media circles, and anywhere else you can. The simple act of sharing brings readers to The Ekphrastic Review, and that is the best way to support the poets and writers on our pages! 16. Check this space every Friday for new challenges and selected responses, alternating weekly.  Mother Mushroom and Her Children, by Edward Okun (Poland) c. 1900 Mother Mushroom Teaches Her Children About Dispersal You could fill a boxing glove with parts of me that broke off and didn’t make it. But you did. Bits of you will break off, too, and vanish in the hands of wind. Don’t be afraid-- turn the sorrow into rage. And don’t listen to that foreign wind. Remember our birches— the bright tapestry of their stretch-marked bark, their long voiceless push into the thin light, away from the darkness of their roots. Nothing is lost. The birch is at once in the new world and in the past, here and there, this home and that home and nohome. You’ll have to find home within yourself and keep low till the chrome-cool night rain, then shoot your blood-red fist through the loam—be their magic, be their poison. Andrea Jurjević Andrea Jurjević is a Croatian author. Her poetry collections include In Another Country, winner of the 2022 Saturnalia Books Prize; Small Crimes, winner of the 2015 Philip Levine Prize; and Nightcall, which was the 2021 ACME Poem Company Surrealist Series selection. Her book-length translations from Croatian include Mamasafari (Diálogos Press, 2018) and Dead Letter Office (The Word Works, 2020). ** Mother Mushroom Tells You about Her Children-- They could be mistaken for tiny eggs or plain-spoken drawer pulls—those cholesterol-curtailing, brain cell- swelling button mushrooms. Swiss browns cavort in meadows with caps fielding raindrops from an angry sky as they roost in spring manure—eyesight-ripening bulbs. Oaks & sweet gums sprout shitakes—pancake-flat on top with batter-bubbles—like meditation they amplify synapses. Mulberry trees bathe enokis in carbon dioxide for spindle shafts—heart-loving flower stems topped with pearls. Porcinis sway on a hickory-leaf ocean floor-- haunted sponges, hollow but filled with energy-giving pulp. They could be mistaken for knobs on hemlocks or rough shards of bread—those protein-lavished pine mushrooms. Gills & teeth & pores—I adore them as they flourish in fawn & gold, as they slumber in baskets, as they flash in pots under a sun-capped sky, unite with deer & boar & squirrel & slug & scuttle fly & human. t.m. thomson Three of t.m. thomson’s poems have been nominated for Pushcart Awards. She is co-author of Frame and Mount the Sky (2017) and author of Strum and Lull (2019), which placed in Golden Walkman’s 2017 chapbook competition, and The Profusion (2019). Her first full-length collection, Plunge, will be published in 2023. ** Mitochondrial Quirks In the standing room only audience of birch trees and grass we grow from sifted spores ever so slowly and then appear as if by magic, becoming us where nothing had been the day before, our bright caps the only evidence of blatancy as we lift ourselves, our naked stems of understatement announcing that, in spite of appearances, we did arise here, were native to rather than alien from, were part and parcel and pastel, patently, parochially, permanently one with this place, our quiet and benign beginning promising exceptionality in abundance, in excess even to this abruptness, this hint of what might yet still be mitosing in the midst of our swaying, our softly breathing idiosyncrasies. Roy J. Beckemeyer Roy J. Beckemeyer’s fifth book of poetry, The Currency of His Light, has been accepted for publication by Turning Plow Press for 2023. Beckemeyer’s work has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards and has won Best Small Fiction. He has designed and built airplanes, discovered and named fossils of Palaeozoic insect species, and has traveled the world. Beckemeyer lives with and for his wife of 61 years, Pat, in Wichita, Kansas. His authors page is at royjbeckemeyer.com. ** The Mushroom Family Wearing red polka dot bonnets to shade faces from the sun and protect their heads from the rain and cold, bodies bare as the bark of the trees that guard them, the sextuplets huddle around their nude and bonneted mother banished to the forest after her belly swells and she pops out six seeds of sin planted by soldiers who use her as a plaything as they pillage. She nourishes her babies with breast milk, berries and herbs and when they grow strong and sturdy she will teach them how to build bows and arrows to hunt the bear and wolves who howl and growl outside her shelter but keep their distance as she claps her hands and smoke swirls from campfires she ignites by rubbing rocks together. She will teach the sextuplets to