Our Fifty Shades of Blue contest is officially over!

Please join me in congratulating Lynn Aprill, winner in the flash fiction category, and Dorothy Burrows, winner in the poetry category.

Thank you to every single participant for your incredible creativity! Thank you to our finalists- please click here to see the writers, and read all of the finalist poems and stories. 

Congratulations Lynn and Dorothy!

Both winners will also receive $100 prize. 

Please share this page on your social media. Thank you everyone!

The Message

At first glance, she is all repose, lounging in the mottled chair, one hand resting on the ruffles of her evening dress, the shadows of night having crept into the corners, the corsage of cornflowers, a bleuet, pinned above her heart.

The flowers had arrived with a missive which she slipped open, a smile still playing at the corners of her mouth. Then she slowly folded into the chair, first shock, then despair visiting her face. Now resignation has come to sit shiva on the death of her dream, suppressed rage blazing her cheeks. 

The note lies neglected, just out of reach on the cold floor, it’s brief message already burned into her brain: 

                          Elizabeth, he threatened to take the children if I didn’t return to him.
                          I can’t lose them. I’m sorry.

Lynn Aprill
​
​Award-winning poet and educator Lynn Aprill has published work recently in Bramble, Willows Wept Review, Quartet, and others. Channeling Matriarchs, her first chapbook with Finishing Line Press, was released in August 2021. She resides with her husband and various dogs on 40 acres in Northeast Wisconsin. Her work can be found at https://lynnaprill.weebly.com/

Editor’s Note
 
The torrent of entries for Starry Night took me off guard. I was expecting there would be many more than usual, because Van Gogh is an evergreen ekphrastic inspiration, and because what poet or writer isn’t moved by his exquisite work and life? But I wasn’t prepared, even so. Although I selected almost fifty entries, I left more out in the cold than ever. At least ten of you sent multiple pieces this time, with one person sending eleven poems on this painting!
 
Choosing which works to publish for any aspect of this journal is the hardest part. I find it so difficult that I publish extravagantly, every day, and two special editions a month. This means we publish well over a thousand poems and stories every year, a time-consuming habit, but one with so many rewards. And yet that is probably not even five percent of the ekphrases we receive. Art moves us, it helps us find the words.
 
Thank you to every one. To those whose works appear here, and to those who don’t. This is a very special community, a worldwide circle writing about art and sharing the riches with each other. 

This is the first time we have made an ebook from the challenge responses. This is an experiment, to see how the format works, as well as a way for you to invite the world to our writers.
 
Please share this ebook freely. It is free, but extremely valuable. Please share it with every reader you know, and anyone who loves art. This booklet is an invitation from all of us into the world of The Ekphrastic Review. Invite more readers to us, so they can read these writers, and all of our writers, those in our archives, and those ahead. Thank you.
 
love, Lorette

Join us for biweekly ekphrastic writing challenges. See why so many writers are hooked on ekphrastic! We feature some of the most accomplished, influential poets writing 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 Nebra Sky Disk, found in Germany with uncertain origins. Deadline is March 4, 2022 .

You can submit poetry, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, microfiction, or any other form creative writing you like. 1000 words max please.


**
​
The Rules

1. Use this visual art prompt as a springboard for your writing. It can be a poem or short prose (fiction or nonfiction.) You can research the artwork or artist and use your discoveries to fuel your writing, or you can let the image alone provoke your imagination.

2. Write as many poems and stories as you like. Send only your best works or final draft, not everything you wrote down. (Please note, experimental formats are difficult to publish online. We will consider them but they present technical difficulties with web software that may not be easily resolved.) Please copy and paste your submission into the body of the email, even if you include an attachment such as Word or PDF.

3. There is no mandatory submission fee, but we ask you to consider a voluntary donation to show your support to the time, management, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review. It takes an incredible amount of time to curate the journal, read regular and contest submissions, etc. Paying all expenses out of pocket is also prohibitive. Helping the editor share the time and expenses involved is very much appreciated. There is an easy button to click below to share a five spot through PayPal or credit card. Thank you.

