 Untitled, by Manolo Millares (Spain) 1963 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 Untitled, by Manolo Millares. Deadline is February 14, 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 MILLARES 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, February 14, 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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 Life on the Precipice 1, Yosemite Park, photography by Franka M. Gabler (USA) contemporary Missed? But there is life, means to survive. amongst the strife of shallow graves, where rock and masonry conjoin to wipe from earth that little hope. But some adapted, little root, a guard, a carbon-capture cloud, to hold their ground, in fortress stance, that bulwark worn down by the rain, drips infinite in time on place, a torture for impregnable. Remember well, in savage war, the weakest triumphs in thin soil, despite colossal taking toll, the mighty brought down, haughty fall. It’s hard to see where both obtain - that massive block, as solid wall, the whelm that hefts the lonely tree; but so with mist that fogs our view, for veil of tears (no vale in site), distracts from hope, surmounting scape. So celebrate each single tree, a sign and symbol, history; from mycorrhiza, canopy, all evergreen in darkest earth. Recall their seed needs stratify, be frozen before germinates. But forget not, while justice slow, when mass knows force, then moment known, as crib lies under rubble strewn, may we encourage gracious, kind? 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 online 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 ** Precipice uneven border of crumbling rock, sharp silver cut into mist -- here at the brink, unbound Elanur Williams Elanur Williams is a GED teacher in the Bronx. She lives in New York with her husband and daughter. ** The Choice “Don’t look back.” Isn’t that what was said to Lot’s wife? But she looked, and we all know her fate. Does her pillar still stand? Unlikely. The ravages of time would have taken care of mere salt. Despite the warning, I, too, look back to a place where the deeds are done, the shadows are banished, and there is nothing to fear. I’m tempted to stay here gazing into the past for the rest of eternity, living easily amidst my memories of beautiful days while banishing anything with a darker hue. Would a pillar of salt be such a terrible fate? A tremulous whisper interrupts my reverie. “I’m here.” I slowly turn my head. Who is here? What do they want with me? The bearer of the voice is lost in a sea of mist and swirls. I take a tentative step forward, arms outstretched, grasping at wisps of emptiness. My toes curl over an edge. A precipice. What lies beyond? The choice is clear. The past in its permanence or the future in its possibilities? A statue or living, breathing, creating? I leap, leaving the salt behind. Teri M. Brown Teri M. Brown, mother, grandmother, beach bum, bridge player, cyclist, award-winning author, and Online for Authors podcast host, calls the North Carolina coast home. Teri’s novels, Sunflowers Beneath the Snow, Daughters of Green Mountain Gap, and An Enemy Like Me introduce readers to characters they’d like to invite to lunch. Follow her at www.terimbrown.com. ** Conundrum Fog uncomforts fear in wild beauty admired from unmoving safety anchored to rock, a tiny gully enclosing the body from edges and certain death from accidental fall or impulsive leap, flight. And yet in imagination, I navigate to the edge stand firm with arms embracing wind, fog, dawning sun, feet young wholly unbothered by jagged edges and uneven stance. I look down, undizzy. I fill my lungs. Carol Coven Grannick Carol Coven Grannick is a poet and children’s author whose work captures her response to, and relationship with the earth’s natural objects, imprints, creatures, and experiences. She delights in writing for little ones and for the rest of us. Her work in numerous children's and literary magazines gives meaning to the tender journey through this life. She can be reached through her website: https://bitsoftheworldinverse.com ** The Precipice Calls The edge had dared us. The pull that flesh exerts this season feels suspended. For days the rain sheeted, damping the cold dirt. Dry and dormant things gasped for air underground in tunnels running near and around buried stones. A line of leafless trees swayed at a meadow's edge; a field of pale grass lies flat in shearing winds, a low, hollow lallation against a stinging silence that smothers human sounds. Cold to the touch, this land of immense disappearances, where dusk had stalled and squeezed breath from the sky, encompasses us, alone together, turning our senses, the broken bits we use to know ourselves, the raw force, tight as a bud, we feel will burst out in full, seducing flowers, sprung alive from our bodies to wreck the world we made. Royal Rhodes Royal Rhodes is a poet and retired educator who taught global religions for almost forty years. He lives now in a small village in rural Ohio. ** Life on the Precipice Overhead I hear kak-kak-kak—a peregrine falcon hunting lunch in the crevices of granite below me, in the distant valley, I see shadow and sunlight. Night was just stepping aside when I began this climb, and now, sweat-slicked and aching, hunger hangs on the breeze and the fog-chill envelops me. The wool in my head has unraveled onto subalpine scrub and the whitebark pine holds its breath. Up here, I can be nothing but what I am—an edge-walker, heart-stomped and empty-handed. Damp air clings, my nostrils tingle, I can almost taste spring. I wonder what would happen if I floated right off the bluff. Lesley Rogers Hobbs Lesley Rogers Hobbs (she/her) is an Irish poet and artist living in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and service dog. She loves popcorn, sunshine, Pink Floyd and the ocean. Her poetry has appeared online and in print, including in The Ekphrastic Review, Open Door Poetry, The Hyacinth Review, Querencia Press and Cirque. ** No Time to Worry, No Time to Blink Life on a precipice sure is sweet. No time to worry, no time to blink. Grip onto something till your hands are no longer pink. Else you might not make it across the street. Life isn't a pillow fight fought to defeat. It is sitting on the edge, a moment from survival or death. And marching forward, cherishing each breath. Lying next to someone close with a shared latent heat. Living a little wild, forgetting any or all conceit Discarding these many lies and being ever-present It sure beats worrying about what to circumvent. Especially when it's truly captivating or bittersweet. Tomorrow and yesterday do not even exist. If that's where you're at and hope to reside You will never really live or thrive. You will only somehow, devoid of happiness, subsist. 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. ** Silver, Silver, Not Yet Gold Silver, silver, not yet gold sculpts the land: frost and all that could be cold Ebbing swifter than sea like a strand of wavering silk: Silver, silver, not yet gold. Between dream and drug, form and figure: frost and all that could be cold Where purgatory held infernos that bow at once before those of hell: Silver, silver, not yet gold Daymare was too weak a word yet with less might than hate: frost and all that could be cold The sensation in which fog partakes - collides contrary to an oak, alive: Silver, silver, not yet gold Frost and all that could be cold Jenna Chebaro ** Haibun from a Cliff’s Edge It is not truly the desire to fall which captures the senses here. More the weight. The weight of breadth, and breath under pressure. The wind, which withers and turns deadly, weathering stone and bone alike. Air and void whisper across the heavy fog, cloud-sweet. Heady. Beckoning. Moisture crawls downward like darkened fingers, curling, cupping the open cliffside in its slick, dewy palm – and it would be so easy to slip. It would be so easy to slide low into apathy. Do nothing. Watch as gravity takes its due – as the earth turns up roots and the sky tears down branches, bends spines, crumbles hands and peaks under feet – it would be so easy, and yet – and yet – steady arms stretch through deepening gloom – within reach, new dawn’s tender light Kimberly Hall Kimberly Hall (she/her) is a queer and neurodivergent poet based in Southeast Texas. She holds degrees in