fashion nets and poles to catch the salmon swimming in the streams where she washes the poison from their skin, toughening and tanning as they survive in the wild. Sharon Waller Knutson Sharon Waller Knutson is a retired journalist who lives in Arizona. She has published ten poetry books and her poems have appeared in more than 50 publications including ONE ART, Muddy River Review and Rye Whiskey Review. ** Mother Mushroom and the Sextuplets Mother Mushroom had run out of sugar, milk and semolina. She’d run short of soap and washing powder. She’d run out of złoty for the electricity meter. When she ran up rent arrears, for the third month running, she bundled up her six puny girls and ran away from their threadbare bedsit. They ran from their landlord, Mr Złośliwy, a man with rheumy, roving eyes, a syrupy smile and short fuse, who hammered on their door, demanding his dues. They cut and ran, right out of town. ‘We’ll live in the forest,’ Mother Mushroom said. ‘We’ll feast on roots and berries, sleep under a blanket of stars, bathe in the morning dew.’ As the third night fell, the six girls huddled together while their mother told stories of the dragon of Krakow, Jánošik the highwayman, the frog princess. But the girls were famished and freezing. Chanterelle and Porcini were sobbing; Amanita’s stomach growled. Snow Puff, Oyster and Button raised their little wan faces expectantly towards their mama. Mother Mushroom looked down at her own white ribs protruding like the bars of a xylophone and contemplated running back to town. She pictured Mr Złośliwy’s pudgy, groping fingers; the way he leered at her daughters like a drooling dog. No. However bad things got, she would never sell her precious girls. Her own mother’s wicked ways, did not run in the family. Mother Mushroom winced and bled, as she tore a tiny piece from her red speckled cap, took a nibble and passed it round. Within a short time, her babies were sleeping soundly. All night, the copse of silver birch shimmered a soft lament. Withered flesh, blood and spores mingled with moist, mossy earth and at dawn, six young women awoke, motherless but strong. Jane Salmons Jane Salmons is from Stourbridge in the UK. After teaching for nearly thirty years, Jane now works as a part time consultant teacher trainer and private tutor. Her debut poetry collection, 'The Quiet Spy', was published by Pindrop Press in 2022. In recent months she has become hooked on writing micro and flash fiction. Her website is: janesalmonspoetry.co.uk ** Mushrooming Gazing on Okun’s Mother Mushroom’s grief, Her children weeping round her ‘mid the trees, I’m minded of how it’s been said the chief Of Russian past-times is collecting these, And how mushrooming, likewise, seems to be A link which European peoples share – The Poles, Ukrainians, an ethnic sea Of those enjoying spongy steeples’ fare. The covered faces and the forlorn eyes, The knowledge of Okun’s own life cut short By a stray bullet dressed in fortune’s guise, He seemingly arrived at a safe port – Each stir a longing for one who will bring A bond that’s stronger than this foraging. Jeremiah Johnson Jeremiah Johnson got his MA in Rhetoric in 2003 and then ran off to China to teach for a decade. His work has appeared in the Sequoyah and Ekphrastic Reviews and on The Society of Classical Poets. He is also currently a teacher of English Composition and World Literature at the University of North Georgia. He lives in Cumming, GA. ** Mother Mushroom Oh Mother Aminita! Your back slumped Your head weary of its polka-dotted burden Your children mirror you in mood and posture Birch trees, your forest home, symbiotic partners surround and support you Why so woeful, amidst them? Your children's bright red heads, poking up through the duff Like shiny jewels, enchanting, arising out of earth Cathonic, from the ancient Greek: dark, hidden, mysterious Your mycelium spreading her tentacles, lacelike and delicate Beneath the enveloping dirt Oh SOMA of the ancient RigVeda Mushroom of divine immortality Have you lost your way? Or do you mourn the ways of the world Bearing the weight of her sorrows In your magical body? Barbara Framm Born in Germany, mostly raised in Northern California. M.A. Women's Spiritual Traditions, Institute of Transpersonal Psychology (ITP) B.A. South Asian Studies, UC Berkeley Performing Artist, Dancer and teacher of Classical Indian Dances, Bharata Natyam and Odissi Eco-activist and advocate for honey bees, bats and other pollinators. ** Mother Mushroom and Her Children Magic Mushroom caps in the forest. Have a nibble, have a mystical trip. Fly poison makes you fly. Into the woods, what do you see? Make room for a cluster of mushrooms. Mop-capped Mom. She’s tired, slumped, surrounded by six little round ones. One is fussing, two look like they might join the sniveling soon. The other three are faced away. Only caps for clothes. All look overwhelmed, overtaken by those caps. Grey green grass underfoot, Japanese etched silver birch glow of tree. A stand for hidden figures. Wonder what they stand for. Shake your head, then circle back to look again. Mother’s expression is complex, the baby shrooms make you think. Fantastically painted, you could fear a hoodwink. It’s not as innocent as first glance. Lynne Kemen Lynne Kemen lives in Upstate New York. Her chapbook, More Than A Handful, was published in 2020. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in La Presa, Silver Birch Press, The Ravens Perch, Fresh Words Magazine, Topical Poetry, The Ekphrastic Review, and The Blue Mountain Review. She is an editor for The Blue Mountain Review and The Southern Collective Experience, both in Atlanta, Georgia. She is on the Board of Bright Hill Press in Treadwell, New York. She has a poetry book that will be published by SCE coming out in fall 2023. ** The Dream of Fly Agaric The eyes in the birch trunks are shut tight. Only the ants, quietly going about their travails, up and down their trunks, know they are closed in sorrow, weeping tears of sap. Some become stuck in their viscous grief, knowing this as they die. If you were looking at this forest in a picture, you would not see the ants, but know that they are there. There were ravens and starlings too, in the branches but a moment before, now startled into flight into an invisible sky far above. They have taken all traces of wind with them, hiding it amongst their feathers. The forest is silent. Silent, but for one sound. A chorus of cries springs up from the mulch and damp earth, muted as if wrapped in moss. A litany of tiny wails, rising and falling. The birch trees lean in close, trying to shade this tragedy, though shade is not intrinsic to their sky-seeking nature. Their leaves are still, standing stiff and separate from one another, as if in mourning attire at a funeral. They are trying to hide their teeth in the late afternoon shadows. Tall and pale, she sits in their centre, as she has always done since engendering them. The russet halo of her, radiating above and around her brood. The Madonna of her muscaria family, she took root first, alone, finding moss and moisture and shade on the forest floor beneath the copse of kindly birch trees. Then, she let loose her fertile rain of spores. Here you may flourish, my little ones. But now, all her children are crying, crying. Already she misses the one who will not cry again. She stares at the place—now empty—where her youngest one dawdled and played. Gone. One precious babe, plucked from the protective folds of her ruffs. Helpless, she’d watched the man approach, his tell-tale sack slung over a shoulder. Mama … Her children are inconsolable, small red caps drooping dolefully. The child who played next to the one taken has bruises on his cap. Her beloved circle, broken. Her arms hang, listless, from her torso, hands clasping at nothing but loss in her lap. She is naked in her grief and the birches are too tall to comfort her. ** The artist has come to the forest to sketch in its solitude. He has brought a sack to gather any mushrooms he finds along the way. He has foraged and eaten a few choice specimens with a flask of tea. Now he seats himself on a fallen log in a clearing, takes out his sketchpad and begins to draw the ring of bright red mushrooms in front of him, becoming absorbed in recording the little white dots on the caps, the resplendent head of the tallest in its centre. The more dots he draws, the more he seems to see. He stares at his hand, which sits now on the page like a heavy stone. It no longer belongs to his arm. It becomes a toad and hops away. His vision blurs, covered suddenly with a shower of white luminescence, like powder snow in moonlight. Drifting, dancing before his eyes. He sees himself enter the scene he is drawing and pluck a single mushroom. On the page of his sketchpad, the quaint tranquillity of his woodland scene trembles and reshapes itself into something of quiet horror. He wonders how he didn’t see before—the mushrooms all have faces. And there is a sound, unlike any birdcall, emanating from the earth. No matter how he tries, he cannot complete the circle, redraw the image of the mushroom he has picked, and the mother’s face is turned towards him in eternal reproach. His forehead drips sweat upon the page, and his hand can no longer hold the pencil. The wood sways and writhes and reaches over him, and he falls to the ground. He sees himself get up and begin to draw the scene again, although he feels the damp grass still beneath his head. Drawing