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 NEBRA 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, March 4, 2022.

9. Please do not send revisions, corrections, or changes to your poetry or your biography after the fact. If it's not ready yet, hang on to it until it is.

10. Selected submissions will be published together, with the prompt, one week after the deadline.

11. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we will no longer send out sorry notices or yes letters. You will see what poetry and stories have been selected when the responses are posted one week after the deadline. Understand that we value your participation as part of our ekphrastic community, but we can only choose a handful of the many entries we receive. 

12. A word on the selection process: we strive for a balance between rewarding regular participants and sharing the voices of writers who are new to our family. We also look for a variety of perspectives and styles, and a range of interesting takes on the painting. It is difficult to reproduce experimental formatting, so unfortunately we won't choose many with unusual spacing or typography. 

13. Please note, some selected responses may also be chosen for our newly born podcast, TERcets, with host Brian Salmons. Your submission implies permission should he decide to read yours. If that happens, you will be notified and sent a link to share. Thank you!

14. 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! We send a newsletter zero to two times a month, with hopes of more consistency in the future. It updates you on challenges, news, contests, prize nominations, ekphrastic happenings, prompt ebooks, the podcast, and more. You can cancel at any time, of course, but may find yourself back on the list after another submission. We hope you don't cancel because we like to stay in touch occasionally!

​15. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges!
​
16. 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!

17. Check this space every Friday for new challenges and selected responses, alternating weekly.

**
​
This prompt is one of many fascinating moon-themed artworks included in our book of art prompts, Moon Gazing, to inspire your writing practice. 

The Fifty Shades of Blue ekphrastic flash fiction and poetry contest has come to a close. Today we are absolutely delighted to announce our finalists and share them with you. Please take a moment to share this page on your Facebook or Twitter- we want our writers to be read, and you can help with this simple social media click!

Thank you to every single one of you who entered the contest. It was a rich experience to read through all of your stories and poems, and see how you were inspired by the imagery you were shown. As always, it was tough to choose finalists from so many wonderful perspectives and talents.

Please join us in congratulating the finalists.

The first place winner in each category will be announced soon and awarded their $100 prizes.

Flash Fiction Finalists
 
The Message, by Lynn Aprill
Great-Great-Grandpa’s Teeth, by Finnian Burnett
Façade of the Shirin-Bika Aga Mausoleum, by Kim Malcolm
Young Man in the Moon, by Lisa Molina
Disharmony, by Ronni Sandroff
A Net of Blue Dancers, by Melinda Thomsen
 
Poetry Finalists
 
Built Blue, a Ghazal, by Laurel Benjamin
ghost-white town blues, by Dorothy Burrows
On Seeing Piet Mondrian’s Composition with Blue, by Ronnie Hess  
The Blue Coat, by Lynne Kemen
Life Mosaic, by Jackie Langetieg
Something Blue for My Daughter-in-Law: a Blessing, by Ellen Sazzman
The Accountant Sets Aside Her Ledgers, by Alarie Tennille
Wide/Blue/Cricket, by t.m. Thompson
Iemanjá, Farol Desusado, by Bernardo Villela

Great-Great-Grandpa’s Teeth

George Washington didn’t really have wooden teeth, but my great-great-grandfather did, and they grin at me from the dresser, the kitchen table, the mantle, or wherever I’ve moved them looking for that special spot where they won’t creep me out. 

But they’re all we have left, my mother said, crying, when she gave them to me shortly after the birth of my first child. It’s tradition, she said, and someday, you’ll pass them on to your oldest. 

Great-grandpa’s teeth click when I walk past. I tried to hide them in a closet but then I dreamed about them, giant chomping wooden teeth chasing me through the hallways of my house. 

Just get rid of them, my husband grumbles periodically, but I can’t—we all know what happened when my mom’s mom tried to throw them away, how she heard them laughing as she ran from the garbage, how she fell and sprained her ankle, how she cried as she crawled back to the trash can to retrieve the teeth, how sometimes, even into her old age, she whispers I’m sorry, I’m sorry whenever someone mentions teeth. 

