 Time-Molt, Tender, by Annaliese Jakimides (USA) 2022 Editor's Note: We are over the moon to have our esteemed contributor Annaliese Jakimides as our guest editor this time, as well as showcasing her artwork as the ekphrastic challenge prompt. We can't wait to see what Annaliese inspires in your words! Lorette Guest Editor's Note: I’m so looking forward to what words/stories Time-Molt, Tender offers all you ekphrastic writers. For I have come to know The Ekphrastic Review writers as extraordinary translators of images into words—be it poetry or prose or some combination or combinatoric (that’s a math thing, by the way; I love its sound/rhythm). To me, ekphrasis is a kind of magic. It’s thrilling to witness. And I’m eternally grateful that Lorette has created this world. As a writer, it took me a while to accept that some things I’m carrying insist on being told visually—that I don’t have the words. My visual work is mixed media, and any number of materials might be employed. In this piece, I used all kinds of fiber, including dyed raw wool, plus feathers, teabags, leaves, coffee grounds, with acrylic and inks. I rarely use a brush. And I often look back and have absolutely no idea how I got there. I’m honoured and moved to have been asked to both contribute a visual image and to review the challenge submissions. I’m so looking forward to hearing where this work takes you. Annaliese Jakimides Annaliese Jakimides writes prose and poetry in a closet in her apartment in Bangor, Maine, after living for many years on a dirt road in the woods near Mt. Katahdin. A finalist for both regional and national awards, her work has been nominated for a Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. Her most recent publications include “The Long Marriage” in The Ekphrastic Review and “I Tell Henry the Plate Is Red” in Breaking Bread: Essays from New England on Food, Hunger, and Family (Beacon Press). ** 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 Time-Molt, Tender, by Annaliese Jakimides. Deadline is October 14, 2022. You can submit poetry, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, microfiction, or any other form creative writing you like. 1000 words max please. The Rules 1. Use this visual art prompt as a springboard for your writing. It can be a poem or short prose (fiction or nonfiction.) You can research the artwork or artist and use your discoveries to fuel your writing, or you can let the image alone provoke your imagination. 2. Write as many poems and stories as you like. Send only your best works or final draft, not everything you wrote down. (Please note, experimental formats are difficult to publish online. We will consider them but they present technical difficulties with web software that may not be easily resolved.) Please copy and paste your submission into the body of the email, even if you include an attachment such as Word or PDF. 3. There is no mandatory submission fee, but we ask you to consider a voluntary donation to show your support to the time, management, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review. It takes an incredible amount of time to curate the journal, read regular and contest submissions, etc. Paying all expenses out of pocket is also prohibitive. Helping the editor share the time and expenses involved is very much appreciated. There is an easy button to click above to share a five spot through PayPal or credit card. If you would like to give more, you can do so here. Thank you. A voluntary gift does not affect the selection process in any way. 4. USE THIS EMAIL ONLY. Send your work to ekphrasticchallenge@gmail.com. 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 JAKIMIDES CHALLENGE in the subject line. 6. Include your name and a brief bio. If you do not include your bio, it will not be included with your work, if accepted. Even if you have already written for The Ekphrastic Review or submitted other works and your bio is "on file" you must include it in your challenge submission. Do not send it after acceptance or later; it will not be added to your piece. Guest editors may not be familiar with your bio or have access to archives. We are sorry about these technicalities, but have found that following up, requesting, adding, and changing later takes too much time and is very confusing. 7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 8. Deadline is midnight EST, October 14, 2022. 9. Please do not send revisions, corrections, or changes to your poetry or your biography after the fact. If it's not ready yet, hang on to it until it is. 10. Selected submissions will be published together, with the prompt, one week after the deadline. 11. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we will no longer send out sorry notices or yes letters. You will see what poetry and stories have been selected when the responses are posted one week after the deadline. Understand that we value your participation as part of our ekphrastic community, but we can only choose a handful of the many entries we receive. 12. A word on the selection process: we strive for a balance between rewarding regular participants and sharing the voices of writers who are new to our family. We also look for a variety of perspectives and styles, and a range of interesting takes on the painting. It is difficult to reproduce experimental formatting, so unfortunately we won't choose many with unusual spacing or typography. 13. 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.
