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Announcing: Winner and Finalists of Water Contest

7/31/2023

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The Ekphrastic Review says a big congratulations to Kimberly Hall, whose poem, "Three Symphonic Sketches" has won the Water contest!

Thank you to Kimberly and to all of the wonderful finalists below, and to every single one of you writing to these curated thematic collections.

I am especially thankful to Sandi Stromberg for her time and consideration and for this important work.

All of the reading for this contest was done blind. So we were surprised by the results after deliberations. Several finalists had more than one work in the top 20. The winner, Kimberly Hall, had three! Also surprising was how many of the finalists wrote to the same work of art. There were 50 choices to write about, but so many great pieces after the famous Great Wave painting, Klee's painting, the moonlight on water work by Henry, and my own abstract work, A River Without Water. While a wide variety of the works showed up in the entries, a few inspired many to write wondrous things.

The finalists' works are shown below in alphabetical order by name, with Kimberly's winning poem first in the sequence.

We thank each and every one of you for reading these writers, for sending your submissions, for supporting the journal, and for making this community so amazing. THANK YOU.

Lorette

**

Congratulations to everyone who entered the Water contest, and of course, to the finalists and the winner. I loved immersing myself in the myriad responses. I read each and every piece several times with appreciation for each writer’s thoughtful and compelling work. Then, I faced the challenge of making selections. Kimberly Hall’s “Three Symphonic Sketches” rose to the top for her ability to capture the symphonic sound of Hokusai’s Great Wave. But please read all the selections presented here. Each one invites us to experience more deeply the chosen work of art.

Sandi Stromberg

**

The Finalists

The World to Come, by Valerie Bacharach
The Catch, by Lizzie Ballagher
​The Glasgow Boy Speaks, by Lizzie Ballagher
​Icons, by Portly Bard
​A River Without Water, by Portly Bard
What my glass-half-empty eyes see…by Dorothy Burrows
​Rain God Vessel Lamentation, by Helen Freeman
​Nightfruit, by Julia Griffin
​
Haibun on A River Without Water, by Kimberly Hall
​Portents: Haiku, by Kimberly Hall
​Three Symphonic Sketches, by Kimberly Hall (First Place Winner)
The Shadows, by Amy Holman
Eddystone Lighthouse, by Anton Melbye (Denmark) 1846, by Sue Mackrell
​Canticle of Dreams, by Mary McCarthy
A glass of words from the kitchen tap, by Sandra Noel
What the wind knows, by Sandra Noel
​
The Mariana Trench, by Barbara Ponomareff
the river's slow face, by Janet Ruth
​Writing with Hokusai, by Janet Ruth
Final Sky, by F.F. Teague
​
Picture
The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, by Katsushika Hokusai (Japan) 1831
First Place Winner!!!!

​Three Symphonic Sketches

 
In 1905, composer Claude Debussy requested that the image of Hokusai’s Kanagawa-oki Nami Ura be printed on the front cover of the published score of his newest orchestral work, titled La mer; Debussy kept a copy of this artwork in his studio, and used it as inspiration.
 
I.
First, a wash of colour. Shimmering harps and strings like sunlight soar high above the waves, bass and bass drum rolling steady beneath them. Chords and motifs dissolve into a soundscape of blue – brisk blue wind over bubbling blue water, light flutes and dark bassoons and boundless rippling cellos – all watercolour and ocean spray, blossoming against the horizon.
 
a cloudy spring haze –
seawater and sunrise meet,
claws crest and retract
 
II.
Second, the scherzo. Not just colour, but movement. A strange and glittering dance with ever-changing steps. Phrases seem to shape themselves – texture and timbre toss each other in and out of earshot, with a sort of playfulness that cares not whether it leads its listener to familiar shores or into unfamiliar depths.
 
foam like dragons’ pearls,
dancing on the waves – waves that
scatter boats like fish
 
III.
Finally, the storm. Horns and trumpets, rumbling first and then growing, growing, as a growl grows into a roar. Wind and bass and brass and strings – the whole orchestra strengthening into a swell, swelling into a surge – surging into a thunderous chorale that reaches up through the mouth of a distant sea and brings the great wave to life.
 
the sea-god wakes, and
between its curls – the dawn’s first
glimpse of Mount Fuji
 
Kimberly Hall
 
Kimberly Hall (she/her) is a queer and neuro-divergent poet and writer. She received her master's degree in behavioral science from the University of Houston-Clear Lake. Her poetry and prose can be found in online publications such as First Flight, Sappho's Torque, and Equinox, as well as in several ekphrastic poetry anthologies and a brand new anthology from Mutabilis Press. She still gets the idiomatic butterflies whenever anyone mentions these things where she can hear them.
 
Picture
Fish Magic, by Paul Klee (Switzerland) 1925

The World to Come
 
An imperious galaxy holds multitudes. A clock ticks
past and future as gold and cobalt fish swim
in random patterns of here and gone, return and leave.
 
See the mother with her two faces, 
heart-shaped mouth when she remembered
love, 
the other all blank eye and shuttered lips.
 
A vermillion fish, nostalgic for its beginning,
glimmers. The clock ticks star and planet
while flowers sprout in scented water, spread
their leaves and petals. See the mother’s upraised hand,
empty of names.
 
The moon eats the sun, the clock spins eternity,
fish dazzle in the darkening sea.
 
Valerie Bacharach

Valerie Bacharach is a proud member of Carlow University’s Madwomen in the Attic writing workshops. Her writing has appeared or will appear in publications including Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Pittsburgh Quarterly, The Tishman Review, Topology Magazine, Poetica, The Ekphrastic Review, Talking/Writing, and Vox Viola.  Her chapbook, Fireweed, was published in August 2018 by Main Street Rag.

Picture
Jesus Walks on Water, by Ivan Aivozovsky (Russian Empire, today Ukraine) 1888

​The Catch
                                         
Hungry, still, for solitude,
he sent us off across the lake ahead of him:
went aside alone, this time, to meet
with God, his Father. 
Reluctantly, we rowed away, hauled, 
heaved against the growing surge of angry waves 
that sent us floundering, spinning, helpless
on the disfigured face of Galilee’s wide water.
 
We tasted terror then, tormented 
by the force of wind that clenched 
our innards, pitched us
into Sheol’s deeps, dashed us 
down the crags of water
into the gnashing teeth of a storm. 
Now: how in a towering tide & torrent 
were we to fare without our Lord?
 
The mast curved over, sang out, 
whined. Our puny rudder failed.
The sail sprang out & snapped,
tore, flashed away 
into a squalling wind
until we bawled in fear 
of death, shouted, eyes shoreward, 
that we saw an apparition.
 
And yet, no phantom it was 
but Christ himself in very flesh
walking the rage & roar of wave-crests,
holding wide his all-embracing arms
to clip & keep us in.
No catch of fish more dear to him!
We understood at once 
he was the Everlasting One,
 
He who then cried out to us:
Cannot I who hurled stars 
across the void, who brooded 
over deep primeval waters--
cannot I, radiant 
over chasms of blue darkness,
now walk across this wildness
so to find you, call you home?
 
Lizzie Ballagher
 
In 2022, Ballagher was chosen as winner in Poetry on the Lake's formal category with a pantoum entitled ‘Across the Barle’. Her work has appeared in print and online on both sides of the Atlantic; it has also been presented in podcasts on Poetry Worth Hearing (Anchor fm).  Several of her poems in the last two decades have, too, been set to music. Contributing regularly to Southeast Walker Magazine, she lives in the UK, writing a blog: https://lizzieballagherpoetry.wordpress.com/. 
 

Picture
River Landscape by Moonlight, by George Henry (Scotland) 1887
 
The Glasgow Boy Speaks, 1887 
 
River Landscape by Moonlight, George Henry, 1887)
 
South o’ the border all the blether’s
now aboot Victoria’s Golden Jubilee,
 
while here in the North Countree
men gang up long before the skreich o’ day
 
tae drive haem rivets, slave
at smelting lums along the Clyde--
 
and all tae keep her majesty in a style
she is entitled tae (they say)
 
with Sassenachs and swaggering lairds
who think we’re teuchters--
 
gyte as the moon that sinks down tae the river--
clarty by our guid labours…
 
Yet, open up your een, ye glaikit southren folk,
and see the braw dance o’ light
 
even in the scribble of an antic moon,
the reek o’ blazing furnaces--
 
the heft o’ steel and coal; the sweat 
on backs o’ men bowed doon….
 