So, they sit and watch and sometimes they chatter, and I lie awake in bed at night praying and praying for the birth of my first grandchild.

​Finnian Burnett
​
​Finnian Burnett teaches undergrad English and creative writing for an MFA program. Finn also leads classes on various aspects of writing flash. They’ve published in the Bath Flash Fiction Award Anthology, Daily Science Fiction, Flash Fiction Magazine, and more. In their spare time, Finn watches a lot of Star Trek and takes their cat for walks in a stroller. Finn lives in British Columbia with their wife and Lord Gordo, the cat.  Finn can be found at www.finnburnett.com

Façade of the Shirin-Bika Aga Mausoleum  

When he was 12, Sayed's father took him out of school one day and drove him to the workshop of a tile maker on the other side of Kabul.  The day after that, Sayed's Father boarded a train to Pakistan with a fake passport.  He was Shi'ia and had worked for the government during the Soviet occupation. The Taliban would kill him for that. 

Sayed's father had always called him a troublemaker, but at the tile maker’s, Sayed was a good son. He knew he was responsible to support his mother and younger brothers. For ten hours a day, he painted tiny tiles with tiny brushes. The tiles were like those made in his country for thousands of years for mosques and the houses of the rich.  Sayed sat at a low bench a stew of dust and flies. By the second day of his work, his back ached and his sight was too blurry to see the patterns on the tiles. Dozens of women and children were painting tiles in the room. When Sayed smiled at one of the boys he recognized from school, the tile maker hit Sayed's head with his fist. 

At the end of two weeks, the tile maker handed Sayed an envelope of cash. Inside, there was not enough to feed Sayed's family for even a week. Sayed did not return to work the next day.

 On his first day without a school or a job, Sayed went to the public market where smugglers sold dreams and farmers sold eggplants. He stood waiting quietly but conspicuously, just as all men do who are looking for something in the market that cannot be cooked or cleaned.  He heard a voice. “Sayed!  Lala! What are you doing here, you worthless boy?”  It was Sayed's 15-year-old cousin, Jamal, gleefully waving at him. Jamal sold men’s socks and underwear at a small kiosk near the end of a long row of tables. Jamal had joy, Sayed thought, because he did not have dreams. Sayed hugged Jamal and told him that his father had escaped to Pakistan.  “I need work, Jamal Joon, so I do not shame my family.”

Jamal was honest and hardworking, but he knew all of the ways to survive and all of the men attached to survival.  The next day, Sayed began a new job smuggling grapes to a winemaker. The Taliban would kill him for that. 

When Sayed's father returned to Kabul a year later, he asked his wife, "How did you get all of this new furniture? Who has been sleeping in my house?" 
​
"Only your sons," she replied.

Kim Malcolm

Kim Malcolm is a California native and retired from a career in government and nonprofit leadership, where she held positions including administrative law judge and executive director. Since retiring, Kim has traveled to more than 40 countries and lives part of the year in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. In 2018, she published a memoir of her work with refugees in Greece called A Country Within. She is currently working on a second work of narrative nonfiction about a family in Louisiana. Kim has a 29-year old son, Gabe, who lives in Oakland, California.
​

Disharmony

“Do you mind?” he asked.

Blanchard liked that he asked. He was from Spain, too, she realized as he spoke, though it was obvious that the city council of Santander did not give him a grant to study painting in Paris! She shrugged ok with one jagged shoulder and that cost her a line of pain along her crooked spine.

He touched his paper lottery ticket to her hump. “It’s good luck, you know.”

Oh she knew. But she hadn’t heard of anyone winning the lottery because of her cripple luck. She turned back to the sketch pad wedged between the cafe table and her knees. They were at that cafe in Montmartre, which every artist since feels cheated to have missed. 

“If I win, I’ll buy a drawing,” he said, though he looked like he could better use a new pair of trousers.

“Sit,” she said. “I’ll draw you.”