psychology and behavioral science. Her debut poetry collection, Honey Locust, was published in 2024 by hotpoet, and is available through them (here) or through communication with the poet (here). ** Rooted in Resilience Body: A twisted trunk against the granite face, A testament to life in barren lands, Where roots cling tight, defying time and space, And branches reach towards the sky's demands. He stands like that lone tree, weathered, bold, A soul that's known the storms of doubt and fear, Yet found his footing, stories yet untold, A heart that beats with strength, year after year. His mind, a kaleidoscope of shifting hues, Reflects the beauty of a world unseen, Where patterns form, and dreams begin to fuse, And fragile roots find strength in what has been. He stands, a testament to life's embrace, A soul that thrives in this precarious space. Trent Shafer Trent is a writer, artist, and social impact technologist with a "kaleidoscope mind." He explores the world through a unique lens, weaving together personal narratives, social commentary, and a touch of the surreal. His work celebrates the beauty of difference, the power of human connection, and the resilience of the human spirit. ** Sunday in the Park with Franka Franka, Why is it you always get to stand on sure ground While I have to live on the edge Hello, Franka There’s a being on this ledge A droplet of sweat The top of a leaf She always does this Can you make this brief Sunday in the park with Franka One more Su– The crown is wide Beginning to sway The branches giving I won’t let them splay Who was at the sea Franka Who was at the sea The gulls and who Franka The gulls and who Don't move Lara Dolphin A native of Pennsylvania, Lara Dolphin is an attorney, nurse, wife and mom of four amazing kids. Her chapbooks include In Search Of The Wondrous Whole (Alien Buddha Press), Chronicle Of Lost Moments (Dancing Girl Press), and At Last a Valley (Blue Jade Press). ** Inkblot Images "Pareidolia: active pattern of perceiving objects, shapes or scenery as meaningful things in the observer's experience.” from a computer definition of Rorschach Fog fell like a bridal veil over a granite glacier, the stone like a natural sculpture -- a platform for a single tree with a somewhat amorphous shape sitting beneath it; a form that could have been a gypsy marman, seated, holding a child who reached up to touch her nose; or it could have been someone in costume, a tourist who'd climbed the rock face rising above his simple beginnings in a Swiss village. Misty liked to think of scenes as a creation myth, a granite formation that began with ice and snow, a glacial event fallen from the heavens related to eternity no less real if it happens to a grain of dust instead of to a star a thousand times greater than our sun... Just looking at the fog-shrouded precipice in the picture of Yosemite made Misty think her name, Misty, should rhyme with dizzy; Way to go with Vertigo -- If there were sound, would it be a yodel? She sat, silent, in her therapist's waiting room as cows the color of butter- milk (cream turning brown as the calves grew up) were draped with flowers. They reminded her of the climb up Yankee Boy Basin to a clear pond -- like a mirror in a landscape with alpine flowers. She'd been freezing that day, so cold she'd borrowed a little boy's wooly hat and pulled it over her ears. Remembering that child, she wondered if that was why the figure under the tree in the photograph looked human, though it may have been a small mound of stones. Did she want those stones to mean life, beneath that single tree -- life with the courage to grow so near the edge of reality -- the precipice of marriage where wind-force might blow all of it away into the valley of Yosemite? Wasn't that rock a rather precarious place to imagine a Destination Wedding? If so, where were her Swiss bridesmaids? The guests? The groomsmen? The Groom? & where on earth had the figure beneath the tree gotten a baby? Had the story appeared like inkblot Rorschach images (the same pictures, different meanings every visit?) visions that became more bizarre after her therapist fell asleep for $225 an hour; maybe she'd wake up, jealous if she wasn't invited to the wedding! She, herself, might not be there after they said their vows -- a leap of faith. The session would begin with the usual question: "Where were we, where are we now, and where are we going? Swiss cow bells made a soft clunking sound as Misty felt for a Swiss chocolate in the pocket of her gypsy-wedding drindl. (She'd added rhinestones shining on the fitted bodice like stars -- sparkling thoughts of marital bliss -- Halfway to Heaven.) The camera lens had caught the sides of the Half Dome stone -- smooth and sculpted and satiny in Gabler's picture. Thinking of the photographer -- her name -- Misty's thoughts drifted to Hedda Gabler Ibsen's unhappy young married protagonist -- did something about those rocks mean the danger of falling in love? The therapist was taking a call (on Misty's time) so Misty focused, for meaning, on childhood abandonment. She remembered the story of Heidi, a little orphan girl who lived with her grandfather -- her Opa -- in the Swiss Alps. The fog, soft as cloud-fluff ringed the rocks in a photograph where nature defied reality. Misty sat, wondering how to assimilate the meaning of the inkblot images as Heidi's Opa said that it was time to take the animals down the hill -- to take them home. He stooped, standing near his granddaughter as he spoke so her cheek was brushed by his white beard. It was soft as cotton -- and soft as a bridal veil of fog a scene where the permanence of stone means the possibility of change -- a remedy at Yosemite. Laurie Newendorp Laurie Newendorp lives and writes in Houston. Honoured by acceptances to the ekphrastic challenges and nominated for Best of the Net, her book, When Dreams Were Poems, explores the relationship of art to life and poetry. Marman means "mother" in German-Swiss. A drindl for a girl and lederhosen for a boy was traditional dress for Swiss, Germans and Bavarians. The quote about eternity in a grain of dust is from Margo Bennet’s The Wife of Bath. ** Vantage Point I am an embassy managing failed expectations. I keep a quiet heart on the precipice. Caution has its price, and I have stayed gone, for the most part. I miss the dog who died with his eyes wide open. To minimize doubt, I lift the slap he lays under once in a blue moon, like the lawless woman that I am. There is a parasitic nature to those who are unprepared to be loved, and I know there will come a time when my feet will no longer be needed to bear my weight. I will have a gaping mouth. The world will barely skip a beat. How long should a prayer last, anyway? The palm frondsare growing stealth and sturdy against the ancient and cracked seawall, which is stoking all of my superstitious tendencies. I have read all the signs. The corpse of a star still pulses and though it is gasping and weak, its strength is in its negative potential. The sutures are jagged and they leave a scare. I am up off the floor and into the light. It is a parabolic moment and there is a new story to tell. You can't trod the earth broken-hearted forever. Michelle Reale Michelle Reale is a poet and scholar, living in the suburbs of Philadelphia. She is the author ofseveral poetry collections including In the Year of Hurricane Agnes (Alien Buddha Press, 2022)and the forthcoming Let it be Extravagant (Bordighera Press, 2025). She teaches poetry in the MFA program at Arcadia University. ** What Exists / Lets Itself Be Encountered You stand at the brink of divinity. Infinitude envelops you. You whisper a makeshift prayer, send it out across the giant breaths. What to do when you reach the precipice but become ever-present? Your search for godliness led you here. You stand in the thick of it. A lone tree for company. Facing yourself in the great surround, you merge and become. Stupefied by photons. Element and force. You lean in and shed yourself. The geometry of falling. The fathomless space. Flight and gravity. Oh, how the abyss is seductive. You would walk right into it if you weren’t so utterly material. Instead, you breathe it in, knowing you could disappear into its arms and never be seen again. 