 Christ After the Flagellation, by Francisco Antonio Vallejo (Mexico) 1770 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 Christ After the Flagellation, by Francisco Antonio Vallejo. Deadline is April 12, 2024. You can submit poetry, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, microfiction, or any other form creative writing you like. 1000 words max please. The Rules 1. Use this visual art prompt as a springboard for your writing. It can be a poem or short prose (fiction or nonfiction.) You can research the artwork or artist and use your discoveries to fuel your writing, or you can let the image alone provoke your imagination. 2. Write as many poems and stories as you like. Send only your best works or final draft, not everything you wrote down. (Please note, experimental formats are difficult to publish online. We will consider them but they present technical difficulties with web software that may not be easily resolved.) Please copy and paste your submission into the body of the email, even if you include an attachment such as Word or PDF. 3. There is no mandatory submission fee, but we ask you to consider a voluntary donation to show your support to the time, management, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review. It takes an incredible amount of time to curate the journal, read regular and contest submissions, etc. Paying all expenses out of pocket is also prohibitive. Thank you. A voluntary gift does not affect the selection process in any way. 4. USE THIS EMAIL ONLY.
Send your work to [email protected]. Challenge submissions sent to the other inboxes will most likely be lost as those are read in chronological order of receipt, weeks or longer behind, and are not seen at all by guest editors. They will be discarded. Sorry. 5.Include VALLEJO 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, April 12, 2024. 9. Please do not send revisions, corrections, or changes to your poetry or your biography after the fact. If it's not ready yet, hang on to it until it is. 10. Selected submissions will be published together, with the prompt, one week after the deadline. 11. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we do not send out sorry notices or yes letters for challenge submissions. You will see what poetry and stories have been selected when the responses are posted one week after the deadline. Understand that we value your participation as part of our ekphrastic community, but we can only choose a handful of the many entries we receive. 12. A word on the selection process: we strive for a balance between rewarding regular participants and sharing the voices of writers who are new to our family. We also look for a variety of perspectives and styles, and a range of interesting takes on the painting. It is difficult to reproduce experimental formatting, so unfortunately we won't choose many with unusual spacing or typography. 13. By submitting to The Ekphrastic Review, you are also automatically joining our subscribers' list. Your submission is your permission. We don't send spam and we don't send many emails- you will not receive forty-four emails a day! Our newsletter occasionally updates you on some of the challenges, news, contests, prize nominations, ekphrastic happenings, prompt ebooks, workshops, and more. 14. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges! 15. Please share this prompt with your writing groups, Facebook groups, social media circles, and anywhere else you can. The simple act of sharing brings readers to The Ekphrastic Review, and that is the best way to support the poets and writers on our pages! 16. Check this space every Friday for new challenges and selected responses, alternating weekly.
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 Boulevard Montmartre, by Camille Pissarro (France) 1897 Dear Ekphrastic Poets/Writers and Readers, When I view this exquisite piece of art, I love the blurred colours and light. Having visited Paris only once, strolling along the Seine, Moulin Rouge, Notre Dame and other familiar places bring me back to Paris in my mind’s eye, wandering Musee D’Orsay and the Louvre, browsing the Shakespeare bookstore, and sipping wine under a canopy of an outdoor café. It pleases me to read the interpretations of each writer, experiencing this art in their own way, the descriptions, poetic alliteration, subtle rhyming, all congruent with my own time in Paris. The fog and gentle rain obscure both vision and memories. Words entice me like the aroma of crepes and fresh croissants along brick paths in early morning, when the pavements are drying and the street vendors are setting up. Although it was difficult to choose, I felt most drawn to the writing pieces that represented the feeling of the art, the blur of color and the history of the boulevard in the purist sense. Thanks to all who have submitted, and especially to Lorette for the opportunity to serve as a guest editor! Warm regards, Julie A. Dickson ** Amuse Bouche (ii) Montmartre steals me. On sight, on entry. Waves of déjà vu sweeping over. Or maybe it’s wishfulness. Busy artist hands circle the square, stealing the light before it falls. At the turn of night, the bustle becomes itself, excitement’s undercurrent happening somewhere, everywhere. Street musicians offer acoustics with finger-light effort. The waft of pancakes, crépe de chocolat. The benevolent lights. We went walking. Merged into it. Fancied ourselves French. I thought about Van Gogh, trying to join his peers, painting in the square. And yet, this was Toulouse-Lautrec’s domain. His theatre stage, neon-lit. A cabaret of flying skirts and abandon. Absinthe bars. La fée verte flitting down beside you, to woo you from your senses. The café’s ambience. Still breathing all the history in its walls. Of a time we have come to love. Frozen in paintings. Funny how you can be nostalgic for a time you never knew. How lights make the darkness inviting. How the promise of sex in the air answers the call of tourist’s unspoken wishes. Strangers know what strangers want. The mill of Moulin Rouge spins steady with the smell of money, beckons you in. Beautiful women sell the illusion, beautiful men. Diamanté glints, eyes and teeth. Glamour is a muse here, concentrated, never to be snuffed. At the turn of the night. Nina Nazir Nina Nazir (she/her) is a British Pakistani poet, artist and avid multi-potentialite based in Birmingham, UK. She's had work published in various journals, including The Ekphrastic Review, Ink Sweat & Tears, Free Verse Revolution, Unlost Journal, Harana Poetry, Visual Verse and Sunday Mornings at the River. You can usually find her writing in her local favourite café or on Instagram: @nina.s.nazir and X (Twitter): @NusraNazir ** Rainy City