1 Comment
 Nature's Way, by Jo Zider (USA) contemporary. Click on image for artist site. For the Readers and the Writers Who Shared Their Words, It was with great pleasure that I read and reflected on the wide variety of submissions in response to Jo Zider’s art. Thank you to the writers who shared their creativity with me. I honour each and every one of their creations. But as guest editor, my challenge was to choose from among them. I have selected fourteen different perspectives, different ways of experiencing Nature’s Way. As you read them, I hope you will come away with an enlarged vision of this enigmatic piece of art. Jo has also been deeply moved by the depth of your words. Sandi Stromberg ** Three Haikus opaque light repeated questions of a screeching owl bio markers branches paint a stark sky liquid mirage bathed in shadows anti sun Kashiana Singh When Kashiana Singh is not writing, she lives to embody her TEDx talk theme of Work as Worship into her every day. She currently serves as Managing Editor for Poets Reading the News. Her chapbook Crushed Anthills by Yavanika Press is a journey through 10 cities. Her newest full-length collection, Woman by the Door has just been released in February 2022 with Apprentice House Press. ** Autumn Light As a child I dropped a bead of brown paint on a clean sheet of paper and coaxed it skyward with air blown through a straw. Soon it was a sapling with a few spreading branches that caught light from a bold yellow ball. Today's tree bears the marks of long life. Weathered skin, body bent, thickened joints. The sky is silvered, faceted, like the aura before a migraine, something I have come to know. But the sun, that optimist, remains, even if I shade my eyes to paint branches that reach, and reach some more, each stretching beyond the page and beckoning me to hope. Catherine Reef Catherine Reef's poetry has appeared in several journals, including The Ekphrastic Review. She is a poet and an award-winning biographer, whose most recent book is Sarah Bernhardt: The Divine and Dazzling Life of the World's First Superstar (Clarion, 2020). Catherine Reef lives and writes in Rochester, New York. ** Trees of Life My aunt is a wisp of limb as strong as Ironwood, only fifty-seven rings from her origin, yet finds the boughs of her lungs encompassed by a tumor too large to remove. Our great branches of medicine cannot save us from the inherent cycle, nature’s way of reminding us that all creation is a tree within a tree, reaching for light, rooted to each other and this earth. Even the faithful grow afraid as an ailing tree is stripped of leaves. We raise our prayers, fearful of the space between distress and relief. Maybe I speak only for myself, a fear of loss. What a selfish thing, to think of my own need for the comfort my mother gives, or of my sorrow for my cousins, their core shaken, scared they could lose their mother. She has not lost her foliage or beautiful resilience, but her breath is laboured. Our whole family is a forest trembling with her, unsure of what to say except we love her, and we’re here offering our limbs for support, lifting her hope to the sky. Heather Brown Barrett Heather Brown Barrett is a poet in southeastern Virginia. She mothers her young son and contemplates life, the universe, and everything with her writer husband, Bradley Barrett. Her poetry has appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, Yellow Arrow Journal, OyeDrum Magazine, AvantAppal(achia), and elsewhere. She has work forthcoming in Black Bough Poetry. Find her on Instagram @heatherbrownbarrett ** Good and Evil Symbolic are the tree and vine in canvas sun that seems to shine to dramatize persistence — force that winter slows to patient course of sculptures stoic, braving cold, as if with hope by faith foretold of suns in far more supple days caressing their entangled maze until the leafing sprigs appear in saint and serpent making clear the struggle to survive resumes as battle fought from roots to blooms while unaware that they entwine as good and evil they define. 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. ** passages because the world is always both more and less than perception permits All these invisible bridges—so many of them—but only the subliminal recognizes their presence and sees how far it is from earth to sky. because humanity straddles the line between thinking and feeling Crossing is not realized by strength but by letting go, becoming the echo that is given away and then returns. because creation holds its shadow close, not leading or following but enveloping itself in a cocoon like an endless refrain The song listens, its trajectory wandering through and beyond the tangible, pulling all that is silent into its oracular melody. because we are both more and less than we could be On the other hand—for there is always one waiting in the wings—is the edge the destination or a leap of faith? because memory and forgetfulness merge together and become confused Are we moving toward the end of something, or are we seeds waiting to be tossed into the void? because so much that we contain surprises and mystifies in equal measure What if, is, possibility?