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 writer with Writing West Midlands. You can usually find her with her nose in a book, writing in her local favourite café, or on Instagram: @nina.s.nazir. ** Slip Slidin’ Away the hospice walls are polyethene everything I see is clouded in shrouds of opaque fluid – tubes drips canula clips Paul Simon’s lyric slices through silence that hangs – the nearer your destination the more you’re slip slidin’ away yesterday befuddled in fog a rare moment of clarity a childhood memory – a bag of Fox’s Glacier Mints we’re sucking transparency feeling the spill of solidity sink into slithers on tongues for the sheer joy of it I sense you slipping now skimming the face of ice no purchase on precipice – tasting the thrum of that song Kate Young Kate Young lives in England and enjoys writing poetry, painting and playing the guitar, ukulele and mandolin. Her poems have appeared in various webzines, magazines, and Chapbooks. Her work has also featured in the anthologies Places of Poetry and Write Out Loud. Her pamphlets A Spark in the Darkness and Beyond the School Gate have been published by Hedgehog Press. Find her on Twitter@Kateyoung12poet or on her website: kateyoungpoet.co.uk ** To Franka M. Gabler Regarding Life on the Precipice 1 The magic of your misted ledge and life that clings to lethal edge is in the blur at first to eyes that drawing closer realize the clarity is merely veiled where time has etched to be regaled the stubborn will of battered stone and scattered seed that fate has sown to be survival carving crest now beauty of its struggle blessed to be the shade and resting place for other life that it will grace as lesson to the fervent gaze that sees beneath translucent haze. 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. ** Two Trees like the Pieta enveloped in the thick fog of wars as countless mothers mourn we silent on a windswept peak surmise what Gazan, what Ukranian, what Syrian what untold others might have risen to save us compose sing paint live less desolate less inconsolable than we who remain in this landscape This Golgotha of two trees dan smith dan smith is the author of Crooked River and The Liquid of Her Skin, the Suns of Her Eyes. He has been widely published in journals as diverse as The Rhysling Anthology, Deep Cleveland Junkmail Oracle, Sein und Werden, Jerry Jazz Musician and Gas Station Famous. Nominated for the 2025 Pushcart Prize, his most recent poems have been at Five Fleas Itchy Poetry, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, dadakuku, Rattle Prompt Challenge,The Ekphrastic Review, tsuri-doro, Sense and Sensibility and The Solitary Daisy. ** The Lone Tree wakes up, at dawn’s first touch parting the silken curtains of mist, to feel the velvet warmth of the sun on her skin. The music of the breeze cradles her leaves, while she stands witness to the winter of stillness, the shadow of summer, in the chasm between the familiar and the unfamiliar, never once complaining, not once grumbling, but rooted gracefully in the present - stretching her arms to reach for the skies of hope, while counting her blessings, each second of her life on the precipice. Preeth Ganapathy Preeth Ganapathy is a software engineer turned civil servant from Bengaluru, India. Her recent works have been published or are appearing in several magazines such as Braided Way, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Last Stanza Poetry Journal, The Ekphrastic Review and various other journals. Her microchaps, A Single Moment, and Purple have been published by Origami Poems Project. Her work has been nominated for the 2023 Best Spiritual Literature. ** Somewhere, a Heron My sight stills on a sliver of world I’ve not yet seen, nor likely ever will: a slice of Yosemite, frozen by your lens and chiselled to an ice tooth. Breath - this ancient mist - wets my lip and condenses there in beads of silver, or crystal crumbs of mint; a glacier to lick. I’m lost in your ghost-grey. Knuckle up folded rock, climb a tin foil tree to seek the heron who, day by day, greets me in silence its eye affixed to the river by my home. Slow stirrer of shallows, its bob disquiets the valley. Then skyward like fine art, wings shivering the air. Your camera. Quick! A tether for my heart. Vanessa Crannis Vanessa writes mainly, but would love to expand her collection of poetry. She is very happy to have been published and short-listed a few times, including in The Ekphrastic Review's Tickled Pink contest. Vanessa is happiest out-of-doors and runs or swims every day. She is training for a second marathon and planning a triathlon. This year, she hopes to re-start her interest in recording UK moths, curious about any writing that might emerge. A late starter, Vanessa is also on the look out for old vinyls, and discovering whether music might move her as much as words. ** Standing Tall This fog cannot hide that cliff as it sweeps closer and closer. My roots have started touching air, not stone-- nothing I can clutch. One day I will lose my hold, and topple. But now, I stand tall. Now, my branches stretch. Now, I drink the mist. Gary S. Rosin Gary S. Rosin’s work has been nominated for Pushcart Prizes and Best of the Net, and has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Chaos Dive Reunion (Mutabilis Press 2023), Cold Moon Journal, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Texas Poetry Assignment, Texas Seniors (Lamar Literary Press), The Ekphrastic Review, Verse Virtual, and elsewhere. He is a Contributing Editor of MacQueen’s Quinterly. He has two chapbooks, Standing Inside the Web (Bear House Publishing 1990), and Fire and Shadows (Legal Studies Forum 2008)(offprint). ** Shadows That Follow as I stand atop a place perfect in times of love and loss- in shared silence of abandoned squishy ghost, half-eaten bourbons, the unopened 50-50 classic sweet and salty missing the carry-on. In wrappers that housed tattoos and stickers, hooked labels of baby puppets, Elsa & Anna’s friendly world. In shiny threads twirling my hairbrush. The truth lies heavy in cracked mist- meeting last light in gentle wind by the trees. Love lives still in luminous grey, in conversations, in smell of coffee over the scent. In rising voice of the womb, a witness to decades of hollow, a voyage as yet barren. 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. ** I Teeter at the Precipice of Prednisone The treatment for my autoimmune skin disease encases me within swollen body and useless limbs. My watery eye-slits cannot judge distance, slope, or risk. My daily existence becomes a navigation of fossilized gray glacier. If only I could throw a grappling hook, let its rope catch a solid foothold to steady myself, believe that I could master my destiny. But I am frozen in this no man’s land, locked in a mindset of weakness. Barbara Krasner Barbara Krasner holds an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks and three novels in verse. Her work has also been featured in The Ekphrastic Review, Nimrod, Cimarron Review, Paterson Literary Review, and other journals. Visit her website at barbarakrasner.com. ** From Pebble and Seed Are those monuments in the deep distance? If so, why shroud them in fog? I’m sure you have your reasons. ~ The fog is certain it blocks your view, but all it really does is arouse your curiosity until you’re sure it is not hiding some suffering thing. ~ One massive cliff face upon another. Think of the pain of bone on bone, of the vanished disc a spine growing shorter and thinner and gravely more sheer ~ the saddest has already happened why keep the monuments secreted why place a tree where no other trees can grow? ~ find what is redeeming no matter how far they descend the simple colors are still tender ~ imagine hanging from your fingertips from the nexus the way we hang from days some of us believing that if we hang long enough we’ll never fall ~ oh maker of things colossal and infinitesimal how will I ever know which is which just by watching do I not need scent touch perceiving fear? ~ the aged bluff recollects its pebble days as the tree remembers sprouting ~ consider beyond the fog or risk being lifeless John L Stanizzi Author of 15 books, including - Ecstasy Among Ghosts, Sleepwalking, Chants, POND, SEE, Hallelujah Time, and others. Besides The Ekphrastic Review, Johnnie is widely published - including Prairie Schooner, Cortland Review, Rattle, Tar River, and others. Creative Non-Fiction found in