Here winter days are nae sae lang, 
so we mun keek wi’ inner een
 
tae find the brilliance
o’ bonny light in darkness.                                         
 
Lizzie Ballagher

Glossary
blether                         gossip, chat
gang                            go
skreich o’ day             daybreak
drive haem                 drive home
lums                            chimneys
Sassenachs                the English
teuchters                     rough characters
gyte                             mad
clarty                          dirty
guid                             good
een                              eyes
glaikit                          gormless, empty-headed
braw                            brave, beautiful
nae sae lang               short
mun keek                     must look
 
Picture
Variety of Ship Figureheads at Cutty Sark. Photo by LondonHistoryatHome, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Icons
 
These once the pride beneath the prow
of storied wood from stern to bow
are now but remnants left to gauge
the wonder of their golden age
 
when keels beneath the waterline
would harness wind above the brine
in timbered sails to brave the roar
that souls defiant dared explore
 
by going west to reach the east
believing waters never ceased,
that plane ordained they ought to fear
was more illusion wrought by sphere
 
and spirit by which they were led
was more than merely figurehead.
 
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.
​
Picture
A River Without Water, by Lorette C. Luzajic (Canada) 2017

River Without Water
 
I see the bottom of a heart
imagined as ravine
where love is intermittent rain
it always seems between
 
and idle dreams are fragile shards
that peek from coral sand
as precious trove of treasured lore
enduring close at hand
 
yet better left where widely strewn,
assembled unrestored,
in art that gives them homage due,
but leaves them unexplored,
 
accepted as the arid pain
where scars were etched...and will remain.
 
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.
​
Picture
River Landscape by Moonlight, by George Henry (Scotland) 1887

What my glass-half-empty eyes see…
 
Upon an ink-blotched river, 
                               shimmering oil spills, patches and traces of chemical trash.
 
                                                         A concrete walkway, cracked
and lifeless; still harbouring the trunks of two dead trees.
 
From old warehouse bones
                            smart apartments, well-lit; but no brightness for the homeless.
 
                                                            Against the urban skyline,
from pyres of wrecked cars, a suffocation of thick smoke;
 
the shiver of celestial sharks, 
                                     their ghost-fins splashing in a boiling, rising ocean.
 
                                                           A gigantic plastic orange,
air-swept, bloated; bobbing uneaten above sick coral…
 
the harvest moon.
 
Dorothy Burrows
 
Based in the United Kingdom, Dorothy Burrows enjoys writing flash fiction, poems and short plays. Her work has been published by various journals, including The Ekphrastic Review. For some years, she travelled to school on a ferry boat.

Picture
Rain God Vessel, Mixtec Style, (Mexico) c. 1100–1400.User: FA2010, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Rain God Vessel Lamentation
 
It’s this stance I’m forced to hold, my left knee aches, my right elbow too and I worry about the onset of arthritis. My moustache needs a trim, coyote headdress smells of squirrel, ringed eye openings skew my vision and a developing fracture surely spells trouble. 
 
They told me I’d be given a club and shield to supplement my four remaining fangs, but to say I’m gutted at their size is an understatement – almost like a watch and pen which would have been more use. Guess I’m not too sure why I need them. Nobody asks me what I want and aren’t I the god here anyway?
 
Can someone please fill this water container or at least dampen me with mist and spritz me with dew? I long for clouds to subdue my surroundings like an arctic cloak and slick my cheeks with moisture. Mother of Jesus, tell them to fill me to the brim. Let me be drenched, overflowing, hailed by farmers and warriors, prophets and priests, parents and children the world over. Endue me, for pity’s sake, with even one drop of real power.
 
Helen Freeman

Helen Freeman started writing poetry during recovery time from a serious road traffic accident in Oman and got hooked. She has been published in several magazines and supplements including with Corbel Stone Press, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Clear Poetry, Algebra of Owls, Ground Poetry, Your One Phone-call, Open Mouse, Red River Review, Barren Magazine, The Drabble, Sukoon, Poems for Ephesians and The Ekphrastic Review. Some of her ekphrastic poems were published alongside related Diane Rendle paintings at an exhibition in Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh. She taught English for many years in Kenya, Tanzania, Oman and Dubai and now lives in Durham, England.
​

Picture
River Landscape by Moonlight, by George Henry (Scotland) 1887

Nightfruit

 
So the bright orange
Scribbles itself by night
Into the deep blue:
 
Beauty of Seville,
Framed as a secret Spanish
Exclamation point¡
 
Julia Griffin
 
Julia Griffin lives in South-East Georgia.  She has published in Light, Lighten Up Online, Snakeskin, and some other magazines.

Picture
A River Without Water, by Lorette C. Luzajic (Canada) 2017

 
Haibun on A River Without Water
 
Dry wind carries no water across these still beds. What was once bright and fertile now hears only the echo of rain, holds only the memory of flood.
 
Scraps emerge like phantoms in the night. Feet splashing, a wet rush of blood, ripples and riptides and roaring thunder – shadows, sluggishly crawling out from darkened desert, coming to rest against eager palms.
 
Scraps, like phantoms, dissolve once more, crumbling to dust in the hot white light of day.
 
no thirst is quenched by
memory alone – where dreams run
instead of rivers.
 
Kimberly Hall
 
Picture
Cloud Study, by John Constable (England) 1822

Portents: Haiku
 
morning overcast –
clouds like honeycomb, now sweet,
hold tomorrow’s storms
 
Kimberly Hall
​
Picture
Sewing Machine with Umbrella, by Salvador Dali (Spain) 1941

The Shadows
            
It’s raining bullets in 1941, 
and the seamstress whores 
are waving white handkerchiefs 
 
in a chiaroscuro of recruitment
and sympathy. The machines 
are shielded from the commands 
 
for pleats and A-lines, fitted; 
a waste. The seamstresses are lonely, 
Surrendering their men to Franco
 
Amy Holman
 
Amy Holman is a poet, literary consultant and artist. The author of five poetry books, including the prizewinning chapbook, Wait for Me, I’m Gone, from Dream Horse Press, and the collection, Wrens Fly Through This Opened Window, from Somondoco Press, her poems have recently appeared in The 5-2: Crime Poetry Weekly, The Chiron Review, and The Night Heron Barks. ​
Picture
Eddystone Lighthouse, by Anton Melbye (Denmark) 1846
Eddystone Lighthouse by Anton Melbye (Denmark) 1846
Picture
Sue Mackrell

Author's note: Words in italics are from contemporary sources.

Sue Mackrell lives in Leicestershire, UK. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Loughborough University. Retirement from teaching and facilitating Creative Writing workshops gives her more time to write. Her poems have been published several times in The Ekphrastic Review and Agenda, also recently in Bloody Amazing (Dragon Yaffle) Diversifly (Fair Acre Press) Whirlagust III (Yaffle) and online in Words for the Wild.

Picture
Fish Magic, by Paul Klee (Switzerland) 1925

Canticle of Dreams
 
Like a fist unclenched
a leaf falling
the balance of attention
lapsed
I slide wordlessly down
past the surface
into the dark
ocean of sleep
where bright fish rise
finned and scaled
the shimmering glint
of sequins winking
in glittering spangles
that catch whatever light
shines through the water
my dreams fantastical
and strange as their
ancient shapes
whispering
without sound
like liquid
hieroglyphs
antiphon to the long
songs of whales
that fill me with
a desperate longing
to stay here with them
and learn to breathe
without air
 
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, the Blue Heron Review, and Verse Virtual.  Her collection How to Become Invisible will come out from Kelsay early next year.

Picture
Water Glass and Jug, by Jean Siméon Chardin (France) 1760

A glass of words from the kitchen tap
 
I hold its story in my mouth, just long enough 
for the taste of clean to paddle on my tongue, 
to hear the echo of pins-and-needle rain.
A hint of salt swaddles my throat,  
tells of another latitude, 
a time before your dark.
 
It doesn’t seem to matter how many times 
I go to the tap to refill your glass;
it remains full of wordless words, empty.
 
Sandra Noel

Sandra Noel is a poet from Jersey, Channel Islands.  She enjoys writing about the ordinary in unusual ways, nature themes and her passion for sea swimming weaving through many of her poems. Sandra has poems featured online and in print magazines and anthologies. This year she has been longlisted by Mslexia Women’s Poetry Competition 2023, highly commended in The Yaffle Press Competition 2023, and commended in Poetry on the Lake’s Haiku competition 2023. Two of her poems are currently on the buses in Guernsey as winners in the Guernsey International Poetry Competition 2022.  Sandra is working on her first collection.