Just raindrops falling, falling into wetness making waterways of roads and streets and it’s such a pretty scene. I try to focus on it try to see the calming colours but the drizzly, misty rain is shrouding me in a fog of fear. I take the deep breaths I need to forestall the rising panic though it’s such a pretty scene with the raindrops falling like silvery teardrops from glassy eyes, teardrops which will run their course and splatter like rain then disappear into wetness and become invisible as if by magic. Lynn White Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud War Poetry for Today competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Consequence Magazine, Firewords, Vagabond Press, Gyroscope Review and So It Goes Journal. Find Lynn at: https://lynnwhitepoetry.blogspot.com and https://www.facebook.com///www.facebook.com/Lynn-White-Poetry-1603675983213077/ *** Pissarro Pissarro’s time warp, braving juxtaposition, never forgetting. ** Paris Depiction: Paris. Once a lively city scene. Painter’s reminder. Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher has been writing since 2010 and has had many micro-flash fiction stories published. In 2018 her book Shorts for the Short Story Enthusiasts, was published, The Importance of Being Short, in 2019 and In A Flash in 2022. She currently resides on Long Island, New York with her husband Richard and dogs Lucy and Breanna. Being Short, in 2019 and In A Flash in 2022. She currently resides on Long Island, New York with her husband Richard and dogs Lucy and Breanna. ** Architexture Passage The Hôtel Russie offered lift, a Grand framed window overview, above the throng, along, nightlong, here carriage queue for Moulin Rouge around the bend, so out of site. Observant programmed episodes, like Haystacks, Rouen Cathedral, a baker’s dozen plus, impressed, for cash required as principal - not portraits, Paris wealth elites. En plein air pain had brought inside, as pointillism set aside for full life, movement, shimmer sense, both aerial and linear, those nightlights under canopies. An architextured cityscape in urban oeuvre, boulevard, a bustle like blurred photographs of crowds beneath trees, beyond shops, where some suit selves for Mardi Gras. In light of change for tutored young, his Passage as Van Gogh, Cezanne, transitions, modern, pathways new - warm glow of gas, glass panes above yet stream of street, electric lights. Eccentric strikes, eclectic sprites play in the damp road mirrorwork; that downpour passed, as glower clouds, so were his final points, the stars of pure paint over layered oils? 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 ** Paris La Ville Lumière—City of Lights, of Dreams, Of Love: La Ville d’Amour. Whose night is day-- Whose stars are mirrored in the sky which streams Them back again: La Seine: the Milky Way. La Tour Eiffel, la Louvre, et Notre-Dame, A strand of diamonds strung along the quai Like Left Bank lovers hand in hand on prom- enade beside the Ile de la Cité. La Boulevard Montmartre, Claude Monet, Dumas et Victor Hugo, Baudelaire, Et l’Opéra, Bizet et Massenet, Couture, Le Métro, et cafés plein aire. C’est magnifique, tres chic, La Ville Romance, Et par bon chance, la capitale de France. James A. Tweedie James A. Tweedie is a formal poet living in Long Beach, Washington, with four books of poetry published by Dunecrest Press. He is the winner of the 2021 Society of Classical Poets International Poetry Competition, a Laureate's Choice in the 2021 Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest, a First Prize winner in the 2022 100 Days of Dante Poetry Competition, and recipient of the quarterly prize for Best Poem by the Lyric. *** Walk Down This Boulevard And you will find that distances dim, friction fades and spaces shimmer under the soft glow of these ochre lamps. The crown of trees silhouette against a sapphire sky. The rustling rain winds syncopate with the whispered breaths of men in bowler hats and black coats seeking escape. The cobbled pathways glisten despite the rush of cold shadows, the crowd of sodden dreams. Here, silent stories shift shapes each night, as silken fountains of faith come awake. Here, the habit of hope is impossible to break. Preeth Ganapathy Preeth Ganapathy is a software engineer turned civil servant from Bengaluru, India. Her recent works have been published in several magazines such as Star 82 Review, Panoply Zine, Visual Verse, Quill & Parchment, Shotglass journal, Sparks of Calliope, Tiger Moth Review, The Sunlight Press, Ink, Sweat & Tears and various other journals. Her microchaps, A Single Moment, and Purple, have been published by Origami Poems Project. ** Radiance Camille! Everyone should call you Uncle! You were a gift giver, a mentor, a lifter of hearts, Starting in your balmy childhood in St. Thomas. Born into brightness, surrounded by tall palms, Shifting shades in the warm, slow rivers, inching Toward the soft sea, women chatting on the shore, A parasol reflecting the sun’s eternal radiance, You saw everything and needed to paint each holy Moment-- shadows, colours, every one of them, And darkness, where every shade of green and brown, Red and blue still linger along with light, which Is never extinguished. You were the herald, crowning the peasants, The farmers and their humble homes with glory. Your jewels were the knots on trees, Clods of dirt, the ragged clothing of children And the drooping leaves of the olive trees in the Last silvery shades of dusk. Of course, you came to the City of Lights, And on the Boulevard Montmartre a Paris You still saw it all. In your old age, you painted this vibrant Street six times, looking down from a high hotel window When your eyes had started to fade. You still discerned The daylight, the boundless joy of Mardi Gras, cloudy Mornings, winter, spring and finally, night. Nine electric streetlights formed a line to the End of vision, and all along the way, light and Darkness danced in endless exuberance with the faint dots of stars. Rose Anna Higashi Rose Anna Higashi is a retired professor of English Literature, Japanese Literature, Poetry and Creative Writing. Her prose works include the novel, The Learning Wars, the poetry collection, Blue Wings, and the website, myteaplanner.com, which she co-wrote with her niece, chef Kathleen Pedulla. She writes a monthly blog, Tea and Travels, which appears on this website. Her poetry has appeared recently in poetsonline.org, The Ekphrastic Review, Americamedia.org, The Avocet and The Catholic Poetry Room. She was a finalist in the Filoli Haiku Contest. Rose Anna lives in Honolulu with her husband, Wayne Higashi. ** Nighttime Boulevard Light from lamps pool onto sidewalks, rushing into night's uneven surface like rainwater across