Literature & Belief, Potato Soup, After the Pause, and others. Creative Non Fiction Fellowship 2021 - Connecticut Dept. of Arts, Culture, and Diversity - a former New England Poet of the Year - Etherington Scholar - Wesleyan University - most recently he was awarded first place in The Ekphrastic Review’s Ekphrastic Marathon. Newest book, Entra La Notte, due in March 2025. Retired Lit. Prof. Manchester Comm. College – also taught English and was theatre director, Bacon Academy. https://www.johnlstanizzi.com ** Don't Pine For Me When but a sapling my mother tree soughed to me: Girl don't you go planting seeds on the precipice! Don't tell me where to germinate! I barked Now some centuries gone my lover who might have been blown by the wind leaves me naughty with desire oh so high on the scarp Donna-Lee Smith Donna-Lee Smith, an abstract photographer, at times writes from Gotland Island where Viking souls frolic on the mist. ** Alone on the Precipice When visited in a hundred years by children of the eons the precipice tree will be rooted as it is now it will bend in freezing winds blanketed by snow and ice it will look from its small perch down the deep facade it will exist as it does not knowing what existence is it will stand alone like it was when seen by the eyes of ancient nomads or posed on the precipice captured by a photographers lens not knowing the beauty of its curve or how it grew alone from rock the twist and tangle of its limbs that feel the solitary wisp of clouds. Daniel W. Brown Daniel W. Brown 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. world. Daniel has been published in various journals and anthologies, and he has hosted a youtube channel Poetry From Shooks Pond. He was also included in MId-Hudson's Arts Poets Respond To Art in 2022-23 and writes each day about music, art and whatever else captures his imagination. ** Men of the Cliff Mist covers the foreground hiding away the smaller edges and scratches of the cliff. The cliff itself forms disturbingly straight, the edge standing like a proud man. Tufts of snowy hair grow slowly on the shoulders while a singular tree juts upwards on the rocky top, like an evergreen ponytail. Stony arches with sprinkled snow are seen in the distance resembling raised shoulders of other men with matching confidence. The mist is a palette of grayscale spanning from bliss to abyss like colored air. White angels guard the bright sky, glaring down at the ashen hell beneath its wraith-like monsters cropped away by Gabler’s composition. In the midst of the tension the man and his friends in the distance stand haughtily and gaze ahead unaware of the two cliques that vie for them. Matthew Liu Matthew Liu is a high school student dreaming of a WWII historical fiction idea to publicize someday, currently residing in the United States. ** Growing Up A seed was excreted by a passing bird and deposited on the top of a high cliff. Even though exposed to the elements, it dared to stretch forth a tiny white root which sought a foothold and sustenance. Mist and dew brought water which, with the goodness left in the bird dropping, were enough to give it strength to explore a tiny crack in the rock. As it grew, the root felt its way along, absorbing the nutrients left behind by the algae and lichen that lived up there. Thus encouraged, a tiny shoot of green emerged from the other side of the seed. It followed the sun and bent with the pressure of wind currents eddying around the uneven cliffs. As it waved in the wind, its stem thickened and strengthened, and the roots - for the first root was now not alone - burrowed further and split the rock into shards which over the years rain and snow froze and thawed and broke into fragments, then particles, then into a fine life-giving soil which was quickly inhabited by insects. The tree, for that is what it was, grew strong, put forth branches and leaves until one day a tiny yellow blossom appeared, followed by another and another till the tree was laden with them. The winds that year though were strong and blew off the petals, as they did the next year when the tree blossomed again. The third year however, the winds were light and a bee, caught on a zephyr, was blown up to the rock. It needed to collect pollen and nectar to make honey for the winter so it smeared the powdery grains with a little of the nectar and gummed these pellets to its legs. It was difficult doing this using only its feet so some pollen ended up being caught in its fur and this the bee inadvertently brushed onto the anthers of the next flower when it dived into one tempting nectary after another. When it could barely hold itself up with the weight of the grains, the bee launched itself off the branch and flew back to its hive leaving behind flowers which later swelled into berries. Much of the fruit rotted during the autumn rains; some fell on the rock and rolled off, falling to the ground far below; others were eaten by grateful passing birds, but two fell onto the tiny patch of soil and put forth slim roots which burrowed into the new earth. As the years passed, the saplings grew tough and resilient alongside their parent and in their turn were able to spread seeds on the rock until one day the whole of the rock was covered with trees and birds and insects and thrived with life and song. A seed can grow shoots Which despite adversity Become a forest Alison R Reed Alison R Reed has been writing for many years, but only came to poetry some seven years ago. She won the 2020 Writers Bureau Poetry competition and has been published both online and in various anthologies. She enjoys experimenting with different forms of poetry and particularly enjoys Ekphrasis. She has been secretary of Walsall Writers’ Circle for more years than she would like to say! ** Liminal This mist is stone. This stone is mist. And I persist. And I persist. How long a time shall I survive? I am alone. I am alive. This white is grey. This grey is white. I match the water with the light. I know my roots, how deep they are. How far is down? How down is far? How dry is cold? How wet is dry? I am this one. This one is I. I match the silence with the spray. This grey is white. This white is grey. How long a lifetime have I grown? I am alive. I am alone. This stone is mist. This mist is stone. This mist is stone. This mist is stone. Ruth S. Baker Ruth S. Baker has published in a few online poetry magazines. She has a particular love for animals and visual art. ** The Tree “On a misty mountain top where the sky showed no sign of blues, a single tree stood at the edge of a great precipice. It had not always been alone. Once it had been part of a dense forest crowded with several trees just like itself. But over the years, the others had fallen or been uprooted by storms, leaving the solitary figure to face the vastness alone. The tree wasn’t the tallest or strongest but was stubborn. It had persistence that kept it firmly rooted when others swayed and toppled during fierce winter snowstorms. Its branches were crooked and reaching, almost as if it was trying to embrace something out of its grasp, perhaps the sky, the stars, or perhaps the sense of belonging it had no longer remembered. In its earlier days, the tree had longed for the companionship of other trees. It missed the chorus of rustling leaves, the chatter of birds, the hum of the forest. But as time passed, the tree’s yearning faded. It learned to find comfort in the stillness, to appreciate the quiet moments the world offered. From its place on the precipice, it could see the world below—vast valleys, winding rivers, and forests stretching out in every direction. Each moment was a gift, the changing light, the shifting clouds, the cool winds that danced around it,” said Mary, as she sat beside her daughter, Emma, near the crackling campfire. The mist drifted lazily through the cliffs, the air cool and crisp. They were camped at the edge of Yosemite, where the mountains rose sharply into the sky, their peaks dusted with the softest layer of snow. “Why do you think the tree didn’t mind being alone, Mom?” Emma asked, her voice soft against the whisper of the wind. Mary smiled, “I think the tree didn’t need to be surrounded by others to feel whole. The quiet, the space around it, gave the tree a chance to see things. To notice the little changes, the way the fog swirled around the rocks, the