Picture
The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, by Katsushika Hokusai (Japan) 1831

What the wind knows 
 
Even when the sea is turning inside out,
and the ferry lurches green folk starboard, 
the bottle on the table knows how to hold 
the wine in the shape of itself;
in the way a shadow holds 
the shape of the wave
just long enough,
until it crashes 
back to itself,
and the boat 
lurches
port side. 
 
Sandra Noel

Picture
Fish Magic, by Paul Klee (Switzerland) 1925

The Mariana Trench
 
He dreamed himself through layers of dark,
all smudge and pitch-black night
 
penetrating the earth’s mantle
in search of its core, 
he fell deeper and darker
 
past trees, houses, the clock on the tower
which faded as he passed
 
dream-memories shapeshifted objects
into pure form as if creating 
road signs to nowhere
 
memories of gardens – flowers, leaf, 
petal and stem, some formed 
like the rays of the sun
turned into symbols of loss.
 
Only the fish, magical and singular, 
appeared to know where they were going
as if connected by a sizzling current.
 
Aglow, as if lit from inside 
by lanterns carried in children’s hands.
 
Onward his body drifted 
amongst the shapes, weightless 
and heavy at once.
 
Imagining 
his own phosphorescence,
he sunk deeper and darker
through time and space
out of the known. 
 
Over 11,000 meters deep – 
 
to a depth even his dreams 
could not fathom.
 
Barbara Ponomareff

Barbara Ponomareff lives in southern Ontario, Canada. By profession a child psychotherapist, she has been fortunate to be able to pursue her lifelong interest in literature, art and psychology since her retirement. The first of her two novellas, dealt with a possible life of the painter J.S. Chardin. Her short stories, memoirs and poetry have appeared in Descant, (EX)cite, Precipice and various other literary magazines and anthologies. She has contributed to The Ekphrastic Review on numerous occasions and was delighted to win one of their flash story contests.

Picture
A River Without Water, by Lorette C. Luzajic (Canada) 2017

the river’s slow face
 
kingfisher
cackles from the shadows
seeing with ears
 
eyes seek
the river’s waking
her face turned away
 
view of sky
painted pink with dawn
just her reflections
 
rosy dreams
of cherry blossoms falling
drift of mist
 
a glimpse
where mist pulls thin
dark waters
 
scribbled
on river surface
a few reeds
 
a slight breeze
dabbles at the stillness
lifting
 
Janet Ruth

Janet Ruth is a NM ornithologist. Her writing focuses on connections to the natural world. She has recent poems in Oddball Magazine, Tulip Tree Review, The Ocotillo Review, Sin Fronteras, Spiral Orb and anthologies including Moving Images: poetry inspired by film (Before Your Quiet Eyes Publication, 2021) and New Mexico Remembers 9/11 (Artemesia Publishing, 2020).  Her first book,Feathered Dreams: celebrating birds in poems, stories & images (Mercury HeartLink, 2018) was a Finalist for the 2018 NM/AZ Book Awards.   https://redstartsandravens.com/janets-poetry/
Picture
The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, by Katsushika Hokusai (Japan) 1831

Writing with Hokusai
 
tallest mountain
a matter of perspective
my fragile boat
 
the wave crashes down
truth worse than my fears
 
bending prows
into the bite of wind
bending to fate
 
should I pray
or laugh into the howling?
salt crusts my face

Mt. Fuji diminished below
sky full of ash
 
foam reaches
like fingers at the wave’s crest
all that lies beneath
 
Janet Ruth
​
Picture
Utonulá (Drowned Woman), by Jakub Schikaneder (Czechia) 1893

​Final Sky
 
He found her there at sunrise, on the beach,
first sighting her from cliffs above the shore,
one arm extended – not, though, in a reach,
but as the tide had swept her from the floor
of churning ocean. For a while he stood
and told himself she hadn’t drowned; she slept,
that’s all. She’d wake, recovered, and they would
be happy once again. And then he wept
and fell upon the sand and beat his fists
upon the sodden grains and shells and stones
amidst the early morning milling mists
that struck their clammy chills within his bones.
And still the sun rose in that final sky
as he strode out to sea, resolved to die.
 
F.F. Teague
 
F.F. Teague (Fliss) is a copyeditor/copywriter by day and a poet/composer come nightfall. She lives in Pittville, a suburb of Cheltenham (UK). Her poetry features regularly in the Spotlight of The HyperTexts; she has also been published by The Mighty, Snakeskin, The Ekphrastic Review, The Dirigible Balloon, Pulsebeat, Lighten Up Online and a local Morris dancing group. Other interests include art, film, and photography.

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Alexander Harrison: Ekphrastic Writing Responses

7/28/2023

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Picture
Solitude, by Alexander Harrison (France, b. USA) 1893

Landscape: Midnight Swim
                                              
                                               "You should avoid being too much in the real world,
                                                 it isn't conducive to happiness...

                                                  Does nothing of us last when we are dead?
                                                  For the lucky ones, perhaps love."
                                                                                 P.D. James,  A Certain Justice

How different the boat    a lost smile on the water,
faintly green in the moonlight.    How different

the single figure standing in the boat....embracing
the wilderness.    At a glance, she could be an animal --

long and thin --    a weasel or a stoat or an ermine
standing upright on its back haunches    its destiny,

to be a royal collar    in a Renaissance portrait.
Looking for the light    (a phantom moon slicing darkness)

I now realize the solitary figure is a woman    hands raised
to hold up her hair     from the nape of her naked neck.

Her hair is dark, still wet    though the water is a memory --
conflicted -- the clinging kelp    like the whisper of lost love

doubling the distance from the shore;    then the boat,
its fragile size and shape    almost unable to support her weight

as she takes her place    briefly arching her slim body
to recall their pleasure    his hands sliding down the length of her

as he told her what he wanted:    to watch her swim, to become
a part of the canvas    before it demanded his full attention.

And as his painting took shape    did he feel her loneliness --
insatiable --     as he stripped all other life forms from the picture?

They had been lovers;    if painted together, sleek and entwined...
But no.  She is alone    her skin like the sheer fabric of a night dress

as if she'd stepped from his 4-poster bed    instead of the grasses
on a hidden shore.    Will your palette float?  she might have asked,

eyeing the water    and the caliginous colors he'd used to disguise
any fires of incendiary passion.    No Love, he'd answered, 

as if prescient     we're eras away from an Age with styrofoam...
Years later (ninety years to be exact)     after modern art

was liberated from Victorian convention    would a great grand-
daughter recognize the svelte, single figure    standing in the boat

as a part of her past?    Or was the painting's message to be her future --
the oars that were unmoving --    bubble pools in the water indicating fish

beneath the surface     though they couldn't be identified;  in the same way
I wasn't identified, alone in Paris    writing on the deck of a Dutch boat

docked beneath the D'Orsay    during a ferocious summer heat wave.
Above, tourists with binoculars    watched me from a balcony --

est-elle folle ou celebe?     And inside, on the walls of the museum,
a lone figure, framed, La Solitude --    art in the way Romantics dream

of love, its lack, their wilderness.    Although bright fish can't be seen
in  A Midnight Swim     their scales shine like preliminary sketches

in a spectrum of possibility.     Even unconscious  (and even unwritten)
they are a wish and a promise:    the inevitable dawn;  the exquisite passion

of an inextinguishable hunger
                                                     as love begins to sizzle
                                                                                                 in an elemental skillet.

Laurie Newendorp

Laurie Newendorp lives and writes in Houston.  Honoured multiple times by the Ekphrastic Challenge, she found Harrison's La Solitude to be reminiscent of a personal experience: in 1992, stranded in Paris during a heat wave, she stayed on a Dutch Bed & Breakfast boat, The Johanna, docked at the base of the Musee D'Orsay.  Alone and struggling to finish a final academic paper (Yeats And The Tarot) necessary for a graduate degree in Creative Writing, she left the boat at night to find food; and to make trans-Atlantic calls to the father of her children.  If asked why she continues to love him, after both divorce and his death, she might tell you one reason is that he accepted (and paid for) her nightly calls from Paris before she was able to return to Houston. Thomas Alexander Harrison is said to have created dreamscapes, which is why the atmosphere of La Solitude has a resonance with both "Landscape: Midnight Swim," and the ekphrastic poems in her book of poetry, When Dreams Were Poems, 2020.