“Wait, wait,” he fidgeted. “I can’t just sit and do nothing. I’ll get my guitar.” He was back in a thrice shaking the leaves out of the hole in the guitar he had hidden somewhere in the vacant lot behind them. Paris was full of vacancies before the wars. There was room for all kinds of luck. 

She let him play for a while before she picked up the charcoal. His music was too strummy and nervous to be really good. He opened his mouth like a magpie and sang a traditional love song with alarming emotion. The people at a far table applauded softly.

The light was good and showed his outline on the concrete wall of the cafe. Man with guitar. Picasso had done it. Braque had done it. Blanchard would undo it.

He began to play a sad song with a rim of anger. She drew the disharmony of him - the pointed ears, claw-like fingers, knife bent knees. Then she shaded in the colors she would add in the studio. The brash blue of his music shadowed his shape on the wall. Thick black and white panels split him in half, critiquing it all.

The music swelled out of him like the blue night curtaining down. It sounded better and better to her as she worked.

Ronni Sandroff

Ronni Sandroff writes micro stories about the human comedy.

The Message

At first glance, she is all repose, lounging in the mottled chair, one hand resting on the ruffles of her evening dress, the shadows of night having crept into the corners, the corsage of cornflowers, a bleuet, pinned above her heart.

The flowers had arrived with a missive which she slipped open, a smile still playing at the corners of her mouth. Then she slowly folded into the chair, first shock, then despair visiting her face. Now resignation has come to sit shiva on the death of her dream, suppressed rage blazing her cheeks. 

The note lies neglected, just out of reach on the cold floor, it’s brief message already burned into her brain: 

                          Elizabeth, he threatened to take the children if I didn’t return to him.
                          I can’t lose them. I’m sorry.

Lynn Aprill
​
​Award-winning poet and educator Lynn Aprill has published work recently in Bramble, Willows Wept Review, Quartet, and others. Channeling Matriarchs, her first chapbook with Finishing Line Press, was released in August 2021. She resides with her husband and various dogs on 40 acres in Northeast Wisconsin. Her work can be found at https://lynnaprill.weebly.com/ 

All

Cannot read nor concentrate,
am filling days with endless 
songs or numberless walks, and
water-blue, stain-less steel still 
matter, for you no longer bring 
me birdsong without fall.
         I will, you must, just trust, and
         wrap up in a thousand white sheets
         or dress up in your satin silk, for
         jewelry has different looks as long 
         as we together.
The eyes open to avoid the shadow-side 
of amber windows, and I still scrawl 
your fears, mine, the ginger-bogey-man 
has to leave once and for all, nightmares, 
dreams will fill with summer orange and 
waving lapis-blue.
        And someone else than us might see dark
        on the doorstep, so lets carry empty envelopes,
        smile some red cherry smiles, and see our later
        when it turns light, no shadow days or bluer nights 
are left to stare at, and we will do nothing less, we.

Kate Copeland

Kate Copeland started absorbing stories ever since a little lass. Her love for words led her to teaching & translating some sweet languages, her love for art, lyrics & water led her to poetry ...with readings & publications sealed alright! Find her words @ The Ekphrastic Review, Poetry Barn & Poetry Distillery, Spirit Fire Review, First Lit.Review-East, GrandLittleThings, New Feathers Anthology & Metaworker. She has recently joined Lisa Freedman at her Breathe-Read-Write workshops and works at Poetry Festivals in Holland and California. Kate was born in Rotterdam 52 ages ago & adores housesitting in Spain, the UK & USA.

​**

Indra’s Rainbow

In blue and black hues when amber glows
I like to think of Vedic Trimurti.

Such an idea may agitate the tenet of Trinity.  Yet
I see the brilliance of my blue god and black expanse

of the cosmos where Brahma sits and creates.
Vishnu always loves to tease and play.

The trident-bearer Shiva wears a crescent
moon, eyeing its eventual death.  Dancing

is his way of surrender to Shakti.
If you ask, between stillness and play

what if colours had our human lens? Will they praise
or question how we shade and grade them?

