​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  HOROSCOPE 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, May 10, 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.

Insight

As the clouds carry four angels, they hang low, dark, misty and yellow,
The harsh cold tiles, hold Jesus's who bleeds from neck to waist, the ground also has a lady dressed in white, from neck to toe who appears to be praying, eyes fixed on the floor hands touching the opposite sides of her chest.
An eerie sentiment by the clouds and mist that surround their moments together.
Cold, hard, brown tiled floor also carries a vase shaped column that was used to chain Jesus up sits on the left hand side.
I can't imagine what it feels like to be chained and whipped on the back, but I have pretty good insight as I used to be held and whipped on the arse and up and down the backs of my legs. I also had to be quiet and not move or it would be worse.
Just as Jesus's lays head feet and knees touching the floor unable to relax. With his back arched I was unable to sit down and relax also, this depressing piece takes me way back to my stolen childhood.
 
Lynn Reeves

Lynn Reeves: "I am a mum, a poet, a writer, a artist and a Big Issue vendor I have been published in several anthologies and the Big Issue magazines, also Water Rat Publishing and Femasia Magazine.

**

To Francisco Antonio Vallejo Regarding Christ After the Flagellation

Though beaten down to crumpled twist
angelic eyes all wish dismissed,
you show Him not in throes of pain
but in the peace  --  not of disdain  --

but of compassion even for
tormentors flailing into gore
the bloodied back on which would rest
the sins forgiven as confessed

by those who choose to live contrite,
whose actions cloak in raiments white 
the faith of souls all others know
is love He taught and said bestow

as saving Grace of suffered days 
becoming Hope that He would raise.

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.

**

​Re-born
 
Making sense of a cruel world
Life and death juxtaposed
The torment of living
As Christ’s flagellation
With every torturer’s strike
On his bloodied back
The heavenly onlookers
Imparted the knowledge
Of compassion
The tortured, the consciousness
Of life’s eternal triumph
Over death

Z. T. Balian

Multilingual French-Armenian author, Z. T. Balian, holds an MA in English Literature from the American University of Beirut.  After a career as a university lecturer, she now devotes her time to writing.  Waiting for Morning Twilight (2023) is her first collection of haiku poetry in English and her 199 Haiku Poems in Western Armenian was published in 2022.  Her poetry in English has previously appeared in Hope: An Anthology of Poetry (2020) and Setu Mag’s Poetry: Western Voices (since 2021).  She is also the author of two novels –Three Kisses of the Cobra (2016) and Fallen Pine Cones (2023).

**

The Fire that Breaks from Thee Then

A halo of angels
frames the bleeding Christ.
Even in agony and torture
the Light emanates
from His blood-stained back.
His folded arms predict
the Cross that now awaits.
The watchers' eyes are drawn
to meet His sorrowful gaze,
that all-encompassing Love.
In the gathering gloom,
that Light still shines
even amid cruelty and hate,
it illuminates the approaching dark.​

Sarah Das Gupta

Sarah Das Gupta is a teacher from Cambridge, UK who has long admired the poet Gerald Manley Hopkins. This painting is reminiscent of some of his poems on the suffering of Christ.

**

The Invisible Hand

Religious art can distance us
from death, as even now
as we mere bystanders are drawn,
intoxicated by an aphrodisiac of blood.

We could tell ourselves it was
the painter's brush that opened
and reopened scores of wounds
with blood enough to fill a grail.

The unseen soldiers' muscled strokes
produced this icon of sheer torture,
like a carcass in a butcher's shop
that left the flesh in bloody ribbons,

shed from back and legs, and buttocks,
by long and braided leather thongs
that are attached to iron balls and bones
of slaughtered sheep, sharpened at the edges,

barbed and hooked and closely knotted.
And when inflicting pain became a chore
that left the torturers so short of breath,
they paused the arc of each full swing.

Forty lashes counted, minus one  --
the custom -- at a pillar like the one
in Rome within Saint Praxedes,
a shape artists in Mexico preferred

Several childish cherubs witnessing --
a covered mouth, face hid, averted eyes --
will sing an oratorio of tears. But they should
show terrifying wings and eyes of fire.