glass. Elanur Eroglu Williams Elanur Eroglu Williams is a writer and teacher. She studied English & Creative Writing in Montreal and Children's Literature in Dublin. She worked as an elementary school teacher and now works as a Reading and Writing GED Teacher in the Bronx. She lives in New York City with her husband and her dog, Luna. ** The Lure of Pissarro Paint-soaked Boulevard Smeared with golden hues. To walk among the ghostly crowds. To splash in your puddles. To smell the freshness of a Parisian rain. I want To live among your brushstrokes Blending into the precise indistinctions Until I, too, disappear In the distance As the evening disappears into the darkness. Kimberly Beckham Kimberly Beckham: Wanderer, photographer, reader, writer, hopeful human with two older demanding cats and a love of breakfast cereal and Lego building. ** Reflections on Camille Pissarro's The Boulevard Montmartre at Night What is it Camille that allowed hotel windows to be your eyes to be our eyes rivulets from glass panes and eye pain were your inspiration paint strokes of blurred Montmartre created yellow light from streetlamps, shop windows and lines of coaches against the dark blue night the Boulevard's bustling crowd rendered more complete and of themselves than mere cohesion could design. Daniel W. Brown Daniel Brown has recently published at age 72 his first collection Family Portraits in Verse and Other Illustrated Poems through Epigraph Books, Rhinebeck, NY. He has most recently been published in Jerry Jazz Musician and Chronogram Magazine and was included in Arts Mid-Hudson 2023 gallery presentation Poets Respond To Art in Poughkeepsie, NY. ** That was Then A rain of light, a jewel box, Paris nights on the grands boulevards were brilliant then. Roof slate, slick-glittered purple and midnight blue, and the hot gold of music poured from brasseries, peals of laughter, and the click-clack of hoofs, water-splashing. The echoes lingered long, so long I heard them before they faded. Les filles were the same, the paint, the pose, the clatter of plates, chink of glasses, and the brassy yellow light, smelling of choucroute and bright red lobster corpses. Waiters, white shirted, black tied and aproned, swooped like swallows, and in the dark all cars were Tractions. But the vibrant, multi-layered social architecture of the Impressionists, Piaf, Simenon, Jean Gabin and Zola was changing. In the streets behind the glitter, the girls waiting in dark doorways, cats at windows, washing hanging out to dry, music blaring, voices shouting in scènes de ménage, all were slowly being tidied away, pushed out beyond the périphérique into the soulless suburbs, so the rich of the world could have the playground of lights, the rain slicking off purple slate all to themselves. What was once a city of squalor and beauty, misery and merveilles, a noisy colourful cacophony of sounds and smells, of rain and refuse in streets where satin shoes and buttoned boots trod, where urchins followed red balloons, is now a cemetery inhabited by ghosts, as at home here as in Dubai, New York, London. They have it all now, squeezed of life and colour, cleansed of its ordinary people, workers, families, old folk with their chairs out on the pavements, babies in prams, dogs, street vendors and prostitutes. The argot of the titis parisiens has been replaced by sanitised interactions in the universal language of wealth, and the Paris of Maigret, Montand and Monet is dead. Jane Dougherty Pushcart Prize nominee, Jane Dougherty’s poetry has appeared in publications including Gleam, Ogham Stone, Black Bough Poetry, Ekphrastic Review and The Storms Journal. Her short stories have been published in Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Prairie Fire, Lucent Dreaming among others, and her first adult novel will be published in 2025 by Northodox Press. She lives in southwest France and has published three collections of poetry, thicker than water, birds and other feathers and night horses. ** Memories of a Forgotten Paris Bright lights shining with the colours of love and dreamers forgotten places long gone but still remain in the genetic memories of those that look for true love men still go under the warm glowing beams while the ins and outs of business create an ongoing hopeful cycle that will continue until love’s message is answered young Parisians utter real poor thoughts of love in the dark lights of golden hues houses stem from romantic ponds of falling rain real pouring thoughts of heartache love speaks nightly forever in the frozen image forgotten but with massive fondness gifted to us from paintings pointing towards the night with parties in the street beauty imprints onto my soul justifying greatness lots of jumbled colors and patterns provoke a sense of lost memories Heather Sarabia Heather Sarabia is a visual artist and long-time writer. She lives in Madison, WI and is on the autism spectrum. Despite being nonverbal, she is a prolific writer, typing out poetry and prose with assistance. Her writing centres on her lived experience and hope for justice. Through her work, she consistently strives to gain freedom from the systems of dependence that leave her feeling trapped. Her work has recently appeared in The Ekphrastic Review. ** The Boulevard Montmartre Is it rain or the jumble of tears that fill my eyes as I look down the boulevard? How bright the streetlamps are as they recede in not quite perfect order. How the buildings glow-- their dappled skirts reflected in the street. We walked here it seems only a minute (or a lifetime) ago. You left. Nothing was finished. I was unfinished. Now the night is both blurred and shining. The shops call to me in their amber voices-- Come, come. Carol Siemering Carol Siemering: "I have been writing poetry for all of my life which is getting ridiculously longer (I will be 81 this month!) I have been published in a a number of magazines and journals including the Blue Collar Review, Fish Drum Magazine, the Catholic Worker, the Bellowing Ark, Unlocking the Poem, and The Ekphrastic Review. ** A Love Letter to Montmartre in the Rain Oil colour-filled tubes bright with the promise of rich hues reflect the fragmented views of heavy graphite skies obscuring the light. The rain is a melody and each droplet is a note in the symphony of Parisian reality. A dance of light and shadows A melody of muted colors The city of lights, darkly beautiful now, lies waiting. Impressionist strokes blur the boundaries weaving reality through dreams as droplets dance on canvas skies. A painting emerges from the chaos of the storm. Nivedita Karthik Nivedita Karthik is a graduate in Immunology from the University of Oxford. She is an accomplished Bharatanatyam dancer and published poet. She