way the light shifted at dawn.” Emma nodded slowly, feeling the weight of her mother's words. “So, it wasn’t really lonely?” she asked, trying to understand. “No,” Mary said, her voice almost a whisper as she watched the last of the daylight fade from the sky. “It wasn’t lonely at all. It learned to embrace the quiet, to feel connected to the world in its own way. Just like how I find little moments when I take photos.” She paused, reaching for her camera beside her. “I look for the moments most people miss—like how the mist hugs the mountains, or how a branch quivers in the wind. Those moments are enough to create the perfect picture. Emma looked up at the darkening sky, imagining the tree on that precipice, its branches reaching into the mist, hugging the world in its own silent way. The wind picked up slightly, rustling the trees, and Emma leaned into her mother, feeling the peace of the moment settle around them. "I think the tree would have liked this," Emma said softly. "The quiet." Mary smiled, her gaze drifting over the misty peaks. "I think it would have, too." And for a long while, mother and daughter sat together, wrapped in the stillness, both finding solace in the quiet beauty of the mountains, just like the tree on the precipice. Noel Fang ** Haiku rooted in stone standing before the silent void - a gnarled juniper Lisa Germany Lisa Germany is an Australian haiku poet writing in the traditional Japanese style ** After the Precipice Inevitable-- the fall, and how quickly we fade to mist, our particles, illuminated, brushing against our loved ones’ cheeks, wet with memory Eileen Lawrence Eileen Lawrence is a poet living in Central Texas. Her poetry has been published by Dos Gatos Press, Mutabilis Press, the Fargo Public Library, Visions International, Equinox Journal, and Kindred Characters. ** A Rocky Perspective Many a blood has been spilt here, on the cliffs, on the ledges, on the cracks, on the pebbles, seeping into the rock that just caused their troubles. Some people start the journey up my side, but they give up, turn away, and that’s okay. They know this fight to the top of my head is not a battle they want to attend. Some people start the journey up my side, and keep going out of sheer determination. But that’s the problem. The climb up to the top of my head is nothing but a goal, a mission, a checkmark on a bucket list. It doesn’t mean anything once they’re back on the ground beside me. Some people start the journey up my side, they pause, they scream, they contemplate. Their blood seeps into my pores. Their sweat quenches my thirst. Their tears cleanse my heart. But still they climb. Up, up, up they go until they reach the top. They stand on my head, panting and sweating, only to gasp as the fogs lift, revealing a world that no one recognizes anymore. A world they fought to see. And now they know who they want to be. These are the strangers I love to observe, watching and waiting, to see where they’ll go, to learn why they’re here, to know who they are, and what changes I may bring. For those who see where they want to go and who they want to be, are the ones who stay, the ones who remain seeing the world no one sees. Their names carved into my only friend who’s stayed forever on my head. My constant companion, who is only revealed to those who show promise in facing life’s cruel deals of cliffs, ledges, cracks, and pebbles, the fogs will lift and they will see the tree of who they chose to be. Katie Davey Katie Davey is an aspiring author from the rural parts of House Springs, MO. She has published three pieces through three 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, and the third titled I Blink as part of the Morrisseau 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. ** fleeting There was almost a bird in the light that particled into glitters of silver. It was shadowed by itself, by the movement of the atmosphere, by the changing composition of reflected air. Only the ciphered motes were visible, traveling so quickly that I could not catch them in my mind. They merged like a Turner painting, uncertain as to boundaries, all liquid sky, liquid land, dripping inside an unchartable sea. But the bird—if it was a bird—had disappeared. Was it a memory? Only the possibility of falling deeper into the abyss remained imprinted on the clouds of uncertainty before me. Only the endlessly busy collisions between molecules entered my senses, attempting to navigate with me all the vast empty spaces that were the heart of the matter. How many bridges had I created and then just as quickly left uncrossed? So much was temporary—perhaps everything. There was almost a bird. Or was it a memory? Where was it now? Why do we think we can capture time? Today, yesterday, tomorrow—all those chronicles and photographs—what do they tell us? Perhaps the almost-bird carries the answer under its imaginary wings. We are all fraying fragments, illusions. Nothing is all we can ever possess. 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/. ** Glimmer of Slate Barely visible-- western white pine, mountain hemlock, and lodgepole pine are engulfed in gray gauze as fog blankets the High Sierra, granite cliffs formed by molten rock, before spring sunrise ascends above the Merced River, high with snowmelt. In the valley below amidst the first blooms of spider lupines, redbuds, tufted orange poppies, and owl’s clover. I listen attentively to the guttural murmur of a nearby cascading waterfall evoking the spirit of spring like Vivaldi’s Concerto No. 1 while savoring the tranquility of Yosemite. Jim Brosnan A Pushcart nominee, Dr. Jim Brosnan is the author of Long Distance Driving (2024) and Nameless Roads (2019) copies are available at [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. ** rock roots (fibonacci poem) so deep beneath the tree my face runs smooth gray rock ribbons and walls you shape me born in fire ** travelling just not there i will not move my feet now earth anchor and rock belly no end to my dance with the sun mike sluchinski Mike Sluchinski knows that El Shaddai lives in rainstorms and that, in a drought, he prays for rain! Forget the umbrella! Take time to read his work in The Coachella Review, Inlandia, Welter, Poemeleon, Lit Shark, Proud To Be Vol. 13, The Ekphrastic Review, MMPP (Meow Meow Pow Pow), Kelp Journal & The Wave, ‘the fib review’, Eternal Haunted Summer, Syncopation Lit. Journal, South Florida Poetry Journal (SOFLOPOJO), Freefall, and more coming! ** On the Precipice The fog had buried all the heavens then, the ragged edge of a clifftop I stood on to find uncloudedness amid the murk, an obscure outline of mountain appeared. Its frightening shadow overwhelmed me. My shaking foot were chained to the hard ground and paralyzed limbs took a freaky shape just like a withered tree on the parched earth. What kind of sin am I accused of now? Am I deserved to such great suffering poor Prometheus ever should endured? The echo faded out into thin air. Upon a desolate land I just heard a roar of coyote out of the mist. Toshiji Kawagoe Toshiji Kawagoe, Ph.D. is a professor at Future University Hakodate. He lives in Hokkaido, Japan. His haiku was selected in the 21 Best Haiku of 2021 at the Society of Classical Poets and his poems in classical Chinese have been published in the anthologies of Chinese poetry. His academic works in economics are also published in many books and academic journals. ** O, Tutokanula I am gold monkeyflower winking-- minting coins in a granite fissure. I am dark-winged bat folded leatherlike into your now-cooled crevices. I am peregrine falcon, high as a mile and a half above the ponderosa, red sequoia: my wings wide, poised on a thermal, eyes locked on land for whisk of tail or flick of mammalian ears. I fall on them: stoop, and have my fill. But you, O Tutokanula, you are our great chieftain. Your winds are angel messengers, your rains our mysteries. Even waters rushing in a bridal veil, Pohono, do not conceal your might. Even the mist that smokes like incense from your cataracts and from your shrouds and clouds cannot obscure your sacred majesty. Fierce granite proclaims in answer, Climb, climb to my stunted solo pine with its ruggèd, forkèd trunk. O, Tutokanula-- here God descends as on some ancient holy hill. His face is hidden, for to look on Him so high above the earth is hazardous presumption. Climb