We console ourselves with lamentations
and mumble decades of a dirge-like rosary.
But can we see in this scene every execution?
The hands that snap the scourging whip are ours.

Royal Rhodes

Royal Rhodes taught the history of Christianity for almost forty years.  The diverse ways the suffering and death of Christ has been depicted in art, poetry, and music have been part of his research and study. He lives now in the rural farmland of Ohio.

**

Today, Prayer Is a Vast Country

Today, I’m the child kneeling, arms crossed.
Tomorrow, prayers zigzag.
On the third day, baby teeth bitten into my back.
My sorrow whips into a Roman tragedy:
angel eyes hand-masked from bloody scars.
scars to open,
opening, wounded land, hunched-over.
I’m praying that my witness
won’t escape its remembrance.
In tragedy, praying hopes
to cover the sins.
Pillars of prayer to hold onto.
Someday, I will grow up, pendulum
swinging pure innocence for these borders. 
Will the cherubs fly over?
Sorry, I say to my prayer
if I forget to pack you for travel.
I cannot dress you in a white robe.
Cherished, grey-winged, gardened,
spirited, honeymooned,
of all my coveted friends, only you, prayer,
gaze upon this stoned floor to endure,
only you can bite the apple.
 
John Milkereit
 
John Milkereit lives in Houston, Texas working as a mechanical engineer. He has completed a M.F.A. in Creative Writing at the Rainier Writing Workshop. His work has appeared in various literary journals such as The Comstock Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Panoply, San Pedro River Review, and previous issues of The Ekphrastic Review. In December, Kelsay Books published his fourth collection of poems entitled, Lost Sonnets for My Unvaccinated Lover.
 
**

On the Heels of Shadows

Have we suffered enough yet
to be saved?  Is death
not forever immanent?

The silence is absolute,
profound.  Blood and bones
carried on the wings of Crow.

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/.

**

Surrounded by Angels

​He was a very good husband and a very good father indeed. His relations with his wife were excellent. How did he now find himself here surrounded by angels?

Hardworking, understanding and always fulfilled his marital duties. More than needed and in ways most people wouldn’t comprehend.

How did he now find himself here surrounded by angels?

He was a bit of a rebel as a child. His mother knew and understood. 

How did he now find himself here surrounded by angels?

However, he did not get on well with the commanders and the rulers. He was a pain in their asses. He would open his mouth more than he should, and if he didn't stop it soon, he wouldn't like the development of the situation, they said. He didn't stop. 

How did he come to be here now immersed in a pool of blood surrounded by angels?

It’s ok, Maria. I know you have already forgiven them, for you know that they don’t know what they are doing. And anyways, I no longer dwell here.

Yours eternally, 
Jeez

Zoe Kavaltzi

Zoe started experimenting with writing in the last few years. She hasn’t had any of her works published until now, but she has completed two stories for children which she hopes to be issued eventually. She often expresses herself in her daily life through poems, short stories, aka microfiction, and pencil drawing and watercolours. She often visits the notebooks she has filled with them and wonders where that inspiration came from. She lives on the small island of Cyprus (South East in Mediterranean Sea).

**

The Mystery of Cruelty
 
Crumpled, he lies not far from the pillar
Where he was chained, whipped and beaten until
His spine became a long, flowing river of blood.
His arms and legs have returned to the 
Safe shape where he lay in the warm waters
Of his mother’s womb. Even now she has not
Abandoned him. She kneels nearby, and both
Have crossed their holy hands over their sacred hearts.
Amid all this sorrow and pain, their eyes remain open,
Though even the angels cover their faces in horror.
 