also loves writing stories. Her poetry has appeared in Glomag, The Society of Classical Poets, The Epoch Times, The Poet anthologies, The Ekphrastic Review, Visual Verse, The Bamboo Hut, Eskimopie, The Sequoyah Cherokee River Journal, and Trouvaille Review. Her microfiction has been published by The Potato Soup Literary Journal. She also regularly contributes to the open mics organized by Rattle Poetry. She currently resides in Gurgaon, India, and works as a senior associate editor. She has two published books, She: the reality of womanhood and The many moods of water. ** Urban Mirage Velvet darkness curtains the sky cafés and shops mere slashes of light reflecting pools of gold and liquid shadow onto the broad pavements which quiver and flow in the lamplight In street cafés anonymous figures crowd under striped canvas Dark trees, like feather dusters line the floating boulevard Thin straight trunks anchor the crowds which float past. A fragile world, brilliant, poetic seductive is held, suspended in the darkness which waits, possessive, hovering at the end of the street Sarah Das Gupta Sarah Das Gupta is a teacher from Cambridge; UK who has also lived in India and and Tanzania. Her work has been published in many magazines and in over 15 different countries. ** Parisian Lights Dance along that boulevard Those glowing streetlights Those cafe candle flickers Lure me back time and again Rose Menyon Heflin Rose Menyon Heflin is a poet, writer, and visual artist living in Madison, Wisconsin, although she was born and raised in rural, southern Kentucky. She has had over 200 poems published in outlets spanning five continents, and her poetry has won multiple awards. One of her poems was choreographed and performed by a dance troupe, and she had an ekphrastic creative nonfiction piece featured in the Chazen Museum of Art’s Companion Species exhibit. While primarily a poet, she has also published memoir and flash fiction pieces. Among other venues, her poetry has appeared in Deep South Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, Salamander Ink Magazine, San Antonio Review, and Xinachtli Journal (Journal X).  The Reverie of Mr. James, by Rene Magritte (Belgium) 1943 Join us for biweekly ekphrastic writing challenges. See why so many writers are hooked on ekphrasis! We feature some of the most accomplished, influential writers working today, and we also welcome emerging or first time writers and those who simply want to experience art in a deeper way or try something creative. The prompt this time is The Reverie of Mr. James, by Rene Magritte. Deadline is March 29, 2024. You can submit poetry, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, microfiction, or any other form creative writing you like. 1000 words max please. The Rules 1. Use this visual art prompt as a springboard for your writing. It can be a poem or short prose (fiction or nonfiction.) You can research the artwork or artist and use your discoveries to fuel your writing, or you can let the image alone provoke your imagination. 2. Write as many poems and stories as you like. Send only your best works or final draft, not everything you wrote down. (Please note, experimental formats are difficult to publish online. We will consider them but they present technical difficulties with web software that may not be easily resolved.) Please copy and paste your submission into the body of the email, even if you include an attachment such as Word or PDF. 3. There is no mandatory submission fee, but we ask you to consider a voluntary donation to show your support to the time, management, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review. It takes an incredible amount of time to curate the journal, read regular and contest submissions, etc. Paying all expenses out of pocket is also prohibitive. Thank you. A voluntary gift does not affect the selection process in any way. 4. USE THIS EMAIL ONLY. Send your work to [email protected]. Challenge submissions sent to the other inboxes will most likely be lost as those are read in chronological order of receipt, weeks or longer behind, and are not seen at all by guest editors. They will be discarded. Sorry. 5.Include MAGRITTE 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, March 29 2024. 9. Please do not send revisions, corrections, or changes to your poetry or your biography after the fact. If it's not ready yet, hang on to it until it is. 10. Selected submissions will be published together, with the prompt, one week after the deadline. 11. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we do not send out sorry notices or yes letters for challenge submissions. You will see what poetry and stories have been selected when the responses are posted one week after the deadline. Understand that we value your participation as part of our ekphrastic community, but we can only choose a handful of the many entries we receive. 12. A word on the selection process: we strive for a balance between rewarding regular participants and sharing the voices of writers who are new to our family. We also look for a variety of perspectives and styles, and a range of interesting takes on the painting. It is difficult to reproduce experimental formatting, so unfortunately we won't choose many with unusual spacing or typography. 13. By submitting to The Ekphrastic Review, you are also automatically joining our subscribers' list. Your submission is your permission. We don't send spam and we don't send many emails- you will not receive forty-four emails a day! Our newsletter occasionally updates you on some of the challenges, news, contests, prize nominations, ekphrastic happenings, prompt ebooks, workshops, and more. 14. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges! 15. Please share this prompt with your writing groups, Facebook groups, social media circles, and anywhere else you can. The simple act of sharing brings readers to The Ekphrastic Review, and that is the best way to support the poets and writers on our pages! 16. Check this space every Friday for new challenges and selected responses, alternating weekly.  