frantically, he sees himself enter the scene and pluck—pluck—pluck-- ** The eyes of the birch trees are shut tight. Melissa Coffey Melissa Coffey is an Australian writer and poet, residing in Melbourne. A former theatre director, her work is often tinged with darkness. Her short stories, poetry, and creative nonfiction are published (sometimes incognito) in international and Australian anthologies (The Mammoth Book series, Stringybark Stories) and literary journals (Not Very Quiet, Illura Press). Her creative work often explores themes of loss, absence and desire. Melissa is an editor for Scrittura, a poetry and prose publication on Medium.com, where she’s an active writer. She’s currently seeking publication for her first chapbook. Her second collection will explore the potential of myth and fairy tale to interrogate, subvert and re-imagine the feminine experience. ** Mother Mushroom Midwinter gloom seemed lightened by the hats Of Mother Mushroom and her kids, which glow To distant eyes. But closer eyes know that's How distance tends to lend, to views, a faux Enchantment. Underneath her hat there lurked Regret. The tears in Mother Mushroom’s eyes Mourned days gone by when nature’s magic worked Unfalteringly to revitalize Spent forest. Yet today no fauna stay Here. Moths are gone, the birds have flown and deer Refuse to graze. The erstwhile forest way Of life has disappeared. A creeping fear, Of what may come, alarms the children and Makes Mother Mushroom weep for her old land. Mike Mesterton-Gibbons Mike Mesterton-Gibbons is a Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Florida State University who has returned to live in his native England. His acrostic sonnets have appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Better Than Starbucks, the Creativity Webzine, Current Conservation, the Daily Mail, the Ekphrastic Review, Grand Little Things, Light, Lighten Up Online, MONO., the New Verse News, Oddball Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, the Satirist, the Washington Post and WestWard Quarterly. ** Mush Mom What am I to do with my new brood of adorable yet deadly white spotted mush babies, so much more than just cap and stem, each one blessed with a personality all its own; how easy it was when you were fungal spores hidden underground, but here you are now exposed, visibly drooping umbrella tops and fruiting bodies with Super Mushroom powers to create the next generation of intoxicating toadstools, hallucinogenic perks for those who dare to harvest and imbibe. Elaine Sorrentino Elaine Sorrentino, communications director by day, poet by night, has been published in Minerva Rising, Willawaw Journal, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Ekphrastic Review, Writing in a Women’s Voice, Global Poemic, ONE ART: a journal of poetry, The Door is a Jar, Agape Review, Haiku Universe, Sparks of Calliope, Muddy River Poetry Review, Panoply, Etched Onyx Magazine, and at wildamorris.blogspot.com. She was recently featured on a poetry podcast at Onyx Publications. ** Mum is like a mushroom shedding spores as she shows us how to dust beneath her lacy table mats, hand-crocheted in cotton by some great-aunt, long dead. One word from Mum and our house-air swirls, spreading flurries of microorganisms: we refuse to inhale or ingest. We do not wish to know how to bring a brilliant shine to brass shoehorns or silver bowls or other useless heirlooms, or how to clean the upright piano’s keys. And why must we polish all those photo frames on display on her dresser? Must we pick up tricks for moth, fly and cobweb catching or know how to treat mould, sprouting on old windowpanes? It’s mind-numbing. Mum says more tasks will help us grow. Then she sighs. We sigh too. To us, these chores are toxic. Dorothy Burrows Based in the United Kingdom, Dorothy Burrows enjoys writing poetry, flash fiction and short plays. Her poems have appeared in various journals including The Ekphrastic Review. ** Muscaria Mourning “Why, mother?”, her daughters wept for the loss of their sister, gone when they awoke that morning. “My children, it’s the way of the forest”, mother sadly replied, even as the little ones bowed small red-spotted heads and cried harder. “Humans are cruel creatures, treacherous planners; they know we Amanita Muscaria are beautiful to look at, but deadly to eat. This glen was once resplendent with our kin, so lovely our red caps, mistaken for berries, delighted in their gathering, a terrible find.” Her daughters gazed upon her in wonder, face solemn in grief as she spoke. “We are all that’s left; in their greed, men have stolen kin for their poison. Who knows why we cannot be left to live.” The children wailed their tears. “Can we not hide, change our appearance, that we