As a child I often played with rain, our all-time pal.
It drew arches in pink-purple-blue-green-yellow-orange-red.

When it rode with god Indra the archer vanishing as fast
as he arrived, we said, together with Surya, rain did the magic.

​Varsha Saraiya-Shah

​Varsha Saraiya-Shah authored “VOICES,” a poetry chapbook published by Finishing Line Press. Her work appears in journals such as Borderlands, Cha, Convergence, Echoes of the Cordillera, Mutabilis Press, Penguin Random House India, Skylark-UK, UT Press etc. She has presented ekphrastic poems at Words & Art programs for Houston’s Rice Gallery and CAMH museum installations. Her poetry has been broadcast on Public Radio and performed in a multi-language/century dance program: “Poetry in Motion.”

**

Haiku

Let's take off our clothes
Then unbind our captive souls
Here comes heaven

肌の色違ふ人いて神迎

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 an thologies of Chinese poetry. His academic works in economics are also published in many books and academic journals.

**

Together Alone

They look your way, but you are not what they see. The way you don’t see the photographer who takes your school picture. The way you don’t see the writer when they draw you on the page. You are behind the painter, the writer, the creator together in a room, but you are invisible. For years you wanted to be unnoticed. You wanted to fit in with the smokers in front of Safeway, with the hoopsters playing half court at lunch, with the debaters who argued the sky wasn’t blue and made a believer of you. Now on the other end of the dream, you discover that invisibility is not what you thought it would be. You see that now, as they gaze but don’t notice. One month from today, you will be older than your mother, father, stepfather, and sister when they died, older than beloved Rip in dog years when he passed. You’re not sure what that says, or what that means, or doesn’t mean. Sometimes a fact is just a fact. There’s an intimacy to invisibility. You write a poem. A stranger sees your poem and writes one in response. And the two poems see each other and share an exchange in some imagined sphere, apart from you and the other poet, connected with no ties. Eternity has no measure, imagination no limit. What’s unseen may still be there. Together and alone, you roam through creation, staring in wonder at what we call home.
                                                                                                                    
Guy Biederman

Guy Biederman is a plank walker, pareidolia doula, and nomadic coffee drinker on the dock in the late afternoon. With deep respect for the short form, Guy writes in between his full time duties as a Tuxedo cat valet, grateful that his boss sleeps 23 hours a day. Learn more about his work at  guybiederman.com

**

Me, Myself, and I

We once were one, but now we’re three –
exploring life in different races,
and traveling as He or She
to test how others read our faces.

At first we found it difficult
to give up unearned privilege
or guess what habits or taboos
we’d meet in each new tribe or village.

Yet lessons learned when we felt brave
empower us when we meet fear,
and lessons learned when we felt weak
make our lifelong mission clear.

No matter who we seem to be,
in dreams we know we’re still each other –
a single soul, united heart,
determined not to hurt another.

​Alarie Tennille

Alarie Tennille was born and raised in Portsmouth, Virginia, and graduated from the University of Virginia in the first class admitting women. Thanks to fellow poets, who generously share the hottest poetry news, Alarie visited The Ekphrastic Review a few months after its birth and decided to move in to stay. She’s been a consultant for prizes, occasional judge, and received one of the first Fantastic Ekphrastic Awards in 2020. Please check out her three poetry collections on the Ekphrastic Bookshelf.

**

Projection
  
I have no choice
but to be the white woman
 
naked and with my whole body
thrust forward into view
 
except my face, seen only
as through a scrim,
 
looking straight out, saying
here I am
 
while the black man
and the blue man
 
stand beside and behind,
so we form a triangle
 
and call it togetherness
though it is hard to know
 
the nature of our union,
each of us projected 
 
in segments and incompletely,
so we begin with facts –
 
our prize-winning and our grave-digging,
the lives we’ve lived or lost –
 
imagine ourselves
into each other’s eyes
 
through which now 
we look at you,
 
asking
who do you see?