The Sahara, by Gustave Guillaumet (France) 1867 Strange Comfort I have been leafing through a catalogue from the Musee d’Orsay while you sit reading near my bed. The book lies heavy on my outstretched lap, and I will need you or someone to take it from me when a nurse appears with my evening meds. Sadly I am no longer able to lift even the smallest brush to try and reproduce the golden bowl of Guillaumet’s sky, the grey, dun colour of the camel’s skeleton or the vast desolate Sahara. This painting somehow calls to me. I am surprised at the elegant way the bones of the camel’s long legs, once flesh and blood, are outstretched, not splayed. It is as if the animal felt death approaching and chose how to sink down onto the hot dry sand and accept its fate. The tiny caravan in the distance, on the horizon line, offers no solace, no story. “Sahara,” I say to you. “The title of this painting.” You lay aside your book and rise from your chair to stand by my bed, to see what I see in the painting. But your hand on my hand cannot hide your sadness, your dismay that this vision of death gives me comfort, something you can no longer offer, and I must forgive. Pamela Painter Pamela Painter is the award-winning author of five story collections, and her stories have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. She has received three Pushcart Prizes and her work has been staged by Word Theatre in London, New York, and LA. Her story, “Doors,” is being made into a short film. ** Emptiness The emptiness of grief through the eyes of a girl who is dreadfully lonely inside her mind better hope for heartful grief when I can write these words and release the wretched soul seizing in the lonely desert My mind forms this scene to make sense of the swirls of tides pouring over my tired body Go to the place of loneliness and hold up the form give it peace real love and there be life and colour once again pour out my ungrateful yelling onto the world to let the good life fill the empty desert in my mind Heather Sarabia Heather Sarabia is a writer and visual artist living in Madison, WI, who is on the autism spectrum. Despite being nonverbal, she is a prolific writer, typing out poetry and prose with assistance. Her writing centers on her lived experience and hope for justice. Through her work, she consistently strives to gain freedom from the systems of dependence that leave her feeling trapped. ** A Postcard from the Museum Gift Shop You would talk about pigment sources, about brush manufacture, the relative value of this painting on this or that market. You know those things about art. How it is done. How much it costs. What is popular now, and what was popular in the 19th century. “This frame,” you’d say, stopping at a painting by a French artist. “Worth two grand alone, easy.” What would I say to you? Nothing. Or, I would say the painting isn’t about the camel. It’s about the desert. It’s about how a thing will die when there is nothing to sustain it. How a thing will die, and no other thing will come to pick clean its bones because nothing, not even a vulture, can live where there is nothing. I would look at you, if you were here in this gallery with me, surrounded by oil paints and canvas and gilt frames, with tears in my eyes, with more water in my eyes than in the whole Sahara, the whole painting of the dead camel, the desiccating camel from which all the material goods it was carrying have been stripped. “Maybe it was a wild camel,” you’d say, your tone bored, your words flat and uninterested. Humouring me. No wild camel would let itself be caught like that, at the forefront of a scene, already almost a part of the sand. It had to have been a domesticated camel. Not a wild thing. Soon it will be half-buried, angles softened by drift, and I feel the sting of the sand that will scour the bones, that will dry the rough-hair hide to cracked leather. There’s a postcard of that painting here in the museum gift shop. I imagine sending the dead camel in the Sahara through the U.S. mail. The mail sorters would spare barely a glance, or maybe one would snatch the dead camel from the sorting machine just for a moment, show it to a co-worker. “Weird thing to send someone,” one might say to the other. The postal carrier, the one who delivers your mail to the out-of-fashion brass box next to your front door, would look at it, I’m certain, and would read the note on the back. “Wish you were here.” Epiphany Ferrell Epiphany Ferrell lives on the edge of the Shawnee National Forest in Southern Illinois. Her stories appear in more than 80 journals and anthologies, including Bending Genres, Ghost Parachute, Best Microfiction, and The Disappointed Housewife. She is a two-time Pushcart nominee, and a Prime Number Magazine Flash Fiction Prize recipient. ** You Never Made It To The Oasis You never made it to the oasis. It was there, but you didn't believe it. You didn't think you could have it all in one place: fresh water, cool shade from the sun, all the things you lack now. Instead, you carried all you thought you needed, but that's gone, too; it's just you, reduced to the colours around you. To the hot, dry air. To the hot, dry land. You can't live on these things, but they will live on you. The air will leech all the moisture from your skin, muscles, organs, and bones. The land will emulsify and reduce you to particles of itself. You thought the oasis was an illusion. But you are here in all that is disappearing. Rina Palumbo Rina Palumbo (she/her) is working on a novel and two nonfiction long-form writing projects alongside short fiction, creative nonfiction, and prose poetry. Her work appears in The Hopkins Review, Ghost Parachute, Milk Candy, Bending Genres, Anti-Heroin Chic, Identity Theory, Stonecoast Review, et al. You can find her work at https://rinapalumbowriter.com/ ** Concentrate Evaded A mirage - in the past preferred - romanticised, idealised, when Gustave, grand, but simple shows infinity in solitude. See on those waves, both beached, far reach - set crests, dips, statuesque through span - horizon hint of caravan, its passing, mirage as that past? Below mist mellow yellow sky, monotony, bleached bands of sand, old skeleton, cold, frozen tones, sole camel carcass in the waste. Alone, soul-search, did Guillaumet seek desolate to feel the real, as isolated wilderness revealed erased, evaded truth? Stretched parchment skin, yet sinew tent, parched bones to crumble into grains, for space, time aeons, concentrate, deserted places, Sahara. 