—a crazy hope, a kept promise, an Enso painted white on black that turns into an opening into the cosmos-- because each voice embodies both chaos and clarity —a magic portal, a reconciliation of life with itself. because when the end is reached there is always more after all Kerfe Roig Kerfe Roig lives and works in NYC, where the many trees keep her company as they nourish all of the city's residents—animal, vegetable and mineral—and reflect the changing seasons of their lives. ** Vincent's Tree excerpt from a letter to van Gogh in 1889 Madame Tissot, his neighbour, writes-- The tree that stands beyond my garden wall now bears your name, Vincent -- as I have seen it act like the trees in your paintings -- wild with a need to claw the wind and pull from the yellow dusk a melancholy bile that saints and pilgrims have known through the centuries, a restlessness that unsettles the soul and makes the landscape react in a sign language of its own. A language, you master so well in the storm of your brushstrokes — like the dark spelling of crows across a wheat field spasmodic in shades of gold; or what has been viewed here in the hills of Provence, the silhouette of trees begging in their twisted forms to be seen as something sacred, birth mothers of a vineyard or wood. Wendy Howe Wendy Howe is an English teacher and free lance writer who lives in Southern California. Her poetry reflects her interest in myth, diverse landscapes, and ancient cultures. Over the years, she has been published in an assortment of journals both on-line and in print. Among them: The Copperfield Review, Silver Blade Magazine,, The Poetry Salzburg Review, Eye To The Telescope, The Tower Journal and The Orchards Journal. Her most recent work will be forthcoming in Carmina Magazine and Sun Dial Magazine later this year. ** The Wait The sky is the colour of the lake veiled behind the echo of chrysanthemum and ripples of distance. The yellow highway inching its way to meet the grey line of the horizon is a work-in-progress. Just like the roofless, unpainted houses at the edge of the village. Below the cement bridge, river Kapila, hums a tune on loop, that feels like the leathery back of a memory. A bare tree stands in meditation, waiting for spring to clothe her limbs, green. Preeth Ganapathy Preeth Ganapathy is a software engineer turned civil servant from Bengaluru, India. Her works have been published in several magazines such as The Ekphrastic Review, Soul-Lit, The Sunlight Press, Atlas+Alice, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Mothers Always Write, Tiger Moth Review and elsewhere. Her microchap, A Single Moment, has been published by Origami Poems Project. She is also the winner of Wilda Morris's July 2020 Poetry Challenge. ** Down to the Wire Lying on your side amongst crumpled hotel sheets your left hip curves like the timber skeleton of a rowboat blanched to almond by the sun. I can hear the chatter of birds outside the window in a leafless liquid amber, and look out to watch them flap their wings as if to frighten away grey storm clouds looming over the twisted trunk and turning the sun to a pale stain on the sky. Goosebumps bring your skin alive and you pull the doona up to interrupt my view. My heartbeat slows as the rain falls. We are somewhere unfamiliar pretending we’re still ok. Linda McQuarrie-Bowerman Linda is a poet living in Lake Tabourie, NSW Australia. She’s beginning her arts degree in creative writing. In the last 12 months she has been enjoying the thrill of being published and having her work read by people from around the world. ** Shared Roots Hello, old friend. Has it really been sixty years since we met? I’m sorry to see her looking old and gnarly, but it’s hard to look her best shivering in the winter wind without her elegant emerald coat. As a child, I thought she was old, like Mama. But trees just grow more quickly than little girls, especially this girl – small at every age. We were almost like sisters, the way we understood each other without words. She looks glad to see me again, seems to bend low for a closer look, much like how she used to reach out a sturdy limb to help me up, then cradled me in her upper branches. How I welcomed a cool breeze in Virginia summers, loved tucking myself into my private hideaway to think about the world. My coming of age was a rude shock, when Mama sent my brother out to saw off the low limbs. Today no one seems to be home in what was once my home, so I took a chance on trespassing to see her. I don’t get back often. Dear friend, thank you for giving me a giant’s view of the world. Because of you, I’ve always tried to look at everything from different angles. Alarie Tennille Alarie Tennille graduated from the first coed class at the University of Virginia, where she earned her B.A. in English, Phi Beta Kappa key, and black belt in Feminism. Retired now, Alarie serves on the Emeritus Board and Programming Committee of the Writers Place in Kansas City, Missouri. Her latest book, Three A.M. at the Museum, was named a Director’s Pick at the Nelson-Atkins Museum’s gift shop. Please visit her at alariepoet.com. ** Interstellar Ash Hawthorn spent his childhood climbing trees in the village meadow and watching the world below. Settled comfortably on a branch, he daydreamed or read books, and made friends with countless birds and squirrels who approached him without fear. At night, he mounted the towering oak tree in the garden and perused the sky, naming the constellations