This man and his mother can see that the cruelest animal
On Earth is the Human Male, the thousands who have chosen
The path of darkness and domination, wandering far
From the light, from love and beauty, from sowing seeds.
How easy it is for one of these to lure a pack of followers 
To wallow with him in the glory of war. This wounded one had twelve 
Dearest friends; one betrayed him and the others turned 
Their backs when he was helpless. The other animals have long known: 
Stay away from the Humans. Only the goats and the sheep,
From the earliest days of creation, have lived among these evil creatures, 
Claiming the fleeting safety of protection from wolves, though
They know that in time, the lambs will be slaughtered, burned and eaten.
 
The angels, prophets and saints, along with women and men
Of their own species, have called to these Humans over the centuries,
To turn away from tools of war, from power-lust and lies,
But they love blood and worship only themselves.
As he rests, exhausted, knowing that more torture is to come,
The bleeding man lies like a lamb, gathering light from the angels
And the women, who will strengthen him to endure his death,
Sing songs in his memory, and call on the artists in his name to lift up
The light that evil can never extinguish.
 
Rose Anna Higashi
 
Rose Anna Higashi is a retired professor of English Literature, Japanese Literature, Poetry and Creative Writing who lives in Honolulu. Her poems have appeared recently in Poets online, The Ekphrastic Review, Agape, Americamedia.org and The Catholic Poetry Room, among other publications.  Many of her lyric poems and haiku appear on her website, myteaplanner.com, which she co-wrote with her niece, Chef Kathleen Pedulla. Rose Anna and her husband Wayne are world travelers, and her monthly blog, Tea and Travels, appears on the myteaplanner.com website.
 
**

​Scourge

Who will help the prisoner
lying on the floor,
lying there
alone,
unwashed 
and bleeding.

No one came.

They said he deserved the scourging,
that it was their job
to administer punishment
and keep society safe,
safe from such scourges.

So no one came

Only angels,
those fat cherubs 
of empathy and kindness,
they came down to help him.
But only in his dream.

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/

**

​​Man Was Made to Mourn*
 
One man stripped 
flesh and humanity 
from another; some
watchers pitied, others 
closed their eyes.
 
Despite a petition by seventy 
corrections officers and one retired
state supreme court justice, yesterday,
Missouri executed a murderer--
we offered no mercy. 
 
Sometimes cruelty is nothing
more than cruelty. When 
the dying hold your gaze
and you turn away;
who will bear witness?
 
Lesley Rogers Hobbs

*Title is from Robert Burns’ 1784 poem of the same name.
 
Lesley Rogers Hobbs (she/her) is an Irish poet and artist living in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and dog. She loves popcorn, sunshine, Pink Floyd and the ocean. Her poetry has appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, Open Door Poetry, The Hyacinth Review, Querencia Press and Cirque.

**

Christ After 

I wasn’t planning on dancing 
in the graveyard 
behind church 
but I will follow you 
 
Then, how am I supposed to know 
if you are tearing air open or 
apart 
               with your fingers? 
Let me ask another way: 
Is this your first time? 

I made you promise to adorn me, 
as a saint or lover or corpse, 
with flowers like how 
insides petal out, raw &
               this is also called blooming 

and the water is warm until 
you are deep enough 

How we pause and whisper Sorry 
                because it hurts like how we kneel
and whisper 
Sorry 

because seraphs are watching 
You can stop dancing 
when the dried roses at the headstones
are trampled enough 

go home, I said 
                  your plants are dying. 

Niko Malouf

Niko is a college student and visual artist living and studying in Los Angeles. He loves poetry and tries his hand at it every once in a while, usually when nothing else feels right. 
​
**