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 ** On Guillaumet’s Sahara The world must have begun like this. “Without form and void,” we are told. In the beginning, life was not just missing—it was rejected, as the camel is rejected: You do not belong here. The beauty of emptiness must remain uncorrupted. Any life here is ephemeral. The distant caravan passes through the landscape, does not dwell in it, cannot survive on it. The camel did not. Others, too, if they do not feel urgency, will lie rejected here. Not decaying, never decaying, for few microbes avail to consume and digest in this aridness. The camel will remain desiccated instead, a warning as Ozymandias was warned: Only distance is eternal, life is not. The world must have begun like this, with only dawn to remove the chill of night, only dusk to grant its restoration. Void, and without form. Ron Wetherington Ron Wetherington is a retired professor of anthropology living in Dallas, Texas. After more than half a century of university teaching and research, he has settled on replacing scientific journals with literary magazines as an outlet for his writing efforts. He has a novel, Kiva, and numerous short fiction pieces in this second career. He also enjoys writing creative non-fiction. Among his published pieces are three in this Review. ** Sahara Trade Route The caravan slowly travels south past the carcass of a camel lost on a previous journey, travels through the desert under 102 degree temperatures in search of the next oasis when a northeast wind horizontally obliterates their forward movement with sandstorm particles. In the early afternoon the vagabonds pitch tents, wait out intense midday heat before the herd continues a dangerous trek until well after dark when the Sahara turns cold. On this forty-second day of the trip they approach an oasis where lemon and fig trees flourish where nomads exchange salt for gold, copper, and animal hides. Jim Brosnan Dr. Jim Brosnan is the author of Long Distance Driving (2024) and Nameless Roads (2019). 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. Jim has also won numerous awards from the National Federation of Poetry Societies. ** You Desert Someone once told me that water is friendly. Free Our patron saint This place is barren of that elixir Arid one says Did God punish you? Did you eat of the poisoned apple? Oh Wait, no apples here, did you eat the poison cactus fruit? Did you take God’s name in vain? Did you forget green Or never know? Oh wait, perhaps desert lives in the slow lane, morphing slowly, slowly, so slowly we cannot discern, except perhaps at night when the owl swoops You are home Animals crawl across your scaly self Hide from the sun, thick skinned Plants get tough Proud to be resilient, canny They make do Are they your friends? Or is it just the law of the jungle, I mean the desert Harsh world, harsh truths Preparing us for water wars, to catch our notice. It takes patience to watch a world slowly emaciate itself of water, thin skinned, short sighted. We humans plod on in our juicy bodies Lie all is well, it is not. Listen, it is slowly ebbing away, hear it Listen to the desert, it will tell you how to hide in plain sight How to hunker down in dryness, solitude. How to disappear when danger comes. Pay attention. Doris Brigitte Ash Doris Brigitte Ash: "I was born in Munich Germany in 1943 during World War II. My mother tells of bomb shelters with my baby carriage. We escaped to the country, suffered diphtheria in 1945, emigrated to the US in 1948 to Brooklyn, then to upstate New York. I went to Cornell and then to the University of California Berkeley, received a PhD, taught at UC Santa Cruz for 20 years, now retired. I have been a poet and artist most of my life, often combining them in ekphrastic poetry. I write very personal poems, as my history lives within me." ** The Horizon Walks Down an emptiness that gets emptier. I see pink magnolia in white grains of sand devoid of revolt. A mirage or a miracle, swarming quiet parsing the unknown into freedom of sorts. Abha Das Sarma An engineer and management consultant by profession, Abha Das Sarma enjoys writing. Besides having a blog of over 200 poems (http://dassarmafamily.blogspot.com), her poems have appeared in Muddy River Poetry Review, Spillwords, Verse-Virtual, Visual Verse, Sparks of Calliope, Trouvaille Review, Silver Birch Press, Blue Heron Review, here and elsewhere. Having spent her growing up years in small towns of northern India, she currently lives in Bengaluru. ** Tough: A Sijo Sequence I. She died hard, and she died proud, with nary a complaint. Tough. Death’s freedom returned her to this Earth that she had worked tirelessly. Subtly stubborn and quiet, she would have wanted it this way. II. I, too, was - am - supposed to be strong. Steadfast. Unbreakable. Tough. My disapproved tears would have been met with a silent, shunning glare. She would have said to walk off my sobs and just get over it. III. We were never supposed to get lost - to survive a land this tough - to lose honest dreams to lying nightmares in this rotting abyss, goodness lost to this brimstone- and fireless hell we so wrongly chose. IV. She never got any credit. She simply soldiered on. Tough. Lacking the accolades of fine breeding, she went unrecognized, her courage, her strength, her hard work, and her kindness all unfeted. V. All our intergenerational traumas made us women tough. My own nightmares join the elite company of age old ones passed mother to daughter on repeat on ragged x-chromosomes. VI. We women die hard, and we die stubbornly, fighting and tough. Unrepentant for our sins, we become unwilling martyrs, surviving, thriving, and even tougher than we thought we were. Rose Menyon Heflin Rose Menyon Heflin is a poet, writer, and visual artist living in Madison, Wisconsin, although she was born and raised in rural, southern Kentucky. She has had over 200 poems published in outlets spanning five continents, and her poetry has won multiple awards. One of her poems was choreographed and performed by a dance troupe, and she had an ekphrastic creative nonfiction piece featured in the Chazen Museum of Art’s Companion Species exhibit. While primarily a poet, she has also published memoir and flash fiction pieces. Among other venues, her poetry has appeared in Deep South Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, Salamander Ink Magazine, San Antonio Review, and Xinachtli Journal (Journal X). ** Desert Scene (High Desert, Palmdale California) Joshua trees have that power to be perceived as you need them to be perceived. Today as most days, they trod on dry ground -- grist scattered with brush; the mountains' stone temple in the distance. Gawkily, they stretch and stalk the high desert wind. Their bulge of leaves maintaining whatever moisture the night spawned. One tree lies fallen in the field, a carcass burdened with straw and crows on its back, struck by lightning or something else. We just stare and step away, following the others under a summer sun, heading toward the carved heights where cool water veils the rock; and dark pines like perfume burners honour the hawk, the hush of the living. Wendy Howe Wendy Howe is an English teacher and free lance writer who lives in Southern California. Her poetry reflects her interest in myth, diverse landscapes, women in conflict and ancient cultures. Over the years, she has been published in an assortment of journals both on-line and in print. Among them: Strange Horizons, Liminality, Coffin Bell, Eternal Haunted Summer , The Poetry Salzburg Review, The Interpreter's House, Stirring A literary Collection, The Orchards