and the planets he learned at school. For higher education, Ash debated between studying astronomy or botany. In the end he opted for plant biology because of his passion for trees. The celestial objects were far away, yet he could touch and feel the woods, identify their leaves and fruits. Ash became a spiritual man as well as a plant biologist. He travelled the world to acquaint himself with exotic plants in various terrains. Each morning, after his yoga meditation, he hugged a tree and continued a ritual he'd begun so long ago. At home, he wrapped his arms around the magnificent acacia in the garden. When abroad, he found a local tree to exercise his routine. Trees talked to him, he felt their vibes and communication lines. On the way back from The Aokigahara Forest in Japan, which some called the suicide or talking forest, he was thrilled to have successfully made it through the challenging trail without a guide or using markings. The trees had guided him as his feet pounded the lava rocks and edged around perilous pit holes. Ash clicked on the notification from the NASA website he subscribed to and read: A small, recently discovered asteroid -- or perhaps a comet -- appears to have originated from outside the solar system, maybe from a distant part of our galaxy. If so, it would be the first "interstellar object" to be observed and confirmed by astronomers. ‘How exciting,’ Ash thought, interstellar, as in science-fiction movies and books. He wished he could see it, and wondered if it would have an impact on earth, perhaps strike it. Probably not, as most space stations were equipped with devices to repel such a happening. Yet, in the event they resorted to such action, what effect would this create on the entire universe? These thoughts occupied his mind as he continued his tours. Trekking in the Valdivian rain forest between Chile and Argentina, Ash felt thirsty and hot. He took off his safari jacket and hung it on the branch of a towering Araucaria araucana, better known as the Monkey puzzle tree. Leaning against its trunk, he drank water from the thermos and rested. The air was still, though on its languid current he detected a hint of expectancy. Under the cerulean sky, the tree whispered. He wrapped his arms around it and listened. “Interstellar,” it said. Ash smiled and repeated, “Interstellar.” He smelled burning, and raising his head, spotted a massive fireball approaching. That was the last thing he saw before his interstellar journey transported him to another dimension. Sebnam E. Sanders Sebnem E. Sanders lives on the Southern Aegean coast of Turkey and writes short and longer works of fiction. Her stories have appeared in various online literary magazines, and two anthologies. Her collection of short and flash fiction stories, Ripples on the Pond , was published in December 2017. More information can be found at her website where she shares some of her work: https://sebnemsanders.wordpress.com/Ripples on the Pond ** The Mystery of What We Are Made Of is a finger crooked between exclamation and inquiry, a tree “whose madly peeling bark is the color of a roan, perhaps, or an Irish setter.” A gnarled survivalist, the tree maintains its singular skywardness while cleaving to a straight-from-the-roots viewpoint not unlike the last two years of pandemic. It’s like it knew, if we didn’t lose all our leaves, we’d see another rain. Like a sycamore on a nature trail, towering as weathered or maybe more so than this darker cousin-- pale bark a library of scrolls, sun and smog leaving it nearly bare-branched. I could hear it creaking just from the look of it, devoted as it apparently was to stay in place with dog-like devotion. Something in the wood to survive despite itself, with the afternoon glare scorching down on it, all along its bark, until the question or exclamation into which its trunk contorted turned ring after ring-- an accumulation which became its meaning and echoes through my roots, into heartwood each look into the sun over morning coffee-- void scratching as if I were air, not limbs or twigs, the trunk of me somehow staying in the soil. Jonathan Yungkans *Title taken from the poem “Caravaggio and His Followers,” in the collection Your Name Here. The quote in the opening stanza is taken from the same poem. Jonathan Yungkans finds time to write while working as an in-home health-care provider, aided by copious amounts of coffee and the thought that somehow, sometime, the pandemic's venality will fade. His work has appeared in MacQueen's Quinterly, Panoply, Synkroniciti and other publications. His second poetry chapbook, Beneath a Glazed Shimmer, was published by Tebot Bach in 2021. ** When I Loved You in the Afterlife "There's a crack in the glass so fine you can't see it, and in the blue eye of the candle flame's needle there's a dark fleck, a speck of imperfection that could contain, like a microchip, an epic treatise on beauty..." William Matthews, Miniscule Things Ink-black the tree branches crack the stained glass sky -- how many souls I've loved will meet here their letter-paned journeys hidden from me their wind-whispered spirits signs of life? How brave the ghostly sun to light their message when the tree is empty, leafless? It seems that nature's drawn this season with a bird's eye -- what's behind them as they fly -- hope for an unzoned and intimate encounter the future mapped