**

ripples
 
morning fog
the canoe slides
into grey silence
 
my paddle 
disturbs the bay
the gulls are silent
 
blue heron
Egyptian statue
among the reeds
 
tide rises
fog rests gently
on shoulders and lashes
 
bell buoy
muffled benediction
I am not alone
 
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 and 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 an autumn launch.

**

An Abandoned Plot

holds a roof,
rising bamboos guard
empty spaces-
drifting crumbs
reach the fence
where sits the crow
in morning breeze.

I gaze long at night sky
until it begins to talk-
until the letters dance
in nooks of heaven.
I anchor in clear waters-
until the stars fall
in slow drizzle.

My breath in dying mist.

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.

**

​Woods and Waters

This night is mine, and
all around, the moon is 
calling me to come...to ride
upon the light that kisses night
within the earth’s deep 
moaning. 

The night is mine, and
as I smile, eclipsing day and duty, it’s here I run to sail upon
this lake of ebony and silken sun-
less beauty of the night, 
my night....

Here, I am ruler of my realm as
all alone I stand, and in the grand-
ness of the starlight I am... I am...a
traveler of sky and sea, ...of 
woods and waters.

There is no you... 
nor they... 
nor us...
in this wide world of night, 
as I stand seeing far away the 
light of day fast fading in the 
march of time.

But here, each moment stills... 
to hush the rush and random 
shouts of mobs and gobs of 
powers’ red abuse. 
Here, I stand. 


Here I am...bare to wear 
fair sparkles of the night,
my night, afloat on dreams of 
boundless blue 
where there is no 
you. 

L. W. Owen

Linda Watson Owen is the Mississippi Poetry Society's 2023 Poet of the Year. Her book, A Gift of Dappled Light, is a compilation containing a variety of her award winning poems and favourites of readers and audiences. It is available through Amazon.

**

Finding Solitude in Watery Silence

The words are stagnant in my mind
like the lily pad clad surface of the pond,
and they curl into the shells of my ears and bury themselves in my flesh.
A metaphorical parasite that can no longer vocalize, no longer bleed dry
the murmurs and stories in the paper and whispers exchanged in ballrooms
"She went out to swim at midnight and a fisherman found her body the next morning."
An empty boat
A sunken oar
A discarded dressing gown
I could feel the sloshing of the freshwater in my lungs and yet,
 I could still hear their whispers
Still feel the cold, rough hands that pulled me into the boat
and the scream that erupted from the old man's throat when he realized I was dead.
I was dead.
I was dead?
The coroner only knew I had no pulse and yet,
in the cellar of the morgue on the rusted table, he mumbled to himself about how this
“young woman of high society” was found washed up on the bank,
tall grasses tangling in my silken hair and mud painting my porcelain skin
I had no bruises, no gashes, no strangulation marks, no skin underneath my fingernails.
He didn't know if it was by my will or another's that I was no longer alive
I didn’t know either.
But after concluding my autopsy report and plucking the aquatic larvae from my body
he wrapped my body and sent it off in a carriage to be buried
and still I couldn’t open my lips to tell him about the maggots in my throat
But this is where my memory refuses to fracture like glass and clear
because I do not know why I now stand in my boat looking back at my reflection
 just as I had done nights previous
and still remember nothing about who I was.
Who I am?
My name is a distant memory, this pond a place of my past
and yet when the moon rises every night my ghost-
the word they scream as they see my figure following the path to the cattails
-wanders back to this boat
because this small sapling of a lake was my only familiarity
But now I see the moon's reflection sewn together across the water's surface with mine
and for some reason, I want the moon to see my face more clearly so I hold back my damp hair
and pray that the heavens won’t take my soul just yet
because just at this very moment I have a new thought,
"It truly is such a lovely night for a swim."

Lily Wilson

Lily Wilson, is a sophomore at the Alabama School of Fine Arts. She enjoys reading, gardening, hiking, photography and drinking excessive amounts of coffee in her free time. She hopes to work in forensic investigation and become a published poet/author when she is older.

**

Solitude Blues

I once loved a sweet soul
her shadow looked like me
I once loved a sweet, sweet soul
his shadow looked like me
We are lost here tonight, 
the truth we cannot see
 
Who shall save us, 
You or me? 
Who shall save us, 
You or me? 
I shiver at what 
the answer might be.
 
Under a full, full moon
I hear the earth’s hum
Under this bright, bright moon
I hear the earth’s hum
My heart she beats, 
yet my fingers are numb. 
 
Who shall save us, 
You or me? 
Who shall save us, 
You or me? 
We shiver at
what the answer might be.
 
We are naked 
and we are afraid
We are buck-naked 
and we are afraid
Lord, Lord, won’t you
please come to our aid. 

Jeffrey G. Moss

Jeffrey G. Moss was born and bred in Brooklyn, USA. After 32 years guiding 13/14 year olds in crafting their worlds he has finally started following some of his own writer’s advice. His work has appeared in  Cagibi, Hunger Mountain Review, Under the Gum Tree, and Hippocampus. Find him on IG @jeffgm.

**


The Full Moon Salon
 
Without fail each month
The gathering within the cave
The wet echo of excited whispers 
Darkness and dankness
Woollen blankets, candles
Soft slurp of corks being pulled
Candle flames appear like glow worms
Tonight the ritual has run too long
The wine has run too freely
Pale flesh upon wool slumbering
In the stillness before dawn
I take the boat, find the air
Clear, still, silent, deep
Moonglow on my skin
But you call my name
A glow worm bobs at the cave mouth
I row back to you 

Athena Law

Athena Law lives in the lush Queensland hinterland (Australia) and her short fiction has been published by the Australian Writers Centre. She likes to tackle baking and gardening projects while she's mulling over the tricky plot points of her first novel. 

**

After an Afternoon at The World's Columbian Exposition

She whistled “The Waltz of the Flowers,”
low to weave her way down to the rowboat, 
as fireflies lit an ease in and out to the rhythm of her steps,
her breath, the clear notes of Tchaikovsky.

Moonrise, or the last setting sun’s rays catch 
stillness the moment before movement, 
the moment a pause before unheralded discovery, 
the shedding of everything else – 
the afternoon sun and dust, the latest melodies loud
along the midways, the chill of ice cream, the screams
of rocking at the top of the Ferris Wheel, the days’ clothes.

Light body into flat calm,
after this day of celebrating conquest:
boats on the water to cross oceans of false
discovery, voices recorded like astounding 
announcements to claim the air,
signals of sound alongside her mother’s
syllables of punctuated, “My goodness,”
and “Well, I never….”  

Between the stanzas of her steady song, 
the moon rises above dense trees, 
the shoreline a dark mouth
that will resist swallowing until she makes more
of this moment of stasis, clean lines of skin 
against the cool air at the end of an August day.

There’s time because it’s already been awhile
since she let the oar drop into the water,
balanced herself at the prow until the dark water
absorbed her patience, the noise
of all the rocking, as the dissipating waves 
escaped to the definition of wild shoreline.

Hear her whistling to ease the waves to stillness.
She is not Christopher Columbus, this slant 
of dusk light on still water no wonder 
of any new world.  Her eyes fill with 
the ferris wheel, electricity, and the recorded 
sound of voices, and her mother all a whisper,
“Look, honey,” “Listen,” and “Hold this,”
sweet vanilla, cold in a waffle wrapped
the better to carry and continue 
so much everything, no solitude, until
a day can call it quits, level the earth
back to the limited horizon and the bull frogs’
sudden quiet and her whistle lifting.

Oh, to release the world of exposition,
expectations, and so much wonder, 
so many wonders to ease out, lose the bank
of world event and yammering delights,
to stand still, the irony of painted solitude,
before the arc of her naked lines that define
the body that will break the surface.

Michelle Holland
​
Michelle Holland is currently the Poet-in-Residence for the Santa Fe Girls School and the treasurer of NM Literary Arts. She lives in Chimayo, where she gardens, writes poetry and creative non-fiction, and runs the trails from the BLM gate through the barrancas to Truchas.  Her poems can be found in literary journals, in print and on the internet, as well as in a few anthologies.  She has two book-length collections of poetry, Chaos Theory, Sin Fronteras Press, and The Sound a Raven Makes, Tres Chicas Press.