might survive, mother?” one daughter begged. Mother shook her head slowly, “they would find us, my dear one, as that is the way of humans. We are precious to them for our poison, not that we nourish the ground for trees and plants to grow” “Men cannot leave the earth to its balance, purpose of all plants and creatures to coexist in peace; they must fight and conquer. Soon we will be gone, our kind, like so many others.” Mother looked at barren forest floor. She grieved for her lost kin, but more for Gaia whose harmony humans will destroy. Julie A. Dickson Julie A. Dickson is a poet who has dabbled in Ekphrastic poetry for several years, who loves a prompt and has been writing poetry since her teens. Her work appears in many journals including Kiss My Poetry, Blue Heron Review, Misfit and The Ekphrastic Review. Dickson has been a guest editor, a past poetry board member, holds a BPS in Behavioral Science, advocates for captive elephants and shares her home with two rescued feral cats. ** Arbutus Unedo She sits there, young, lithe bonny young lass with the big, billowy strawberry coloured hat studded with white pips Headwear shaped like a shaggy inkcap - I wonder if it, too, will bleed, not black fungal ink but blood red of fecund motherhood And the six babies? Toddlers surely, in matching bonnets right down to their polka dots (Like this group, a polka turns out to be Bohemian, surprisingly, not Polish) An eye-catching family ensemble but it's the strawberry trees Arbutus Unedo that hold my gaze, background that swims forward - the peeling camo bark plain, grisaille as if the tigerish patterns could ever conceal mother mushroom and her children Emily Tee Emily Tee writes poetry and flash fiction. She's had pieces published online in The Ekphrastic Review and for its challenges, and elsewhere, and in print in some publications by Dreich as well as several poetry anthologies. She lives in England. ** Mushroom Afternoon I smell the mother among the stand of white birch trees, where she sits with her babies on a patch of forgotten world. I smell old rain, earth’s alchemy of invisible leaves. God without clothes. O mother surrounded by her children in the wood, you will be forgiven when they stop asking for white feathers with their shamed eyes. I want to know the fairy tale you tell them with your longing loving lies and why you will not weep. Where are your clothes? I want to believe this is a game where all of you fall down after the dance. Which child, mother, will be embraced by the angel hiding in the trees? Do not let them sleep near owls. Tell me, what have they eaten? How long must they stay? Lenny DellaRocca Lenny DellaRocca founded South Florida Poetry Journal-SoFloPoJo. He has handed over management to his Managing Editor, and has started another poetry review embedded in SoFloPoJo, called Witchery, a place for Epoems. His work may be found online and in print in many journals. He's published five collections. ** They Are No Longer Children Now They'd rather be the children still... ...who hadn't misbehaved... ...and disobeyed their mother's will... ...and ranted so and raved... ...who left their books on floors unread with arrogance to think that they could be to water led but never forced to drink... ...who left their toys where last they played not properly in chest . and piled their clothes up disarrayed wherever they undressed... ...who left their hair and teeth unbrushed and hands and face with grime and fibbed that they were always rushed and never given time... ...who failed to pray before they crawled in beds they hadn't done where crumbs of cookies snuck had sprawled like rivers might have run. But they are merely mushrooms now (along a wayward path) that all too well remember how the ire of mother's wrath would cause her to remind them each in stern but gentle voice temptation was the devil's call to punishment by choice, and they would soon be mushrooms seen who mourned the bitter fate of being left in shaded green by birch as devil's bait to live as flower never known for beauty of its bloom but ugliness forever shown as harbinger of doom, where, though imagined, mother seen is cruelty of curse -- she isn't really there as hope, but gone to make it worse, and all that they can do is wait and fear a hunter's hand will pluck them and be poisoned too as evil shrewdly planned. Portly Bard Portly Bard: Old man. Ekphrastic fan. Prefers to craft with sole intent... of verse becoming complement... ...and by such homage being lent... ideally also compliment. Ekphrastic joy comes not from praise for words but from returning gaze far more aware of fortune art becomes to eyes that fathom heart. ** Wooden Fairy Garden Mushrooms "The dimensions of fantasy was entertwined...wiith