Lisken Van Pelt Dus

Lisken Van Pelt Dus teaches languages, writing, and martial arts in western Massachusetts. Her poetry can be found in a variety of print and online journals and anthologies, as well as in her book, What We’re Made Of (Cherry Grove, 2016). http://liskenvanpeltduspoetry.blogspot.com/

**

unholy trinity

You three again!
What do you want from me?
Who are you?
You only come when I'm alone
and I'm never sure I'm not dreaming.

Your eyes bore into my very soul
telling me you see the darkness within,
omniscient, searching, accusing,
unrelenting tacit disapproval
of a battle-weary spiritual combatant.

We're all the same.
We're all conscripts with no choice.
So why pick on me with your accusing eyes
as I struggle with spiritual schizophrenia?
Finite mind and body versus infinite soul.

You can accuse but you can't convict.
My penalty has been paid,
so get behind me.

Stephen Poole

Biography: Stephen Poole served for 31 years in the Metropolitan Police in London, England. As a freelance journalist, he has written for a variety of British county and national magazines. Passionate about poetry since boyhood, his poems have appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, Poetry on the Lake, LPP Magazine and two anthologies.

**

Togetherness
 
Naked, transparent, exposed,
she is the very portrait
of white fragility.
 
 She begs:  Why can’t 
I have some clothes,
or a loincloth, at the least?
 
When someone speaks of race,
I am uncovered,
how I profit from the sins
 
of my father and forefathers, 
from the tilt of our laws, 
the shape of our neighbourhoods.  
 
She implores us to drape her 
in some camouflage--
perhaps a law to ban 
 
the remembrance of history,
that unflinching x-ray machine
into the secret heart of darkness.
 
Eileen Ivey Sirota
 
Eileen Ivey Sirota is a psychotherapist and a poet.  Her chapbook Out of Order was published by Finishing Line Press in 2020.  Her poems have been published in District Lines, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Lighten Up, NewVerseNews, Ekphrastic Review, The Poeming Pigeon’s issue From Pandemic to Protest, Calyx, and Voices: The Art and Science of Psychotherapy, Journal of the American Academy of Psychotherapists.  She lives in Bethesda, MD with her husband and an ever-shifting blend of rage and wonder.

**

Togetherness 
 
My Blue Brother 
my Black Friend 
loincloths 
shroud  
cocks  
discreet 
 
Look at me 
my body screams 
vulva 
open season 
 
Where  
my shroud 
my cerement 

Donna-Lee Smith

Donna-Lee Smith recently began submitting poetry at 72.

**

Togetherness
 
How can we be together
when we are so different?
 
For you, everything is work
and must be done with full energy,
terrific speed
and loud commotion.
All is heavy;
You are capable to lift and move.
You shun rest:
brazen laziness.
 
And you,
you are a servant,
open, directable, quiet, committed, skilled.
You pour coffee without splashing
stack metal chairs as in a silent movie,
put the necessary documents on the desk
before the boss asks for them.
You are invisible,
never daring to wonder 
what original spark
you might shine into darkness.
 
And I,
I am obsessed with
the purpose of one moment:
how to draw attention to the kindness
in a hand resting for a moment on a shoulder
or the gentleness in the exhale that ends
a long life.
I have no patience for those
choose to ignore
what is below the surface.
 
How can we three possibly move together?
 
Perhaps it is enough to be in the same room
together
facing the same direction
for one hour.
 
Sheila Murphy

Sheila Murphy writes poems to get closer to things. She is a musician, a pastoral minister, a spiritual director, retreat leader and adventurer. She has published poems in Presence: An International Journal of Spiritual Direction and The Ekphrastic Review. Sheila lives in coastal Maine, is married and has two college-age children.

**

Same Difference

Spot the difference,
those that show,
the height, 
the colour, 
the sex,
and those that are hidden
inside our bodies,
inside our heads.
Our thoughts,
desires
and dreams.
The things 
that make us special,
the things that make us
interesting to each other.

But the basics,
the fundamentals
are the same
and it’s that sameness
which,
when we see it
should bind us,
bind us
basically,
fundamentally
to each other.