**

Night Music
 
Here is away, and here is home.
There are no grasping fingers, no crushing blows--
 
no crushing blows, only the drumming of wings,
the fiddle-plucks of notes in moonlight rills.
 
The moonlight dances, alive--
it embraces me in song, an appoggiatura.
 
An appoggiatura, the shimmer on water, 
a resolution broken by an owl shriek.
 
The owl shrieks my name in welcome or warning.
This is not solitude, only a space without men.
 
I am on my small boat without gods or men,
my body is bathed in moonbeams, and I dive.
 
I dive, I dive, I dive, swimming in night music--
here is away, and here is home.

Merril D. Smith

Merril D. Smith lives in southern New Jersey. Her work has been published in poetry journals and anthologies, including Black Bough Poetry, Acropolis, Anti-Heroin Chic, The Storms, Fevers of the Mind, and Nightingale and Sparrow.  Her full-length poetry collection, River Ghosts (Nightingale & Sparrow Press) was Black Bough Poetry’s December 2022 Book of the Month.  Twitter: @merril_mds Instagram: mdsmithnj Blog: merrildsmith.org

**

Born to Be Wild
 
Believe in the wild before wildness.
Speak from a boat. Speak when nudity
saw shaded foliage dress the shoreline
with a dark hem. Speak for her, elbows
raised, hands wedged behind the head.
Speak for tranquility, that surface speaks 
for adventure from a faintly tinted, red face. 
Believe in wild as a magic carpet ride, 
flying over sparrows, once a band 
who sang from a Canadian village 
buttoned with orchards and cider houses.
Believe in gods who say you don’t
have to celebrate clothing anymore.
You don’t have to celebrate what’s in
the closet. How to imagine bare skin
is how to touch someone.
He is seeking. Or seems lost. Or he
is deciding where to land, believing
lessons from epic trips that failed.
Believe in running with the current,
coming whatever way and feeling 
nature’s coolness as if drinking 
a truth serum. As if contemplation
is a country. As if wind carries time.
Believe in the wild before boarding
the boat to cast off boring stories
from before. Forget the past losses
and happy endings, nature is love’s
embrace. Whether he will return
is hard to know. She likes a delicate 
wait, a sweet whisper before 
swallowing.

John Milkereit

John Milkereit resides in Houston, Texas working as a mechanical engineer and has completed a M.F.A. in Creative Writing at the Rainier Writing Workshop. His work has appeared in various literary journals including Naugatuck River Review, San Pedro River Review, and previous issues of The Ekphrastic Review. He has published two chapbooks (Pudding House Press) and three full-length collections of poems, including most recently from December, A Place Comfortable with Fire (Lamar University Literary Press).

**

After
 
All she could think of that moment was that Hemingway story—Nick Adams in that boat with his father, his father rowing away from the Indian camp. She wondered if Nick had heard the same screams, the same croaks of bullfrogs, the plops of startled turtles slipping off rotting logs—the same tremulous bird, its long white wings slapping the shallow water, chopping the air into shimmering ribbons. The sun would not come up over the hills, she was sure of it. But the stars had never been brighter. Late evening, standing at the bow, no one rowing, she felt quite sure no one was coming. Not her father. Not him. She could see the mouth of the river, the river that connected the lake to the ocean—but no signs of life on or under the water, nothing to swallow her. It was there and then she felt free, unpossessed, like that great egret vanishing.

Robert E. Ray

Robert E. Ray is a retired public servant. His poetry has been published by Rattle, Wild Roof Journal, Beyond Words Literary Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, and in five poetry anthologies. Robert is a graduate of Eastern Kentucky University. He resides in Georgia.

**

At the Edge of the World

I watch as you rise with wobbling knees and
clutch your wrought head–a greasy knotted clump.
A landless and barren sea slips into a chasm
swallowing existence as your dingy drifts
toward a silent, invisible edge.  

Panic swallows you like smoke suffocating one last breath
till nothing remains.
Darkness passes into pale off-gray light
close your eyes and an insatiable off-white whale finds you.

Do you sense the end?
               The silent end of the world where direction and time
                               cease. 

But the oar–buoyant, glowing, pointed…
Only take it!
it is solid, it is real and light as wind.
Take it! Please!

Space crouches just beyond sight ushering you into some failing star
millions of millions of miles from the nearest failing star.  

​​Samuel Schaefer

Samuel writes poetry as a hobby, but he hopes to one day publish some of his work.  He currently runs a poetry Substack called The Pony Express, where he publishes weekly, original poems.  He lives in Tallahassee, Florida.  

**

Darkness Fell
 
The world she knew
behind a curtain of night.
The silence swallows her pain.
 
An occasional night fish breaks the water.
Small waves lap against
the thin hull of the boat. 
 
She feels the touch of the water
through her bare feet.
Her body responds like a Stradivarius
to the touch of the bow.
 
The shore an unwelcome memory. 
She tries to see the light breaking through
a blackness that opens with reluctance,
resists penetration.
 
They said she’d find a way.
The depths are willing
to receive her.

Rose Mary Boehm

Rose Mary Boehm is a German-born British national living and writing in Lima, Peru, and author of two novels as well as seven poetry collections. Her poetry has been published widely in mostly US poetry reviews (online and print). She was twice nominated for a Pushcart. Her latest: Do Oceans Have Underwater Borders? (Kelsay Books July 2022), Whistling in the Dark (Cyberwit July 2022), and Saudade (December 2022) are available on Amazon. A new MS is ‘in the oven’. https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/

**

Alone (But Not Lonely)

She couldn’t help but relish in the hazy dusk
settling over the leafy canopies surrounding the river, 
the last vestiges of sunlight becoming obscured by a misty, gray overcast. 
Her naked figure, standing at the bow of her canoe, was clad in nothing but a soft smile. 
Arching as she threw her unruly auburn hair into a lopsided knot, her balance remained unchanged–
which must have been the result of dozens of similar escapades onto the river. 
The sleek, wooden canoe, painted a faded baby blue, rocked gently back and forth in the placid waters. 
Its gentle curves and slender shape allowed for it to blend in harmoniously with the tranquil environment, 
but its oars seemed to glow in stark contrast amongst the depth of the glossy, black waters. 
Humming along to the creaking of the oars 
and the lyrical symphony of the buzzing cicadas, the lean figure said aloud, to nobody but herself, 
“It’s such a shame–the description of ‘alone’ inherently carries a negative burden, does it not?”
Nobody answered.
“I suppose, this may be because of its cunning daughter, ‘lonely’. But I am alone, and yet–I am not lonely.”
She broke the silence again.
“Oh, the joys of solitude!”

Hannah Guo

Hannah Guo, is a 15 year old rising junior in high school. She loves music, art, and literature, especially poetry. Her short story won the Platinum Award for Scholastic's National Art and Writing Contest.

**

To Alexander Harrison Regarding Solitude

As if entombed in darkened space
you have her sense immortal grace
--  becoming marble carved and left
to world, though from her then bereft,

that sees by haunting light of moon
in eerie silence her lagoon
and visage as a dawn foretold
of solace newly taking hold

where lull of glow and flickered gleam
is fading dance of distant dream
and blaze arising more direct
commands her soul to resurrect

the joy that cannot live in stone
and oar that no one wields alone.

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.

**


Adrift
 
Green dinghy sits light
on the still lake, so still
I stand at the bow, inhale
the heavy night air, stretch 
my achy back, flex 
stiff arms, and squeeze 
the pain from shoulders 
grown weary 
from rowing
away, away
from the noise
and haloed lights
of shore.
 
I drift 
into the peaceful deep 
of darkest night
alone, alone.

Ann E. Wallace

Ann E. Wallace is Poet Laureate of Jersey City, New Jersey. Her new poetry collection, Days of Grace and Silence: A Chronicle of COVID's Long Haul, is forthcoming from Kelsay Books in February 2024. She is author of Counting by Sevens (Main Street Rag) and has published work in Huffington Post, Wordgathering, Halfway Down the Stairs, Snapdragon and many other journals. You can follow her online at AnnWallacePhD.com and on Instagram @annwallace409.