musical rhythms permeating both the human soul and nature..." On the work of Edward Okun, Wiki Research "Return in thought to the concert where music flared. You gathered acorns in the park in autumn and leaves eddied over the earth's scars." Try To Praise The Mutilated World, Adam Zagajewski, translated by Clare Cavanaugh "I kept dreaming of snow and birch forests Where so little changes you hardly notice how time goes by... --- As long as rosy infants are born No one believes it is happening now." A Song At The End of The World Czeslaw Milosz, translated by Anthony Milosz She was running out of red fabric. In winter she bought velvet for holiday hats to outfit her six daughters and a costume for the Siberian Shaman who'd given her the gift of magic, a pouch filled with dried mushrooms fruit of fungi that yielded splendiferous dreams (her therapist called them hallucinatory) the promise of love on a reindeer safari... Her husband refused to take her, although she swore that to see the land covered with ice, the reindeer flying out over the landscape -- O such sights! but no, he had said it is absolutely not what I want to do for our holiday! So no passion in a Lapland hut the flame of the small portable stove cheery before it spluttered out like an alarm clock just at midnight, the spell of night music enhanced by reindeer making reindeer sounds (what does a reindeer sound like, what Nordic music?) the frigid cold announcing that it was time to go (their caretaker in a red suit said so) and even under the mind-altering spell of the mushrooms she'd pricked her finger over and over (blood, sweat and tears) using simple red cloth to be Mother Mushroom, and to make hats so her girls would remember that when mushrooms wear hats, life is a fantasy! She had drawn tempting circles -- air candy in cotton, a marshmallow memory of winter and snowballs -- spots for hats by a mother known for her polka-dots when babies popped out beneath birch trees and fairy wings fluttered in wind-trembled branches. Uprooted (hasty, insouciant) she'd tippled sweet tree sap to celebrate, and planned a new life weaving wood strips: when the birches shed bark like snake's skin, her children would have mats to sleep on; and baskets to carry the forest's good fortune to plant in the Queen's elegant garden a natural expression of spingtime, fairy fungi wearing red hats from Mother Mushroom and Her Children. In the garden, she dreamed, her girls could grow wild, exempt from decorum (colorful as hors d'oeuvres, nutritious, not poisonous*) beneath royal trees where the grasses made a susurrate synphony to entertain princes and princesses -- figures the artist had chosen to wear clothes, lavishly costumes in Art Nouveau -- one gent wore a cape, butterflies at the nape, as if words could fly from a voice inside, collecting winged memories... In winter when blue minarets and rotund blue roofs gave the impression of glass -- ocean-blue glass and mushroom-shaped hats -- they were bluer than blue in Siberian sunlight, no palaces like them in a forest. Mother Mushroom sighed, suddenly tired, hoping for a new expression -- maybe a smile -- as the artist drew fairies with a shelf life time limited by the size of his canvas woodland. Was she -- the Mother -- about to lose face? Her fairy-girl shape, dehydrated by global warming? Too poor, too thin, too un-spritely for him? A model like a puppet -- a failed fairy puppet -- Ms. Wooden Garden Mushroom, the millinery matron in fairyland? With 6 mushroom daughters he'd named for his travels -- Amalfi, Capri, Venice, Ravenna, Siena and Florence -- the places he visited as a Young Poland Artist -- a student in Rome his work faraway from Shakespearean ardor, A Midsummer Night's Dream, psychedelic? How to tell it? For his art knew the magic of fairy tale, how time is suspended, one night in the forest; in the next, in her mind, with fairies and reindeer, in a flight fueled by mushrooms branches of antlers framing the landscape in a journey by poem to a springtime of change: Assigned to my brush come colors, ready now to be described better than they were before. Laurie Newendorp *Wooden Fairy Garden Mushrooms are edible when boiled. Laurie Newendorp lives and writes in Houston. Her book of poetry, When Dreams Were Poems, explores the relationship of art to life and writing. Having found happiness as a mother, she questions Mother Mushroom's facial expression: what has caused her to look upset in a fairy tale woodland? I she trapped by reality? The feeling of entrapment in Polish poets influenced by Russian domination is a subject that was discussed by one of the poet's professors, Adam Zagajewski, whose beautiful poem "Try To Praise The Mutilated World" appeared on the back page of the black-covered New Yorker after 911. Milosz was mentioned in Zagajewski's classroom (one of his poems is "Reading Milosz") and the last line in Wooden Fairy Garden Mushrooms is a quote from "Late Ripeness" by Milosz, translated, with Milosz, by Robert Hass.  