if you will, the voice commands in basso profundo. Be not precipitate. Lizzie Ballagher One of the winners in Ireland’s 2024 Fingal Poetry Festival Competition and in 2022’s Poetry on the Lake, Lizzie Ballagher focuses on landscapes, both psychological and natural. She was a Pushcart nominee in 2018. Having studied in England, Ireland, and the USA, she worked in education and publishing. Her poems have appeared in print and online in all corners of the English-speaking world. Find her blog at https://lizzieballagherpoetry.wordpress.com/ ** The Echo of Their Heart Life on the Precipice by Franka M. Gabler is a therapeutic photo After the threatening but divine painting The Wild Hunt of Odin (ARBO Challenge). Tree, cliff and photographer all have the same rhythm. We can hear the echo of the artist’s heart, we can feel her Art. The mist protecting their intimacy, Above all, this superb photo evokes harmony. Harmony between a rock, a tree and Franka M. Gabler. The echo of their heart has the same beat. I went to Yosemite National Park a few years ago. I had a picnic at the foot of these majestic cliffs crowned with trees. Through those soothing and peaceful giants, I felt connected to the earth and the sky. Huge walls acting as guardians of their secrets, Shields protecting and defending the vulnerability of Nature. The resilient life of the trees supported by tons and tons of rock. Aged more than one hundred million years, They aroused my admiration and my concern. I just wanted to stay with them, Worried about the fragility of our environment. Jean Bourque Jean writes from Montreal, province of Quebec, Canada. He is French-speaking and a retired specialist teacher of children having learning disabilities. He loves Nature and painting. He is learning English. Recently he discovered the ekphrastic challenges, a good opportunity to practice. He also discovered that he loves writing and that writing is like painting with words.  Pavonia, by Francis Picabia (France) 1929 Join us for biweekly ekphrastic writing challenges. See why so many writers are hooked on ekphrasis! We feature some of the most accomplished, influential writers working today, and we also welcome emerging or first time writers and those who simply want to experience art in a deeper way or try something creative.
The prompt this time is Pavonia, by Francis Picabia. Deadline is January 31, 2025. You can submit poetry, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, microfiction, or any other form creative writing you like. 1000 words max please. The Rules 1. Use this visual art prompt as a springboard for your writing. It can be a poem or short prose (fiction or nonfiction.) You can research the artwork or artist and use your discoveries to fuel your writing, or you can let the image alone provoke your imagination. 2. Write as many poems and stories as you like. Send only your best works or final draft, not everything you wrote down. (Please note, experimental formats are difficult to publish online. We will consider them but they present technical difficulties with web software that may not be easily resolved.) Please copy and paste your submission into the body of the email, even if you include an attachment such as Word or PDF. 3. There is no mandatory submission fee, but we ask you to consider a voluntary donation to show your support to the time, management, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review. It takes an incredible amount of time to curate the journal, read regular and contest submissions, etc. Paying all expenses out of pocket is also prohibitive. Thank you. A voluntary gift does not affect the selection process in any way. Scroll down to donate $5CAD (about $3.75 USD). 4. USE THIS EMAIL ONLY. Send your work to [email protected]. Challenge submissions sent to the other inboxes will most likely be lost as those are read in chronological order of receipt, weeks or longer behind, and are not seen at all by guest editors. They will be discarded. Sorry. 5.Include PICABIA CHALLENGE in the subject line. 6. Include your name and a brief bio. If you do not include your bio, it will not be included with your work, if accepted. Even if you have already written for The Ekphrastic Review or submitted other works and your bio is "on file" you must include it in your challenge submission. 7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 8. Deadline is midnight EST, January 31, 2025. 9. Please do not send revisions, corrections, or changes to your poetry or your biography after the fact. If it's not ready yet, hang on to it until it is. 10. Selected submissions will be published together, with the prompt, one week after the deadline. 11. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we do not send out sorry notices or yes letters for challenge submissions. You will see what poetry and stories have been selected when the responses are posted one week after the deadline. Understand that we value your participation as part of our ekphrastic community, but we can only choose a handful of the many entries we receive. 12. A word on the selection process: we strive for a balance between rewarding regular participants and sharing the voices of writers who are new to our family. We also look for a variety of perspectives and styles, and a range of interesting takes on the painting. It is difficult to reproduce experimental formatting, so unfortunately we won't choose many with unusual spacing or typography. 13. By submitting to The Ekphrastic Review, you are also automatically joining our subscribers' list. Your submission is your permission. We don't send spam and we don't send many emails- you will not receive forty-four emails a day! Our newsletter occasionally updates you on some of the challenges, news, contests, prize nominations, ekphrastic happenings, prompt ebooks, workshops, and more. 14. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges! 15. Please share this prompt with your writing groups, Facebook groups, social media circles, and anywhere else you can. The simple act of sharing brings readers to The Ekphrastic Review, and that is the best way to support the poets and writers on our pages! 16. Check this space every Friday for new challenges and selected responses, alternating weekly.  The Wild Hunt of Odin, by Peter Nicolai Arbo (Norway) 1872 Let Them Be Free —for poet Wendell Berry and author Mel Robbins The midwinter blues coalesce as the gusty grays collide constellate near the diagonal darkness of an airborne battle. Here weapons deploy amid legions of chaos. Unlike the legends of brutality rendered atop canvas or the reality of present-day feuds between humans the owl and raven the goat and horse fend for well-being seek mellow horizons as they glide walk and gallop toward circumstances within their control practice The Peace of Wild Things and The Let Them Theory. Jeannie E. Roberts
Jeannie E. Roberts is the author of several books, including The Ethereal Effect - A Collection of Villanelles (Kelsay Books, 2022). On a Clear Night, I Can Hear My Body Sing is forthcoming from Kelsay Books in 2025. She serves as a poetry editor for the online literary magazine Halfway Down the Stairs. ** Through the nightly air (from the opening line of the poem Asgaardsreien, by Johan Sebastian Welhaven.) Dark and hideous burns a sunrise bruising sacred goodness of a life. Combating chores on days of no consequence, women weave a vapor chorus, let the green fly into the web- while the men assault cheap liquors. Turmoiled mind, howling time drowns murmurs and the scent. Secrets smolder through the nightly air. Abha Das Sarma An engineer and management consultant by profession, Abha Das Sarma enjoys writing. Besides having a blog of over 200 poems (http://dassarmafamily.blogspot.com), her poems have appeared in Muddy River Poetry Review, Spillwords, Verse-Virtual, Visual Verse, Sparks of Calliope, Trouvaille Review, Silver Birch Press, Blue Heron Review, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, here and elsewhere. Having spent her growing up years in small towns of northern India, she currently lives in Bengaluru. ** [frothing black horses] frothing black horses presage the coming storm of the hunting forces of rain forcing the hollow-eyed prey of the following cataract coarsening weather-veins pulsing repulsing all hallows evening all Wotan hailing