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: Apogee, 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/

**

Measurement Times Three
 
Three people walked down the street. One man worked 40 hours per week, in a five-day work week, but he had to travel 20 hours per week back and forth between his home and his workplace. 
 
The man next to him, wearing one black stocking and one blue, said, “I work from home, but my hours may be 20 one week, 13 the next, or even 60 the next. I spend no time on transportation to and from work. However, in a 20-hour week I sometimes need to get outside for at least five one-hour walks. “Would you like to walk with me, during one of those weeks?” he asked. 
 
The first man said yes, but it would have to be on a Saturday. “I always reserve Sundays for other purposes.”
 
The black-and-blue-stockinged man said he’d consider that, so long as he was not having a 60-hour work week.
 
The third person, a woman, laughed and laughed. Their talk was both admirable and amusing to her, for her work was very minimal. If she saved one life in a year it was for her “a good year.” If she lost a life, it was devastating, and in those cases her yearly income represented to her a net loss. For she, as surgeon, could not measure life in terms of actual wages, hours of labor spent, hours of transportation required by the labor, or any other traditional methods of calculation. 
 
She was a good person, but she deemed her life much harder than the males’. She wished for new methods of calculating her life’s situation. She sensed, however, that new measurement methods would not increase her enjoyment of life, for she was, on normal days, a very happy person. 
 
New methods would only require her to do more thinking and might cause her to lose her state of “calm mind.” She feared she could even lose her position as surgeon, being so distracted by this additional thinking. Therefore, she decided momentarily, to continue walking with her fellows, considering lightly how they viewed their lives, interjecting a few comments now and again. Their walking journey might become quite long this day, but all three were enjoying being together.
 
Carole Mertz
  
Carole Mertz appreciates the Kasule Challenge as brief respite from shoveling snow. Her life continues to carry her into writing challenges she can’t quite handle. Enjoying the effort, nonetheless, she is published recently at Quill and Parchment, at Wilderness House, and in Dreamers Creative Writing. She is the author of Color and Line, a poetry collection. 

​**

Barcelona’s Carrer d'Avinyó
 
The distortion of the human body, 
wearing African Fang masks
 
flat, splintered planes 
 
angular and disjointed shapes
reddish unworked background, 
 
after months of revision
oil painting in his Paris studio
 
a slice of melon in the still life
at the bottom of the canvas
 
Picasso’s Les Demoiselles
 
five nudes on Carrer d'Avinyó.
In the rendering of plazas
 
night on an acacia-lined street
 
of the Gothic Quarter, 
paella and tapas bars
 
small hotel by the railway station
summer of our divorcing.
 
Flamenco music played on a guitar.
​
​Ilona Martonfi

​Ilona Martonfi is a poet, editor, literary curator, and activist; she is the author of four poetry books, Blue Poppy (Coracle Press, 2009), Black Grass (Broken Rules Press, 2012), The Snow Kimono (Inanna, 2015) and Salt Bride (Inanna, 2019). Forthcoming, The Tempest (Inanna, 2022). Her work has published in seven chapbooks, journals across North America and abroad. Recently, her poem "My Brother's Ashes" was nominated by The Ekphrastic Review for the Best Microfiction Awards Anthology, 2021. She is the curator Argo Bookshop Reading Series. She is also the recipient of the Quebec Writers’ Federation 2010 Community Award.

**

Juxtaposed As Truth Disclosed?

Intention might escape me here,
but questions raised are very clear.
What really does "together" mean  --
illusion formed to be so seen?

Or must our solidarity
mean absence of disparity
where souls have been homogenized
and all behaviors normalized?

Or should we just be juxataposed,
although to one another closed,
to gather strength from common need
becoming shared as common deed

that births municipality
by building on morality
the law that we can all agree
reserves to each the sovreignty

of fostered opportunity
committed to community.

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.