New Contest! The Sound of Music, with Guest Judge, Jonathan Taylor The Ekphrastic Review is pleased to announce a new contest for poetry and flash fiction, on the theme of music. We are delighted that Jonathan Taylor, a TER contributor well-known for his musical writing, will act as our judge. Selected flash fiction and poetry will appear in a showcase in The Ekphrastic Review. A winner in either flash fiction or poetry will be awarded first place and $100 CAD. ** Jonathan Taylor is an author, editor, lecturer and critic. His books include the poetry collection Cassandra Complex (Shoestring, 2018), the novel Melissa (Salt, 2015) and the memoir Take Me Home (Granta, 2007). His book Kontakte and Other Stories (Roman Books, 2013), was shortlisted and long listed for multiple awards. It is a collection of music-themed stories, a consistent theme in his poetry and fiction. Taylor directs the MA in Creative Writing at the University of Leicester. His website is www.jonathanptaylor.co.uk. ** Rules 1. Write short fiction or poetry inspired by any of the works of art in The Sound of Music ebook. You can interpret or use the art in any way you are inspired to. It can be about the painting, artist, or subject, or take you in any other direction. 2. 1000 words maximum per piece, whether fiction or poetry. 3. Submit up to five works per author, fiction, poetry, or assorted. 4. Attach works as Word documents. Do not put your name on documents. Any legible font and presentation is fine. 5. Include a publication ready bio of 100 words or less in the body of your email, in the event your work is chosen for our showcase. 6. Editor and judge decisions are final. Showcase will be published sometime in April, and winner announced at the same time. 7. Winning writer will be paid by PayPal. 8. Send entries to [email protected] with MUSIC in subject line. 9. Deadline is midnight, EST, March 25, 2023. 10. Purchase of music ebook is $10 CAD and qualifies you to enter up to five works. You can enter as many times as you like.  Poe Returns to Boston, by Steff Rocknak (USA) 2014. Click on image for artist site. We are delighted to feature longtime Ekphrastic contributor and family member Lynne Kemen as a guest judge for the current challenge! Thank you so much, Lynne. ** To Our Readers, Welcome to another ekphrastic challenge. I was thrilled when Lorette asked me to submit a piece of art and be a guest editor. I have been writing ekphrastic poems and flash fiction since spring of 2019. Since then, I have published many ekphrastic poems and a piece of flash fiction. Many of you have met me during ekphrastic workshops created by Lorette. I have taken nearly all of them since 2020! My version of how to write an ekphrastic piece has no rules- I look at the art and sometimes write from the point of view of a figure in the art. And sometimes, I write mood or descriptive responses. What I love about these exercises is that several writers can look at the same art and write very differently. When I write my own pieces, I create them so that the reader can understand the art without a photo. The main point is to have fun! Steff Rocknak created this sculpture in 2014. It’s entitled Poe Returns to Boston. I hope that you enjoy writing about it. Lynne Kemen (Scroll down for bios for Lynne and Steff.) ** 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 Poe Returns to Boston, by Steff Rocknak. Deadline is January 20, 2023. You can submit poetry, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, microfiction, or any other form creative writing you like. 1000 words max please. The Rules 1. Use this visual art prompt as a springboard for your writing. It can be a poem or short prose (fiction or nonfiction.) You can research the artwork or artist and use your discoveries to fuel your writing, or you can let the image alone provoke your imagination. 2. Write as many poems and stories as you like. Send only your best works or final draft, not everything you wrote down. (Please note, experimental formats are difficult to publish online. We will consider them but they present technical difficulties with web software that may not be easily resolved.) Please copy and paste your submission into the body of the email, even if you include an attachment such as Word or PDF. 3. There is no mandatory submission fee, but we ask you to consider a voluntary donation to show your support to the time, management, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review. It takes an incredible amount of time to curate the journal, read regular and contest submissions, etc. Paying all expenses out of pocket is also prohibitive. Thank you. A voluntary gift does not affect the selection process in any way. 4. USE THIS EMAIL ONLY.