**

Retired
 
Goodbye crowd of need
I have stopped,  dropped
my spirit oar into still water
                                                
leaving you ripples of
words left behind as
guides to your hidden places
 
no one can find me now
I can stand in my own tallness
 
look into my own dark trails
eat stillness hear calling voices
on my own delightful channels
 
move my eyes toward shore
only when and if I want
 to see your faces 
waiting for more of me
                                                
Susan Shea

Susan Shea a retired school psychologist who was raised in New York City and now lives in a forest in Pennsylvania.  She had the privilege of working with children and families who struggled with disabilities and mental health concerns. A poet since third grade, Susan now feels like she is coming alive again in the free moments of time.  She has been published in Plainsongs, Pudding, Poetry Forum Newsletter, Oxalis, The Orange Review, The Accordion Flyer, The Bluebird Word, and The Agape Review.  Recently Susan has had poems accepted for four upcoming anthologies.

**

Solitude

True solitude is difficult. And yet,
it flows freely across vast stillness,
reluctant to draw hard and fast borders. 
 
I stand against the dark yawn of night,
my boat a silver slant, a dim raft
between water, shore, and sky. 
Leaves flung across sheets of glass
over my moonlit image: its curvature
illusory, variable, unknowable. 
 
My solitary posture bows, elusive
to rest and towards the restlessness 
of night’s creatures. 

Elanur Eroglu Williams

Elanur Eroglu Williams holds a B.A. in English Literature and Creative Writing, and a minor in Sustainability Studies from Concordia University Montreal. In addition, she has  a M.Phil. in Children's Literature from Trinity College Dublin, and a M.S.Ed. in Reading/Writing/Literacy from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. She has worked as an elementary school teacher and educator, and is currently based in New York City. ​

**



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Ekphrastic Writing Challenge: Bob Thompson

7/21/2023

0 Comments

 
Picture
Homage to Nina Simone, by Bob Thompson (USA) 1965
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 Homage to Nina Simone, by Bob Thompson. Deadline is August 4, 2023.

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

The Rules

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

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

3. There is no mandatory submission fee, but we ask you to consider a voluntary donation to show your support to the time, management, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review. It takes an incredible amount of time to curate the journal, read regular and contest submissions, etc. Paying all expenses out of pocket is also prohibitive. Thank you. A voluntary gift does not affect the selection process in any way.​

Voluntary gift of $5 CAD with submission.

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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 THOMPSON 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, August 4, 2023.

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

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

11. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we do not send out sorry notices or yes letters 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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Ekphrastic Writing Responses: Fioretti

7/14/2023

1 Comment

 
Dear Everyone,

This intriguing artwork spoke just as loudly to so many of you, as it did to me. We received so many wonderful interpretations of this piece. Once again, it was a painful process selecting, and I'm so sorry to have left out so many fine submissions.

I'm not surprised that this work inspired you. We can't help but enter into the painting immediately because as soon as we look at it, our mesmerising redhead is staring right back at us. Fioretti's sweeping dance of light and shadow shows us the others present, but like the men on both sides of her, we can't look away for long. 

The Ekphrastic Review turned eight this month. I just wanted to say thank you for making this ekphrastic adventure happen. We have created unimaginable wealth together, an enormous body of work on art of all kinds. We have looked at paintings and other creations from all over the world, contemplated them, and let them speak through us. We have created new worlds inspired by the imagination of artists and of each other. We have taken deep dives into themes in art, and we have gathered by Zoom to talk about amazing artists and to write together. Many of you have created collections of ekphrasis and published them, or sprinkled your books with ekphrastic morsels in between other poems and stories.

​We have become friends. We have become a family. Thank you all, and welcome to everyone who is stopping by for the first time.

love, Lorette
Picture
Phalaena, by Carlos Verger Fioretti (Spain, b. France) 1920

Art Deco Party Night

When I think of us now 
I think of Art Deco Party Night. 
Whose idea was it
to celebrate a past that 
thought it was the future? 

We dressed for it - like an 
antique photograph of fun: 
a flapper and her man 
in search of a charleston. 

We dined among the
tiered skirts, rhinestones, 
cloche hats; drank gin from a 
silver teapot. Your beads 
swung low when you danced, 
and the jazz seemed to 
signify a lost idea of happy: 
the sort we inherited 
along with modernity. 

I still recall your eyes 
on your return to our table, 
kohl-lined and beautiful: 
they grabbed every photon 
in the room, and knew 
their own future. By the end 
of the night I knew it too, 
and it failed to contain me. 

Paul McDonald

Paul McDonald taught at the University of Wolverhampton for twenty five years, where he ran the Creative Writing Programme 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)

**

Paean to Phalaena

You can’t help but see her in the centre
flaming red, curve-lit, painted 
like a cinnabar moth.

How she turns faces,
but she’s pointing at you.
Yes, you. She warns with toxic glow,

brazen stance, screen of silk bling wings. 
Her markings and eyes hypnotise 
and if you cut her

she’d bleed poison.
Venom already flows through 
your veins like a thought stream

and you know one kiss would be lethal,
yet all you can think of is 
her magnetic fire.

Helen Freeman

Helen Freeman has been published on several sites such as Visual Verse, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Red River Review, Barren Magazine, The Drabble, Sukoon and The Ekphrastic Review.  Her instagram page is @chemchemi.hf.  She lives in Durham, England.

**

Sí, Señor
 
Sí, señor. Once again 
I fly close
to your orbit
in disgust and hunger.
 
You think I’m captured
but I won’t enter your smug 
vest in which you carry around
vain attitudes and vacuous schemes.
 
When I undo 
your supercilious bowtie later tonight,
as always, I’ll imagine
it being spun into a scarf
that I can use to fasten
your mouth.
 
For the short time
we’ll be together,
I’ll restrain 
my tremendous urge
to slide up to the chest of drawers
in the hostal of your choice
where a gas lamp pulsates,
and I long to douse 
my translucent shawl 
until it catches and carries me
away from you
forever.
 
Sharon Roseman
 
Sharon Roseman writes poetry, non-fiction, and fiction. She’s a professor of anthropology at Memorial University in St. John’s, Canada and a keen admirer of visual art. Her poems and micro-fiction can be found in Poetica Magazine, CuiZine, and Found Polaroids.

**

The Eyes of Anazit                   
          
If you thought her name was Phalaena, you’d be wrong. Phalaena is his name. It’s his nickname, actually. Phalaena is a Greek word. It means whale, and he donned the name for the endearment it was meant to be when she used those eyes to seduce him. But that was several years ago. “Aye! Mi dulce y fuerte ballena,” she whispered in his ear, the first night of their love-making. 

Phalaena is every bit as prosperous in money and material assets as his girth suggests. Oh yes, he has charm, too, but Anazit was far more attracted to the charm of his bank account, and presently even that fails to engage her interest.

Me? I’m a painter. You might say I am to Madrid what Toulouse-Lautrec was to Paris--a fly on the walls of café society, sketching out life in the moment. Tonight though, Phalaena and Anazit are of secondary importance to my eye. Tonight my every brush stroke serves to capture the incandescent glow of the brazier, its metal heated out of check.  Do you see how its luminosity spills over the tea pot and tip-toes up Anazit’s arm; how it rests on her cheek then crawls into her red hair? How it softly flows through the folds of her cape draped over the chair? 

That brazier sheds its brilliance throughout the scene before me and causes me to trace it to the look of longing in the eyes of that gentleman at the table next.  His own companion has turned away in delightful reunion with another. Those two women are heedless of the comforting heat being provided from Phalaena and Anazit’s table.

Heat, yes—just enough to cause a modest burn to rest on Phalaena’s face, but heat too little to lessen the arch in his eyebrow and the suspicion in his eyes. 

Anazit has rallied every ounce of her ennui to posture herself for another. She rests her eyes on me. She is posing for me, oblivious to the fact the brazier is the point of my infatuation. I have to ask, would her eyes be as captivating without the play of the brazier’s glow? They would, indeed. They are the eyes of one who seeks, which is how she came to be called Anazit, short for anazititis, the Greek word for seeker. 

Little did her parents know though, upon the day of her baptism, that Anazit would grow up to be seriously short sighted.

Karen FitzGerald

Karen FitzGerald is a genre fluid writer whose works have been declined by some of America's most prestigious publishing houses. She is undaunted.