unmortal flesh flushed flown OddWritings, a.k.a. George Pestana OddWritings, a.k.a. George Pestana, has a degree in computer science. He enjoys playing with words, doing crossword puzzles, writing poems, and occasionally publishing them. You can learn more about him at http://oddwritings.com . ** Ode to Odin Odin bursts into the dead of night his wild vein horsing on his forehead haunted by the bright mirage of the muses’ porcelain souls lost in peripatetic cadence luring him in chase through Valhalla drowning darkness as their gloss blinds his mind and he can’t but grab and run till all porcelain ghosts are dumped into the crack of dawn. In a way it’s carnage. In a way - bondage. Odin has awareness of none. He belongs to the Solstice taunt. By dawn Odin is oddly gently numb. You awake to what made your wynorrific dream. Ekaterina Dukas Ekaterina Dukas, MA, writes poetry as a pilgrimage to the meaning and enjoys being frequently honoured by TER and its challenges. Her poetry collection Ekphrasticon is published by Europe Edizioni. ** Tidings from Mjolnir Shut your eyes, for we have been awoken by the flames of Valhalla to ride into your moonless night. Run, while you still can, into the shallow depths of your camp tents, brothels-- pray that the pain shall kill you swift when the valkyries stab out your battle cries with spears, lay you down with bow and arrow, condemn your chainmail armour and naked bodies to the lowest layer of Helheim. Our ravens have brought death unto whole armies, raised hordes of harlots from graves, so waste not your last moments on thoughts of escape-- Rather, peer past those billowing curtains and look to the rolling clouds, shadow mountains, thunder, Thor. Angelina Carrera Angelina Carrera, 22, is a neurodivergent poet, Philosophy major, and Creative Writing minor at UC Berkeley. She is winner of First Matter Press’ 2024 Ekphrastic Poem Contest. Her work has been featured in After Happy Hour Review, F(r)iction, Last Stanza Poetry Journal, and more. ** Wild Hunt Odin’s terrifying procession across the night sky A wild hunt, seeking all those not hidden, to die Across the winter landscape, dead souls would fly It presaged a catastrophe, such as a plague or war A motif with origins in Germanic and Nordic lore Seeking and abducting witnesses to join the horde The moon looks on, through the thickening cloud Cries of the many rabid hunters, deafeningly loud All blinded by violence, none ever shall be cowed The dawn soon to come, the sun with its own fire Survivors, to be left trembling in the bloody mire Seeing them overhead with bared teeth and sword Howard Osborne Howard has written poetry and short stories, also a novel and several scripts. With poems published online and in print, he is a published author of a non-fiction reference book and several scientific papers many years ago. He is a UK citizen, retired, with interests in writing, music and travel. ** Truth or Dare? Near fifty past in Wistmans’s Wood connections with The Hunt, their sale for tourist bounty, rural rides, though county next, in Cornish lore the Devil’s Dandy Dogs seemed frail. Grimm tales, long spread, all underlaid; did delta drain, strain deemed aura? Here’s host of pruning, thinning ways - those Marvel Comics, Quatermass - with music, modern media. But myths are truths, allegory, so commonalities exist, a pattern made, if not pre-laid, each culture with twist patented, like stubborn stubble, winnowed grist. Midst winter woods, ferocious winds, both howling hounds and growling storms, as plagues, wars, famines strip the ground, land spirits from cult-of-the-dead, all baying, gallop, restless forms. These spectral and nocturnal hordes, a muscle memory of tears, less threat by naming, slotted box, or by transforming to our taste - so fairy host, those vicious, clears. As culture vultures search their roots, find routes by which we share our fears, new faiths accommodate as must, adopt or demonise as best - for monks and missionaries steer. In harmony, strange Schönberg see - while Weber also joins that Liszt. Here Hecate and Wicca merge in pagan pantheon with Norse, that none be missed in vaulting mist? The nightly frothing horse stampede, thronged ravens of the Odin flock, those spectral riders, Arbo’s frame - feel menace din of restless souls, these trolls, werewolves, Valhalla stock. Stephen Kingsnorth Stephen Kingsnorth (Cambridge M.A., English & Religious Studies), retired to Wales, UK, from ministry in the Methodist Church due to Parkinson’s Disease, has had pieces curated and published by on-line poetry sites, printed journals and anthologies, including The Ekphrastic Review. He has, like so many, been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. His blog is at https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com ** Hunted nightmare carves the dark like fire breaking under rough clouds a stampede of wild horses their hooves iron anvils striking sparks from a gunmetal sky-- ghost-ridden chased from the last dull shelter split open and broken empty bone shell crushed out of hope and no chance of rescue where dark squalls of crow and raven shoulder past even the faintest memory of light and I crouch beneath the weight of judgement’s heel and wait the final hammerfall of night Mary McCarthy Mary McCarthy is a retired Registered Nurse who has always been a writer. Her work has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including The Ekphrastic World, edited by Lorette C. Luzajic, The Plague Papers, edited by Robbi Nester, The Memory Palace, edited by Lorette C. Luzajic and Clare MacQueen, and recent issues of Gyroscope, 3rd Wednesday, Caustic Frolic, Inscribe, the Storyteller Review, and Verse Virtual. Her collection, How to Become Invisible, that chronicles a bipolar journey, is now available from Kelsay books, Amazon, and the author. ** Ode to Woden When Wednesday's child though full of woe won the war we warriors wandered home to whelp our wee ones oh how we wept whence we saw The Wild Hunt of Odin where once again we women were limbed without wearing nary a gown Donna-Lee Smith Donna-Lee Smith writes from Gotland Island where the Baltic Sea nibbles the coastline and the Vikings rest their souls in ships of stone. ** Gehenna Revolts Of all the evils man has endeavored, one yet remains, too long endured. Convicting mortal nature—a devil! masquerades as both magistrate and Lord. So, in coalition and common reason, the damned then to the depths resort. Where in concert as resounding Legion, against the deity they lead revolt. Together, harmonic in agreement, the demonic chamber forever pleads. While the Archon stokes over Hades’ ember, devouring sacraments of ill-will and misdeed. The guilt it savours are remorseful flavours-- morsels of the bitter treasure hoard. Until again, at vengeance end, the unrepentant feed their god once more. Jory Como Jory Como is an aspiring American writer residing in Christchurch, New Zealand. ** Inheritance My ghosts are visible but unrecognizable. we wish on stars, on myth, on the magic of words spelled into narratives that journey us alive My ghosts cannot be confined. alive inside darkness awaiting the ending of time, ethereal layers scattered like seeds My ghosts are ravenous and skeletal. layers of seeds scattered into history—what grows from our bones? are we tied to earth or spirit? My ghosts are beasts of legend, followers of frenzied flight. spirit relics remade into dust, particles that travel in wavelengths of long lost souls, shadows My ghosts hold the darkest hour untouched by light. shadows emptied of self-- moon-mirrors death-dancing-- as if they could tell us who was master, who thrall My ghosts are divine, profane, profound. Kerfe Roig A resident of New York City, Kerfe Roig enjoys transforming words and images into something new. Follow her explorations on her blogs,https://methodtwomadness.wordpress.com/ (which she does with her friend Nina), and https://kblog.blog/. ** These Visions Sadden Me so don’t expect a love poem, minus enticing apples and rose petals it shrieks of conquest and power, not one brush stroke of humanity. Evil heaves itself across a terrifying sky hunters seize unfortunate souls unable to find refuge in time, but, in the midst of this ambush what about those lithe Valkyries─ are they compassionate heroes or hostile compadres steering the ill-fated to the slaughter? The