Journal, The Copperfield Review and Sun Dial Magazine. Her most recent work has appeared in Indelible Magazine and Songs of Eretz. ** Seeing The Sahara by Gustave Guillaumet We saw it on our final trip to Paris, you at my side as I mansplained meaning. If you look hard enough, I said, it's clear it means that nothing really matters. The sun is indifferent, the desert is indifferent, and the bones that were a camel don't care. They spend their days dead, awaiting their erasure by sands of time. He’s painted the future of everything; listen to the silence you can almost hear… But you urged me to contemplate the light: cool yellow wide across limitless sky, borderless dusk that could just as well be dawn. I can see it now. Where the end was born. Paul McDonald Paul McDonald taught literature and creative writing at the University of Wolverhampton for twenty five years, before taking early retirement in 2019. He is the author of 20 books to date, which includes fiction, poetry and scholarship. His most recent poetry collection is 60 Poems (Greenwich Exchange Press, 2023). ** Sahara Wadi O, wind in the dunes old wells, the aquifers mud houses “Kel Tagelmust,” the veiled people Sahrawi, Berber for desert along the river bed date trees, olive trees, figs humped camels, the zebu the wattle trees used for fodder and firewood sheep and the goats. O, everything flattens a field of bitter apple reed grass locust swarms. Ilona Martonfi Ilona Martonfi is a mother, an activist, an educator, literary curator, poet and an editor. Born in Budapest, Hungary, she has also lived in Austria and Germany. Martonfi writes in seven chapbooks, journals across North America and abroad. Recipient of the Quebec Writers’ Federation 2010 Community Award. Martonfi lives in Montreal, Canada. The Tempest, Inanna Publications, 2022, is her fifth poetry book. ** I Can’t Blame You There was no reason for you to stay. I was already gone, lost in the great Sahara of my heart. Acres of sand repeating the same denial, grain by grain, from here to the world’s blunt end, a place without mercy, that teases the eyes with visions of golden domes and towers rising into the blind white sky. Where the sun’s an anvil, each day hammered flat as sheets of metal too hot to touch, where no bird flies and no green seed dares unfold on the incinerating air. You did not see me there, bleak as the line of the horizon dividing burning sand from burning sky. You could not see through my eyes-still there but fading fast into the once green world, gone flat as a cardboard sign advertising hopes I can’t believe in. Here where my heart is a desert no one can cross, where even camels collapse like empty sacks, nothing more than leather and bones, a warning only the desperate can ignore. In this great nothing you will never enter with voice or hand or eye, where I’ve gone too far to catch, where the wind shifts sand to fill my footprints, erasing my faintest trace too fast for anyone to follow. Where no one will find me. Where I too am nothing, leather and bones, drying in the sun. 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, and recent issues of Gyroscope, 3rd Wednesday, Caustic Frolic, Inscribe, and Verse Virtual. Her collection How to Become Invisible is now available from Kelsay books. ** Deserted 1 Does the sky rise to meet us? It scatters our questions into lamentations of unshed tears. It seeps into our blood roots growing like branches between our bones. 2 The barren land holds onto our days. We keep knocking on its door but the only answer is dust. The dust turns us into ghosts. We try to find the one that is Death-- to claim it, clarify it, give it meaning. 3 Lost ground settles on the horizon. It exposes all we wish to be but are not, all that leaves us stranded, isolated, alone. Without a deity, what defines us? Belief comes and goes like anger, like despair, like all those tiny glimmers of hope. 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/. ** Deserted The new guy, most had called him, not bothering to learn the names that changed like a long-running show with an ever-changing cast and crew. At some point, someone noticed he was missing, a break in the chorus line, easily replaced. He lay there, not feeling the hot sand anymore--bleeding, blending, becoming a part of the desert. Downed by a scorpion, was it? He couldn’t remember anymore. He was floating on waterless waves in the sea of time. Drifting as night devoured the day. Were his eyes open? He was certain he saw the lights of the city, a radiant dance across the distant expanse of arid dunes. They murmur to him with the voices of forgotten loves, “come!” Stars glow in the eyes of the fennec fox. He yelps in excitement to his burrow mates, calling each by name. Merril D. Smith Merril D. Smith lives in southern New Jersey. Her poetry has been published in Black Bough Poetry, Acropolis, Anti-Heroin Chic, The Storms, Fevers of the Mind, Humana Obscura, and Sidhe Press, among other places. Her full-length collection, River Ghosts (Nightingale & Sparrow Press) was a Black Bough Press featured book. ** The Sahara, Gustave Guillaumet (1867) A skeleton is all a rotting camel leaves, just as the blazing sunlight sets -- without a trace of preying birds or mammals -- its death was due, perhaps, to unpaid debts in drifts of sand no human feet now trammel. Orientalists created fictions of the desert, luring and exotic, whose sand contained some secretive encryptions, as dreams made tantalizingly erotic. embraced by ancient Romans, Greeks, Egyptians. The desert is where we meet God alone -- the flat Sahara filled with nothingness -- while the wind like us prolongs a moan. Far back, across this treeless wilderness a caravan heads off to the unknown. It moves between two worlds in blinding gusts, across terrain that hides our history -- buried implements of war now left to rust, as the sky reveals its mystery: the arc of stars whose dust became our dust. Royal Rhodes Royal Rhodes is a retired educator who remembers various visits to the deserts in New Mexico, Texas, and the Negev. His poems have appeared in: The Ekphrastic Review, Ekstasis Poetry, Chained Muse, Snakeskin Poetry, The Montreal Review, and elsewhere. ** And You Knew Me I put city life behind me, turn my back on spires and “turf” lines. I follow my gut, those pressing urges whose origin grows from unformed substance. I never look up. I never look back. I set my face like flint and strike my own path in the desert. I know the names of every tumbleweed, every burnt stalk, every sunless shadow. I can lie down now, dream of what’s dew. mid-day shimmers in waves of shady green floating . . . floating Todd Sukany Todd Sukany <[email protected]>, a Pushcart nominee, lives in Pleasant Hope, Missouri, with