by memory's lost horizon... In a place where 2 worlds meet on canvas, stripped of life the promise of color is a garden waiting for foliage; dead trees are reflected in the water of a swamp -- Atchafalaya -- what the Choctaw call Long River. Near a bridge I guess we'll always have to cross -- where a sign says its name is Old and Lost -- there's fire in the eyes of an alligator, and my grandfather puts Tabasco on everything he eats. His mother bakes a cake and hums the fais do-do while I catch crawfish (I call them crawdads) and make them pets -- and who would guess what I find on the artist's bare tree my hand reaching out from its line-like branches -- the shape of river's way roads when the sky is blue and a love song is life that I shared with you. Laurie Newendorp Laurie Newendorp lives and writes in Houston. If asked, what could she say of this poem? She has seen a thin-trunked tree with leaves, alive and growing, seemingly suspended above a Scottish bog; so she asks, why do the trees seem to be dead in a swamp? Her grandfather, born in New Orleans, never ate without a thin-necked bottle of Tabasco, hot sauce made from the red peppers grown off the coast of Louisiana on Avery Island. Ekphrasis has allowed her to explore a wide range of topics, sometimes with family characters popping up, and always with love of her nuclear family, grandsons, children, and their father. ** Consult the Elders of Wine and Elixirs Consult the elders of wine and elixirs From berries and flowers At the smoky hours Between darkness and dawn. A tree, first ladder to apples and sky, In heritage orchard of endless fruition. With secrets harbored in a time-trunk of burls, Hope chest for the world. Holder of nets from abandoned arachnids, Woven like cat’s-cradled fingers Of children. And nests knit of twigs nib-needled By sparrows. Antlers erected by artisan architect Frame light, gold as dust spray Of sunflowers. And cross-hatched roots etch the earth, Scratch scriptures of wisdom from ages past. With limbs crossed—fingers crossed-- Like star-crossed lovers embrace on their way To the dead of winter. Cynthia Dorfman Cynthia Dorfman has practiced ekphrastic writing as a frequent participant in the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery writing program. She has been a writer, editor, publications director and communications manager in the private and public sectors. Her creative work has appeared on line and in print with the most recent, a story in The Library Love Letter. In the summers she lives in an old shoe factory in Wisconsin, USA. ** The Tree Nurtures Life with My Unvaccinated Lover The tree is full of undisturbed mystery against an egg-fed sky. The tree is full, nature’s way does not lick as much as blanket, olive knots swath around the trunk. It’s September. Life is seeping from seed and skin. Branches quiver, fingers ready to touch a bird’s breath. Of chiseled blueness, our baby will taste the wind zinging like a Copper Canyon Train. Jump on, ride through Shangri-La-like valleys of cool alpines, and you see a conductor reading Don Quixote, now a horse like Rocinante, now wake off an epic dream swept as cloudless, and now smell mountain marigold outside the lowered windows, dusk smells of citrus, and now a horizon cracks open, poached. John Milkereit John Milkereit lives in Houston, Texas with trees that don’t look like this one. He works 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, Panoply, San Pedro River Review, and The Ekphrastic Review. His next full-length collection of poems, A Place Comfortable with Fire, is forthcoming from Lamar University Literary Press.  Kakaso'Las Totem Pole, by Ellen Neel (Canada) 1955. photo by Ymblanter, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons 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 Kakaso'Las Totem Pole, by Ellen Neel. Deadline is September 30, 2022. You can submit poetry, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, microfiction, or any other form creative writing you like. 1000 words max please. The Rules
1. Use this visual art prompt as a springboard for your writing. It can be a poem or short prose (fiction or nonfiction.) You can research the artwork or artist and use your discoveries to fuel your writing, or you can let the image alone provoke your imagination. 2. Write as many poems and stories as you like. Send only your best works or final draft, not everything you wrote down. (Please note, experimental formats are difficult to publish online. We will consider them but they present technical difficulties with web software that may not be easily resolved.) Please copy and paste your submission into the body of the email, even if you include an attachment such as Word or PDF. 3. There is no mandatory submission fee, but we ask you to consider a voluntary donation to show your support to the time, management, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review. It takes an incredible amount of time to curate the journal, read regular and contest submissions, etc. Paying all expenses out of pocket is also prohibitive. Helping the editor share the time and expenses involved is very much appreciated. There is an easy button to click above to share a five spot through PayPal or credit card. Thank you. A voluntary gift does not affect the selection process in any way. 4. USE THIS EMAIL ONLY. Send your work to ekphrasticchallenge@gmail.com. 