opposite of a love poem, there’s no hope in this melee, only sorrow that history and lore often celebrate brutality. Elaine Sorrentino Elaine Sorrentino has been published in Minerva Rising, Willawaw Journal, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, The Ekphrastic Review, ONE ART: a journal of poetry, Haiku Universe, Sparks of Calliope, Gyroscope Review, Quartet Journal, The Raven’s Perch, and Panoplyzine. She hosts the Duxbury Poetry Circle and is looking forward having her first poetry collection, Belly Dancing in a Brown Sweatsuit, published by Kelsay Books in spring of 2025. Visit Elaine online at https://www.elainesorrentinopoet.com/. ** They May Fight on the Clouds They may fight on the clouds riding horseback. They may turn the rivers red with blood. But Odin, the god of poets, the god of war With his band of female handmaiden warriors His Valkyries, he will not give anyone room. Except for those few, his choosers of the slain And the slain will then be carried to Valhalla, As heroes to once more live immortally again They may fight on the field of battle valiantly. They may even sing of victories fairly won. But Odin, the god of poets, the god of war He will throw his spear again and again. While riding his eight-legged horse, Sleipnir, And his spear will hit its mark and sink Into the hearts of beasts like a venomous snake. And no doubt his victims will undoubtedly fall. But Odin, the god of war, the god of the dead And the hall of the slain he will use his knowledge, His sorcery to defeat those who won’t kneel, Bow before his royal feet. Wisdom is his alone. After bartering his sight for a far greater insight Those who don't agree will swing from the gallows. They may fight on the clouds riding horseback. They may turn the rivers red with bubbling blood. But Odin, the god of poets, the god of war Today, he alone knows what’s truly in store. With his band of female warrior handmaidens He will cut the beast of the field down to straw. With a party of airborne horsemen accompanied By ravens and owls, the Wild Hunt is upon us. And all are sent scurrying like a fleeing whore. Back to the places where sleep's a wild pagan boar. Mark Andrew Heathcote Mark Andrew Heathcote is an adult learning difficulties support worker. His poems have been published in journals, magazines, and anthologies online and in print. He is from Manchester and resides in the UK. Mark is the author of In Perpetuity and Back on Earth, two books of poems published by Creative Talents Unleashed. ** To Nicolai Arbo Regarding The Wild Hunt of Odin There are forces far beyond us eyes behind us would explain as torrential fury's vengeance gods could wreak upon the vain at the turning of the winter through the dark of longest night as the chill of bitter warning in a wind of lethal might to remind us flesh is mortal but its soul might well survive to be prey of Odin's hunters for the hell in which they thrive while they leave our ash to fallow as the terror thus they hallow. You paint that tale in single frame with screech implied of mythic fame and wind as if the eerie moan of souls removed from flesh and bone amid the thundered rumbling sound of hooves that strike the air as ground emerging from concealing clouds unbound it seems from yielding shrouds becoming capes that flutter free as terror eye can plainly see against the veil of shuttered sky at dusk so prematurely nigh that crackles with the distant fire of life extinguished on its pyre to kindle in the warming glow rebirth as spring we will not know except by deed or brush or pen that tells the tale of who we've been. Portly Bard Portly Bard: Prefers to craft with sole intent... of verse becoming complement... ...and by such homage being lent... ideally also compliment. Ekphrastic joy comes not from praise for words but from returning gaze far more aware of fortune art becomes to eyes that fathom heart.  Life on the Precipice 1, Yosemite Park, photography by Franka M. Gabler (USA) contemporary. Click image for artist site. Join us for biweekly ekphrastic writing challenges. See why so many writers are hooked on ekphrasis! We feature some of the most accomplished, influential writers working today, and we also welcome emerging or first time writers and those who simply want to experience art in a deeper way or try something creative.
The prompt this time is Life on the Precipice, by Franka M. Gabler. Deadline is January 17, 2025. You can submit poetry, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, microfiction, or any other form creative writing you like. 1000 words max please. The Rules 1. Use this visual art prompt as a springboard for your writing. It can be a poem or short prose (fiction or nonfiction.) You can research the artwork or artist and use your discoveries to fuel your writing, or you can let the image alone provoke your imagination. 2. Write as many poems and stories as you like. Send only your best works or final draft, not everything you wrote down. (Please note, experimental formats are difficult to publish online. We will consider them but they present technical difficulties with web software that may not be easily resolved.) Please copy and paste your submission into the body of the email, even if you include an attachment such as Word or PDF. 3. There is no mandatory submission fee, but we ask you to consider a voluntary donation to show your support to the time, management, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review. It takes an incredible amount of time to curate the journal, read regular and contest submissions, etc. Paying all expenses out of pocket is also prohibitive. Thank you. A voluntary gift does not affect the selection process in any way. Scroll down to donate $5CAD (about $3.75 USD). 4. USE THIS EMAIL ONLY. Send your work to [email protected]. Challenge submissions sent to the other inboxes will most likely be lost as those are read in chronological order of receipt, weeks or longer behind, and are not seen at all by guest editors. They will be discarded. Sorry. 5.Include GABLER CHALLENGE in the subject line. 6. Include your name and a brief bio. If you do not include your bio, it will not be included with your work, if accepted. Even if you have already written for The Ekphrastic Review or submitted other works and your bio is "on file" you must include it in your challenge submission. 7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 8. Deadline is midnight EST, January 17, 2025. 9. Please do not send revisions, corrections, or changes to your poetry or your biography after the fact. If it's not ready yet, hang on to it until it is. 10. Selected submissions will be published together, with the prompt, one week after the deadline. 11. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we do not send out sorry notices or yes letters for challenge submissions. You will see what poetry and stories have been selected when the responses are posted one week after the deadline. Understand that we value your participation as part of our ekphrastic community, but we can only choose a handful of the many entries we receive. 12. A word on the selection process: we strive for a balance between rewarding regular participants and sharing the voices of writers who are new to our family. We also look for a variety of perspectives and styles, and a range of interesting takes on the painting. It is difficult to reproduce experimental formatting, so unfortunately we won't choose many with unusual spacing or typography. 13. By submitting to The Ekphrastic Review, you are also automatically joining our subscribers' list. Your submission is your permission. We don't send spam and we don't send many emails- you will not receive forty-four emails a day! Our newsletter occasionally updates you on some of the challenges, news, contests, prize nominations, ekphrastic happenings, prompt ebooks, workshops, and more. 14. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges! 15. Please share this prompt with your writing groups, Facebook groups, social media circles, and anywhere else you can. The simple act of sharing brings readers to The Ekphrastic Review, and that is the best way to support the poets and writers on our pages! 16. Check this space every Friday for new challenges and selected responses, alternating weekly. |
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