**

"Emillie," aka “The Moth”

Phalaena wasn’t her name, but rather a description of her body. Her visage, composed of taut muscle, long legs, and thin, wing-like arms had reminded some drunken, forgotten man of the Phylum Phalaena Moth. Now thumbtacked to this horrible moniker, she was forced to carry it.  Moths are known to singe themselves to death flying too close to the flames of an open fire, and so the similarities continue: Emille’ has always sidled up close to that which threatened to destroy her, certain she had the upper hand. Her Grandmere’ used to say “Trop jeune pour savoir, trop vieux pour e’couter.” (Too young to know, too old to listen) Her eyes were also Lepidopteran, bulging disks of anxious pools that fairly jumped off of her face, a disturbance of coalescence, protubing like orbs foretelling a destiny which she loathes and yet seems powerless to change. Terrorized, Emillie’s eyes record no casual memories. Each day, she marks her calendar with a number: usually three, sometimes five, and on a lucky day, two. Today, this bloated, boozy homme de famille, (family man) this cochon, (pig) is number four. They were always the worst, those with wives and daughters, those with respectable jobs, pent-up anger pointing at her with half-mast swords. Oh! He was almost as ugly as she felt herself to be, with that despicable nickname, Phalaena, a genus of moth soon to be rendered obsolete.  

“What next” thought the moth,
Flying too close to the flames
As pretty fire danced.

Debbie Walker-Lass

Debbie Walker-Lass, (she/her) is a poet, collage artist, and writer living in Decatur, Georgia. Her work has appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, Poetry Quarterly, Haikuniverse, The Light Ekphrastic and Natural Awakenings, Atlanta, among others. She has recently read live for The Poet’s Corner. Debbie loves beachcombing on Tybee Island and hanging out with her husband, Burt, and dog, Maddie.

**

Over Cigarettes and Orujo
  
Even if Spain had fought, he would’ve been too fat
old and rich to fight. So, he bragged about 
his bull days, and how he’d been nearly gored
twice in Pamplona. She knew it was a lie. 
He didn’t need to impress her; he’d paid her 
for the entire evening. This wasn’t the life
any mother dreamed of for her daughter.
“Anna, you will go to school,” her mother
said over cigarettes and orujo.
 
Her mother was dead but not what she’d said.
 
When Anna told the man, he laughed aloud.
They were both drunk, and he wanted nothing
but her body. She couldn’t do it sober
she told the painter; so, he paid the man
what he’d paid her, and they left hours after.
 
Rain fell from black clouds, and that caked black paint 
ran
down 
her 
face--
moths vanishing in the gas-lit street lamps.
 
“Always look up, Anna,” her mother said,
but never directly into the light.”

Robert E. Ray

Robert E. Ray is a retired public servant. His poetry has been published by Rattle, Beyond Words Literary Magazine, Wild Roof Journal, The Ekphrastic Review and in four poetry anthologies. Robert lives in coastal Georgia. 

​**

You Can’t Always Get What You Want
 
But you could talk to the blue-shadowed 
tablecloth and its red lamps bathing 
the evening glow. You could try to touch 
the woman’s arm, winglike,
who is fatally attracted to fire. You could
offer to pour her wine left in the bottle--
hopefully, not the troubled, passed-over 
sips of Spain. The gaze and graceful contours 
of a coterie. The glaze of look-up smiles 
and look-back glances. And if I could, I 
would act as the uninvited guest, which is not 
exactly acting, but pretending as a mysterious, 
swirling broth would from cabbage, turnips, 
and marrow bones while cooking cocido. 
A stock pot with cured meat ready 
for your purity. You could enjoy the clever, 
camouflage of a tuxedo—a suit flush of 
countershading—to look like a penguin, 
waterproofing feathers from a secret gland
even though I know it’s hair oiled 
from a hidden bottle. You could forget 
that cologne face.
You could dilate your eyes and not be escorted.
You could find love, if not here, then as an embrace,
gusts of awareness. Sing and pray. You can see
towards heaven past the unfinished cathedral spires.
You could try to unfasten her disorder. You can’t 
choose who sits at the table; her chair was the last 
available, or maybe you blundered 
in later. You can’t expect a teapot to pour. 
You can’t expect the sugar cubes to plop in the cup.
The cigarette is a bad chimney. And if it’s troubling
that more decades rumble by, you can still remember
the dark brown fur of a moose roaming the thin, 
forest floor on an island in boyhood, 
and chocolate chips snuck from a crinkly bag 
when your mother wasn’t looking.
That rock and roll song is burned into your skin, 
like your father’s voice, the semisweet, 
bluesy advice. You get what you need.
The woman stares until she turns to you, 
her face aglow, she says: You wouldn’t understand. 
You know. You know before she flies away.

John Milkereit

John Milkereit resides in Houston, Texas working as a mechanical engineer and has completed a M.F.A. in Creative Writing at the Rainier Writing Workshop. His work has appeared in various literary journals including Naugatuck River Review, San Pedro River Review, and previous issues of The Ekphrastic Review. He has published two chapbooks (Pudding House Press) and three full-length collections of poems, including most recently, A Place Comfortable with Fire(Lamar University Literary Press).

**

Hours After a Watermelon Sunrise
 
This afternoon after leaving 
Hotel Regina, I plan a stop 
at Murillo Café for a late lunch.
Outside under the cloth awning, 
I will order sesame crusted tuna 
which the server will deliver
to a blue metal table where I 
am seated. Yesterday when 
I joined a guided tour 
at the Museo del Prado,
intently studied Fioretti’s 
Phalasna, I tried to discern
the reason for Madame’s 
annoyed expression, her 
martini glass almost empty, 
her cigarette still burning. 
While I stood mesmerized 
in front of that masterpiece, 
the museum guard stared
attentively. I was unaffected
by the scrutiny he was 
giving me as my mind 
played Ain’t Misbehavin’,
that jazz hit of the Twenties,
before I continued through
the museum to observe
other famous paintings
by Greco, Goya and Rubens.

Dr. Jim Brosnan

Dr. Jim Brosnan’s first poetry and original photography collection, Nameless Roads, was traditionally published in 2019 (Moon Pie Press). He has had over 600 poems published in the United States, Ireland, Canada, Wales, India, Singapore, and the UK. Jim is a Pushcart nominee, a finalist in the Blue Light Chapbook Contest, and has won several awards in the National Federation of State Poetry Societies’ annual competitions, including a first place in 2021. Jim holds the rank of full professor in the English Department at Johnson & Wales University. drjimbrosnan.com

**

I Dare You, Pretty Please

I am the Ice Queen
immune to the pins and pricks
of your whimsical touch

let me voodoo you with my torch

Beware, would-be lover
my fiery, frigid stare
my raven eyes all aflicker 

like Icarus, your lust is my must

Count to three, oh so slowly
drawing in my finespun scent 
as I scatter smoke signals like Sirens

yet be careful lest you choke

Lean in a bit closer, dear
and graze my pearly, lilac skin
let my blood-orange inferno

ignite your thirst from within

Inhale deeply my bouquet, my love
but not without a fee
just try to dodge my silky lair

I dare you, pretty please.

Ann Marie Steele

Ann Marie Steele, who resides in Charlotte, NC, America, is a writer who dabs in poetry, essays, and short stories. She holds a BS in Journalism (News-Editorial), and an MA in Secondary English Education. Although Ann Marie works as a high school English/Special Education teacher, she has a passion for writing poetry. She pens pieces about love and loss, and what she observes and experiences. The loss of her youngest son has deeply impacted her writing, which has been described as resiliently defiant. Having published more than 200 pieces on Medium.com, she was recently published in The Ekphrastic Review with her piece, “Every Lilly Donned with Grief.”  When not writing or teaching, Ann Marie is an avid participant of Acro yoga aka Partner Acrobatics, where she can often be seen flying and hand-standing upside down just for kicks.

**


False Attribution

The lad’s soldier is marched out the door.
The canvas is despatched.
Prado! A Spanish flee.
For, seeing the uninvited guest
Concha’s contribution is censorious.
And critical.  Crucial. 
Crossroads warrant cross words.

Are those fellows careless, carefree?
Uncurating - present participle, supposedly unknown.
Men canvassed are proved the majority view.
Exhibitionism, as they exhibit women’s art.
The latter (of course) 
fulfil their expected clichéd rôles -
miniature decorators, seen fillers,
scene as most chaps see them.
Flighty moths of the night playing with fire?
Are we observing how life has been 
and censuring ourselves? 
Are we observing how life has been 
but should censor ourselves?