Via Dolorosa

In the narrative of passion you know there is going to be some hurting in the hurtling towards heartbreak, like an ostrich egg being cracked over the bald pink pate of a Roman senator, the cracking shell unleashing its gooey innards, treacly entrails spilling onto a starched toga or the petroleum blue hue of a sharkskin suit, but taking the shirt off your back and letting them whip you into a landscape of welts, well that takes the biscuit, not that you could straighten up and eat a biscuit with a back like that, although you might raise an eyebrow, or two, heavenwards and ask the old man, what have I done to deserve this, this frenzy of savagery, this hungry and heartless wrist flicking in a diabolic dance choreographed by the demented Marquis de… de de de de… when the tears have faltered from deluge to dribble, you might look around and think, why not, everybody’s at it on the Via Dolorosa, the scourge passing from hand to hand depending on whose harbouring the hardware and who has the moolah, members of the congregation and a rabid desire to wreak destruction on anyone seen as an enemy of all that you stand for, no standing room for them, they must be reduced to a crawling wretch, crying for their mummy or a twisted tummy waiting for a truckload of flour to feed their aching, you have a right to defend yourself when all the angels have fled, though these guys don’t seem in a hurry, maybe they bought the wings in that pop-up store in Tel Aviv where civilisation-saving superhero suits are selling like hot cakes, you can have your latke and eat it too, though too many crooks spoil the broth with their birch stirring bloodthirstiness and we all know where it’ll end up: yep, crucifixion, a fiction whose frictions have fostered more flagellations than a bordello in Bethlehem. 

Crawl away my friend and don’t look back, you know what’s coming.

Simon Parker

Simon Parker is a London based writer, performer and teacher. His work been published in The Ekphrastic Review, The Pomegranate London and has been performed at the Lyric Hammersmith Studio, Hackney Empire Studio, The Place, Somerset House, Half Moon Theatre, Southbank Centre, the Totally Thames Festival, and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.  Simon is an associate artist of Vocal Point Theatre, a theatre company dedicated to telling stories from those not often heard, and providing workshops for the marginalised. He runs creative writing and reading groups for the homeless, socially excluded and vulnerable. If you want to know more go to https://www.simonparkerwriter.com

**

Door and Core

It’s dislocated as a theme,
in swollen yet skeletal form,
the weight of bloat, smear splattered haunch,
yet crushing bones in deformed warp.
These finger thins with shin and toes
and lie of head in disconnect,
must lift that torso, being there,
because it’s nowhere else to go.
But workshop blue that takes the eye
after slumped, raw, bloody dump;
Vallejo known for pigment touch
in contrast to the butcher’s slab.
This Mexican, tail of baroque,
has angel hands curled in surround
from shock to heartfelt, piety,
a cruel earth to sicken heav’n.
But whiplash, beating at the heart
of pulsing flow from cardiac;
the scapegoat twisted, body shorn,
all angular, contorted limbs.
It’s thrill to inflict pain on weak,
and turning cheek, pathetic feat;
to glory, power, when facing meek,
as pulverise offensive meat.
But tender rise, his story claimed,
then loud exclaimed as run and shout;
less Friday known, no Easter day,
and suffering, salvation’s door.

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

**

Incantation at Christ’s Flagellation 
Cherubs may weep at Christ’s flagellation
bloodied wounds bear witness to interrogation
his refusal to surrender to mortal temptation
ceding betrayal of masked collaboration
 
and what have we learned? Our own civilisation
is marred by hatred and confrontation
borders and walls pit nation on nation
while leaders divide through segregation
 
we scorn the desperate who seek immigration
to flee from war and the threat of starvation
what happens to migrants post-dislocation
running from torture toward liberation?
 
I pray that through talk and negotiation
no more of the innocents will face annihilation
yes I weep at the sight of Christ’s flagellation
at the cherubs’ wings folded in meek adoration
 
Kate Young

Kate Young lives in England and enjoys writing poetry, painting and playing the guitar, ukulele and mandolin. Her poems have appeared in various webzines, magazines, and chapbooks. Her work has also featured in the anthologies Places of Poetry and Write Out Loud. Her pamphlet A Spark in the Darkness has been published by Hedgehog Press and her next pamphlet Beyond the School Gate is due to be published soon. Find her on Twitter @Kateyoung12poet.

**
 

Our third annual ekphrastic marathon is coming this summer...click image above for details or to sign up. It's going to be epic!

TER editor Kate Copeland chose this artwork, and will choose what responses to publish. Thank you Kate!

**
​
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 Cloud Shadows, by Katja Lang. Deadline is April 26, 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  LANG 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 26, 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.