Send your work to [email protected]. Challenge submissions sent to the other inboxes will most likely be lost as those are read in chronological order of receipt, weeks or longer behind, and are not seen at all by guest editors. They will be discarded. Sorry. 5.Include ROCKNAK CHALLENGE in the subject line. 6. Include your name and a brief bio. If you do not include your bio, it will not be included with your work, if accepted. Even if you have already written for The Ekphrastic Review or submitted other works and your bio is "on file" you must include it in your challenge submission. Do not send it after acceptance or later; it will not be added to your piece. Guest editors may not be familiar with your bio or have access to archives. We are sorry about these technicalities, but have found that following up, requesting, adding, and changing later takes too much time and is very confusing. 7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 8. Deadline is midnight EST, January 20, 2023. 9. Please do not send revisions, corrections, or changes to your poetry or your biography after the fact. If it's not ready yet, hang on to it until it is. 10. Selected submissions will be published together, with the prompt, one week after the deadline. 11. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we do not send out sorry notices or yes letters. You will see what poetry and stories have been selected when the responses are posted one week after the deadline. Understand that we value your participation as part of our ekphrastic community, but we can only choose a handful of the many entries we receive. 12. A word on the selection process: we strive for a balance between rewarding regular participants and sharing the voices of writers who are new to our family. We also look for a variety of perspectives and styles, and a range of interesting takes on the painting. It is difficult to reproduce experimental formatting, so unfortunately we won't choose many with unusual spacing or typography. 13. By submitting to The Ekphrastic Review, you are also automatically joining our subscribers' list. Your submission is your permission. We don't send Spam and we don't send many emails- you will not receive forty-four emails a day! Our newsletter occasionally updates you on some of the challenges, news, contests, prize nominations, ekphrastic happenings, prompt ebooks, workshops, and more. 14. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges! 15. Please share this prompt with your writing groups, Facebook groups, social media circles, and anywhere else you can. The simple act of sharing brings readers to The Ekphrastic Review, and that is the best way to support the poets and writers on our pages! 16. Check this space every Friday for new challenges and selected responses, alternating weekly. ** Lynne Kemen lives in upstate New York. Her chapbook, More Than A Handful, was published in 2020. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in La Presa, Silver Birch Press, The Ravens Perch, Fresh Words Magazine, Topical Poetry, The Ekphrastic Review, and The Blue Mountain Review. She is an editor for The Blue Mountain Review and The Southern Collective Experience, both in Atlanta, Georgia. She is on the Board of Bright Hill Press in Treadwell, New York. She has a poetry book that will be published by SCE in fall 2023. ** Venues for Steff Rocknak's work have included The Smithsonian, The Grolier Club, The Tampa Museum of Art (Tampa, FL) and the windows of Saks 5th Ave in New York City. In 2011, she sculpted a model for Robert Morris, which was digitally enlarged to 9-feet tall, cast in bronze and permanently installed in The Gori Collection, Fattoria di Celle, Pistoia, Italy. The following year, she was selected from a pool of 265 artists to create a bronze statue of Edgar Allan Poe in the city of his birth, Boston. This sculpture was permanently installed in 2014. In 2018 she was selected as one of five finalists for the National Native American Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC, and she won the 2019 Alex J. Ettl Grant, awarded by the National Sculpture Society. Her work has received multiple awards and has been featured in over 200 books, magazines, newspapers and blogs, including The New York Times (cover), The Boston Globe (cover), The Huffington Post, The Paris Review, The NY Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, and Juxtapoz. Rocknak is a self-taught sculptor. |
Challenges
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