Who is careful?
And what is fragile?
Heterocera?  
Lepidoptera without butterfly wings?
Or ego mindsets?
Who should pull the cloth away
and upend the table?
To reiterate the past scenes more difficult than we thought,
unless the iteration is reconfirmation.

Phalaena - left over type, as classified.
Collaborator, colluder, victim, survivor,
at table with another uninvited guest?
Not sharing a table.
Who would want ruddy smoke in their eyes?
Or see the mirrors already in other’s eyes?
Pupils can be fast learners.

False attribution is too easy by half.

Stephen Kingsnorth

Stephen Kingsnorth (Cambridge M.A., English & Religious Studies), retired to Wales, UK, from ministry in the Methodist Church due to Parkinson’s Disease, has had pieces published by on-line poetry sites, printed journals and anthologies, including The Ekphrastic Review. His blog is at https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com/

**

Indetermination
  
She needs a plan should she decide to leave
this scene no longer fun, this man who brought
her here again, who let her long believe
she could aspire to more than what she ought.
 
Right now, she cannot even look at him,
at anyone. How foolish she has been
by acting moth-like on another’s whim,
by serving as amusement now and then.
 
He never will be more than what he is,
base metal underneath a coat of gild.
She holds a cigarette, not one of his;
the empty glass beside her goes unfilled.
 
She glowers since she wants to tip her chair,
grab all belongings, head for some elsewhere.

Jane Blanchard

A native Virginian, Jane Blanchard lives and writes in Georgia. Her collections include Never Enough Already (2021) and Sooner or Later (2022).

**

Moths at Midnight
 
as jazz sways over decadent tables
she holds my gaze, this painted lady
wrapped in the drape and fold of wings
nectar in glass, beads of possibility
nestled in the scoop of her breast
and shades of cyan bright in neon

a man leans into the club cocoon
his suited elbow angled in, eyes fixed
on the splendid specimen centre right
golden highlights in her hair, a glare
transcending the flutter of moths
winging the frame of femininity

Kate Young

Kate Young lives in England and enjoys writing poetry, painting and playing the guitar and ukulele. 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 in the next month. Find her on Twitter @Kateyoung12poet.

**

Phalaena 
 
You think she’s looking at you, but she only sees 
the light reflected in your eyes; feels the moth’s
attraction to the flame, expects it too will be the death 
of her. Thinks there are worse ways to go. Her protector 
has made yet another demand and she must decide 
how much more of herself she can afford to lose. 
The kohl collected below her lids─ how many times 
has he caused her to cry tonight?  She stares at you 
as if you know, as if you are her last chance. 
It’s too intense, that look, and you blink back the image 
in your pupils of the moth singeing its wings in the fire. 
She shrugs and turns back to the man. The moth, 
its beauty seared the moment it swept into the spark, 
has an answer for her.

Cheryl Snell

Cheryl Snell's books include several poetry collections and the novels of her Bombay Trilogy. Her latest title is a series called Intricate Things in their Fringed Peripheries. Most recently her writing has appeared in Gone Lawn, Impspired, Necessary Fiction, Pure Slush, and other journals. A classical pianist, she lives in Maryland with her husband, a mathematical engineer.

**

Phalena

Torture listening to this boor.
Boring beyond belief!
Captain of all he surveys–
or so he thinks. Arrogant ass.

His disposition is like his cigar:
difficult, smelly, entitled.
He may buy champagne,
but he will never own me. 

I am thin to his thick,
wrapped in translucent wrap,
drawn to the flame of drink, dining,
music, dancing.
If only he was not the reason
I am here.

​Lynne Kemen

Lynne Kemen lives in Upstate New York. Her chapbook, More Than a Handful was published in 2020. Her work is anthologized in Seeing Things (2020) and several others. She is published in Silver Birch Press, The Ravens Perch, Fresh Words Magazine, Spillwords, Topical Poetry, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, and Blue Mountain Review. Lynne stands on the Board of Bright Hill Press. She is an editor for the Blue Mountain Review and a lifetime member of The Southern Collective Experience. Her book of poetry will be published in 2023 by SCE.

**

poetic exiles on the voyage out 

you’re a mean ol lady  
funned jimmy joyce 

virgin woolf 
roosted beside him 
in the temple bar 
looking over 
la seine

like swiggers 
caught in the net

your words are lead  
woolf growled
glazed with guilt     confused 

like you    they amuse 
& bore

joyce groused 
i prefer blondes 
in rooms of their own 

making 

tosh 
woolf howled 
at a waxing moon
knurled fingers caressing 

cane’s carved
phalaena moth
obsolete 
lepidoptera 

aliens 
from dublin & london 
bred & dead 
same month same year 
they two
flutter over the waves 
to finnegans 
lighthouse 

leaving no room 
for jesus 
  
Donna-Lee Smith

Donna-Lee Smith, way back when Earth was blue (not alage green) and TV black and white, had a most-loved prof at Concordia University (Montreal): Michael Brian, a Joycean scholar.  While gorging on Joyce, D-LS fattened her studies to include Woolf and Atwood. Answer me this fellow lovers of the smitten word: Why has Atwood not received the Nobel???

**

The Stare

Serious, seductive, sensuous.
Faux fragility betrayed
by a sapphire stare.

The evening ambiance
no longer infused
with swollen indifference.

Bathed in a central glow,
the architectural arch of your arms
is ready to envelop.

Voracious vigour,
tempting and teasing,
clothed in diaphanous distraction.

The challenge of your glare
declares a delicate passion
that solicits satisfaction.

Time and again, it is said,
the moth flies to the flame.
I become another statistic.

Enticed then ensnared by nocturnal charm,
the hubbub becomes peripheral,
and all else is rendered redundant.

Henry Bladon

Henry is a poet, writer and mental health essayist based in Somerset in the UK. He has appeared previously in The Ekphrastic Review.

**


Blue Butterfly

Captured and categorized
as a trophy to wealth and control
netted as a prize along
with fancy restaurants and big cigars;
her wings are more beautiful when spread
released from the blue smoke and lechery

she stares with unveiled freedom 
out of the frame 
toward the eyes of the artist
who lifting an eyebrow
nods toward the exit 
and fragrant valley orchids.

Daniel Brown

Daniel Brown began writing poetry as a senior and is especially interested in ekphrastic poems and those with musical themes. He's been published in a variety of journals, has hosted a Youtube channel titled Poetry From Shooks Pond and at age 72 published his first collection, Family Portraits In Verse. through Epigraph Books, Rhinebeck NY. He can be contacted at [email protected].

**

Night Phoenix
 
They have a name for girls like her, a name 
that sounds like some dead and rotting thing in the gutter.
 
The dead and rotting thing in the gutter 
once had wings, its feathers scattered by the wind.
 
The wind of passing limousines scattered her gaudy feathers, 
spattered her painted face with mud.
 
She caked the paint thick as mud to hide the dirt
she felt the world must see, the dead eyes,
 
because the world sees only dead eyes in girls like her,
never the wings torn from magazines to escape a prison.  
 
If only wings of strass and gauze could change a world, 
beat high and bold, carry lost girls somewhere bright.
 
All hearts with beating feather-wings belong in the shining blue.
They have a name for girls like her, Phoenix birds.

Jane Dougherty

Jane Dougherty lives and works in southwest France. A Pushcart Prize nominee, her poems and stories have been published in magazines and journals including Ogham Stone, The Ekphrastic Review, Black Bough Poetry, ink sweat and tears, Gleam, Nightingale & Sparrow, Green Ink and Brilliant Flash Fiction. She blogs at https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/ Her poetry chapbooks, thicker than water and birds and other feathers were published in October and November 2020.

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Ekphrastic Writing Challenge: Alexander Harrison

7/7/2023

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Picture
Solitude, by Alexander Harrison (France, b. USA) 1893

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 Solitude, by Alexander Harrison. Deadline is July 21, 2023.

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

The Rules

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

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

3. There is no mandatory submission fee, but we ask you to consider a voluntary donation to show your support to the time, management, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review. It takes an incredible amount of time to curate the journal, read regular and contest submissions, etc. Paying all expenses out of pocket is also prohibitive. Thank you. A voluntary gift does not affect the selection process in any way.​

Voluntary gift of $5 CAD with submission.

yes

​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 HARRISON 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, July 21, 2023.

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

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

11. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we do not send out sorry notices or yes letters 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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​Join our second annual ekphrastic marathon! Click here or on image for details. Alternative options available for those who can't make the date.
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