his wife of over forty years. His work appears in Ancient Paths, Cantos: A Literary and Arts Journal, Cave Region Review, The Christian Century, Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal, and The Ekphrastic Review. He and Raymond Kirk have co-authored books of poetry, Book of Mirrors (1st through 5th). Sukany’s latest book, Frisco Trail and Tales, chronicles a decade of running experiences. A native of Michigan, Sukany stays busy running, playing guitar, doting on six grandchildren, and caring for three rescued dogs and four rescued cats. ** visiting an exhibition in the rain rainbow hues of parked cars do not relieve the grey infusion of constant drizzle even museum corridors have absorbed the mood captured by the artist what pigment is this a muddle of avocado and coffee colors the stark Saharan landscape the desert brushed in varying tones stretches to an indeterminant sky where even the sun is muted with dust should I pity the mummified camel reduced to leather and bones neck stretched out as though reaching for one more step one more galactic spectacle of moon and stars was it the icy night that felled him or the nearness of stars that rendered him breathless outside dusk had chased the rain perhaps the night sky would blaze with that starlit brilliance Kat Dunlap Kat Dunlap grew up Norristown, PA and now resides in Massachusetts where she is a member of the Tidepool Poets of Plymouth. She received a BA in English from Arcadia University and holds an MFA from Pacific University. She edited two college writing publications as well as the Tidepool Poets Annual. For many years she was Director of the National Writing Project site at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and is currently the co-owner of Writers Ink of MA. Her chapbook The Blue Bicycle is being prepared for a spring launch. ** New Ekphrastic Contest!!!! Pick up our ebook of 50 pink prompts to inspire your ekphrastic practice.
You can enter up to eight of your pink-themed poems or stories into our contest, too. Click here for contest info: https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-review/ekphrastic-contest-announcement-tickled-pink?fbclid=IwAR1JelpV9gFQ43MJOPbpQDDsZ0avm8b8XhTkc0kNfPhtRvmFSLVZbI1_zBc  Boulevard Montmartre, by Camille Pissarro (France) 1897 Welcome lovers of art and ekphrastic writing and please enjoy Boulevard Montmartre by Camille Pissarro. According to the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Pissarro "acted as a father figure not only to the Impressionists but to all four of the major Post-Impressionists, including Georges Seurat, Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin. I am intrigued with this particular time period of art, and am a fan of these artists. It was interesting to read of his influence on impressionists and post- impressionists. I look forward to your poetry and flash fiction using this exquisite piece of art as a prompt. Thank you to Lorette Luzajic for allowing me to serve as a guest editor for this ekphrastic challenge! Warm Regards, Julie A. Dickson ** 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 Boulevard Montmartre, by Camille Pissarro. Deadline is March 15, 2024. You can submit poetry, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, microfiction, or any other form creative writing you like. 1000 words max please. The Rules 1. Use this visual art prompt as a springboard for your writing. It can be a poem or short prose (fiction or nonfiction.) You can research the artwork or artist and use your discoveries to fuel your writing, or you can let the image alone provoke your imagination. 2. Write as many poems and stories as you like. Send only your best works or final draft, not everything you wrote down. (Please note, experimental formats are difficult to publish online. We will consider them but they present technical difficulties with web software that may not be easily resolved.) Please copy and paste your submission into the body of the email, even if you include an attachment such as Word or PDF. 3. There is no mandatory submission fee, but we ask you to consider a voluntary donation to show your support to the time, management, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review. It takes an incredible amount of time to curate the journal, read regular and contest submissions, etc. Paying all expenses out of pocket is also prohibitive. Thank you. A voluntary gift does not affect the selection process in any way. 4. USE THIS EMAIL ONLY. Send your work to [email protected]. Challenge submissions sent to the other inboxes will most likely be lost as those are read in chronological order of receipt, weeks or longer behind, and are not seen at all by guest editors. They will be discarded. Sorry. 5.Include PISSARRO 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, March 15, 2024. 9. Please do not send revisions, corrections, or changes to your poetry or your biography after the fact. If it's not ready yet, hang on to it until it is. 10. Selected submissions will be published together, with the prompt, one week after the deadline. 11. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we do not send out sorry notices or yes letters for challenge submissions. You will see what poetry and stories have been selected when the responses are posted one week after the deadline. Understand that we value your participation as part of our ekphrastic community, but we can only choose a handful of the many entries we receive. 12. A word on the selection process: we strive for a balance between rewarding regular participants and sharing the voices of writers who are new to our family. We also look for a variety of perspectives and styles, and a range of interesting takes on the painting. It is difficult to reproduce experimental formatting, so unfortunately we won't choose many with unusual spacing or typography. 13. By submitting to The Ekphrastic Review, you are also automatically joining our subscribers' list. Your submission is your permission. We don't send spam and we don't send many emails- you will not receive forty-four emails a day! Our newsletter occasionally updates you on some of the challenges, news, contests, prize nominations, ekphrastic happenings, prompt ebooks, workshops, and more. 14. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges! 15. Please share this prompt with your writing groups, Facebook groups, social media circles, and anywhere else you can. The simple act of sharing brings readers to The Ekphrastic Review, and that is the best way to support the poets and writers on our pages! 16. Check this space every Friday for new challenges and selected responses, alternating weekly. |
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