**

The Same but Different
 
Together we stand side by shoulder
Others may see us as black/brown/white
Genders differ but eyes view the same injustice
Equal we are in symmetry, limbs, brain- though
They shaved all hair; don’t gawk- her severed breasts
Her denuded sex, ploy to normalize, humanize
Everyone the same, but different we remain, men
Revered, breechclouts cover, leave the female
Nude, vulnerable; act as defenders of honour, no
Equity here, neutered feminine alongside zombie
Stare, let no one dare blink lest they be deemed the
Same- height, stance let us dance to individuality
 
Julie A. Dickson

Julie A. Dickson is hooked on ekphrastic poems, has been dabbling with them for over three years, a new genre after over 45 years of writing formed and free verse poems. Dickson has poems appearing in many journals including Misfit, Sledgehammer, Open Word and The Ekphrastic Review, or in full length works on Amazon. She advocates for captive elephants  and shares her home with two rescued cats, Cam and JoJo.

**

If you enjoy ekphrastic writing, join one of our single session creative writing workshops. Come out and meet the ekphrastic community and learn more about visual art by writing together.

Join us for biweekly ekphrastic writing challenges. See why so many writers are hooked on ekphrastic! We feature some of the most accomplished, influential poets writing 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 Starry Night, by Vincent Van Gogh. Deadline is February 18, 2022 .

This is the most "ekphrasticized" painting of all time, with only Nighthawks by Edward Hopper in close competition. And even so, there are more poems and stories to write! Please share this page in your writing groups on Facebook, on Twitter, etc, and let everyone know about the challenge.

You can submit poetry, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, microfiction, or any other form creative writing you like. 1000 words max please.

NEWS

For the challenge this time, the selected responses will be gathered into an ebook format that can be distributed freely and widely, to show off our writers and spread the word about The Ekphrastic Review!

**
​
The Rules

1. Use this visual art prompt as a springboard for your writing. It can be a poem or short prose (fiction or nonfiction.) You can research the artwork or artist and use your discoveries to fuel your writing, or you can let the image alone provoke your imagination.

2. Write as many poems and stories as you like. Send only your best works or final draft, not everything you wrote down. (Please note, experimental formats are difficult to publish online. We will consider them but they present technical difficulties with web software that may not be easily resolved.) Please copy and paste your submission into the body of the email, even if you include an attachment such as Word or PDF.

3. There is no mandatory submission fee, but we ask you to consider a voluntary donation to show your support to the time, management, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review. It takes an incredible amount of time to curate the journal, read regular and contest submissions, etc. Paying all expenses out of pocket is also prohibitive. Helping the editor share the time and expenses involved is very much appreciated. There is an easy button to click below to share a five spot through PayPal or credit card. Thank you.

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 Van Gogh 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 18, 2022.

9. Please do not send revisions, corrections, or changes to your poetry or your biography after the fact. If it's not ready yet, hang on to it until it is.

10. Selected submissions will be published together, with the prompt, one week after the deadline.

11. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we will no longer send out sorry notices or yes letters. You will see what poetry and stories have been selected when the responses are posted one week after the deadline. Understand that we value your participation as part of our ekphrastic community, but we can only choose a handful of the many entries we receive. 

12. A word on the selection process: we strive for a balance between rewarding regular participants and sharing the voices of writers who are new to our family. We also look for a variety of perspectives and styles, and a range of interesting takes on the painting. It is difficult to reproduce experimental formatting, so unfortunately we won't choose many with unusual spacing or typography. 

13. Please note, some selected responses may also be chosen for our newly born podcast, TERcets, with host Brian Salmons. Your submission implies permission should he decide to read yours. If that happens, you will be notified and sent a link to share. Thank you!

14. 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! We send a newsletter zero to two times a month, with hopes of more consistency in the future. It updates you on challenges, news, contests, prize nominations, ekphrastic happenings, prompt ebooks, the podcast, and more. You can cancel at any time, of course, but may find yourself back on the list after another submission. We hope you don't cancel because we like to stay in touch occasionally!

​15. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges!
​
16. 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!

17. Check this space every Friday for new challenges and selected responses, alternating weekly.