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 NEEL CHALLENGE in the subject line. 6. Include your name and a brief bio. If you do not include your bio, it will not be included with your work, if accepted. Even if you have already written for The Ekphrastic Review or submitted other works and your bio is "on file" you must include it in your challenge submission. Do not send it after acceptance or later; it will not be added to your piece. Guest editors may not be familiar with your bio or have access to archives. We are sorry about these technicalities, but have found that following up, requesting, adding, and changing later takes too much time and is very confusing. 7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 8. Deadline is midnight EST, September 30, 2022. 9. Please do not send revisions, corrections, or changes to your poetry or your biography after the fact. If it's not ready yet, hang on to it until it is. 10. Selected submissions will be published together, with the prompt, one week after the deadline. 11. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we will no longer send out sorry notices or yes letters. You will see what poetry and stories have been selected when the responses are posted one week after the deadline. Understand that we value your participation as part of our ekphrastic community, but we can only choose a handful of the many entries we receive. 12. A word on the selection process: we strive for a balance between rewarding regular participants and sharing the voices of writers who are new to our family. We also look for a variety of perspectives and styles, and a range of interesting takes on the painting. It is difficult to reproduce experimental formatting, so unfortunately we won't choose many with unusual spacing or typography. 13. By submitting to The Ekphrastic Review, you are also automatically joining our subscribers' list. Your submission is your permission. We don't send Spam and we don't send many emails- you will not receive forty-four emails a day! We send a newsletter zero to two times a month, with hopes of more consistency in the future. It updates you on challenges, news, contests, prize nominations, ekphrastic happenings, prompt ebooks, the podcast, and more. 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.  Bronze Horse Bit Cheekpiece, Luristan (Iran) c. 700 BCE Fire Breathing Hell Two mammoth dragons, master in-between taming, fire breathing hell. Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher has been writing since 2010 and has had many micro-flash fiction stories published. In 2018 her book Shorts for the Short Story Enthusiasts, was published and The Importance of Being Short, in 2019. Her most recent book In A Flash, was published in the spring of 2022. ** The Year I Went Without Doing Battle There was still steam rising from the mouths of my enemy. Men who rode South until the earth had given out to the sea. A thousand dreams made to drown without reason. I’m not sure being the master of another’s life. Stirs up fire more often than grief. But either one eats at you. Means to steal whatever name the earth had drawn out of its midst. Like a loose thread. Or the soul you no longer had any need. Once you’d been ordained by the winds from up North. For there is no art to it. The dead keep reminding us. And far less craft. From the headdress to the hiss of surrender. From the first scream to its aftermath. It’s an undoing the sun would rather we didn’t have to see to. Be even figuring more. But here’s the deal. Led by two beasts on each side of me. I’ll head West. While my shadow heads East. Only one of them let up for air. Long enough to tell of it. Mark DeCarteret Poems from Mark DeCarteret’s manuscript The Year I/We Went Without have been taken by The American Poetry Review, BlazeVOX, The Ekphrastic Review, Guesthouse, Hole in the Head Review, Meat for Tea, Nixes Mate Review, Plume Literary Journal, South Florida Poetry Journal and Unbroken. ** Master of Animals Part 1 Behrooz (Better Day), simple man, farmed when he hit bronze in 1928. Not farm equipment beautiful, green-plated. Later a cheek plate for horses honed 700 BC sold to a collector quietly, paid Behrooz in rials, Said there might be more where that came from. Tongues lap. Someone spilled like tea. Academics, archeologists descend, want and plow up Behrooz’s fields. Ten years. Tenured men flew planes for signs of civilization forgotten only in a generation. How on earth? Life died by erosion or buried by dying plant life later swept aside in mountains of rain, the land of the dead disappears. A burial ground, unguarded. ** Master of Animals Part ll Horse whisperer who’s horned deity of hunt. He holds mythical beasts barehanded. Listen to the hissed fury. Master makes no move, Implacable bronze horse bit Cheekpiece has hole in solar plexus of hunter. Personal power, third chakra. Nomad, not mad, just restraining beasts at bay. Transhumance transcends bit, bronze, light, portable like the mountain people. Fleeted foot, hurried hoof following seasonal fields. To unearth buried bronze, seek spring, necropolis not far. 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 What We See on Our Journeys (2021). 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 second chapbook, Crows Fly at Midnight, will be published in 2023. ** Protected dark stallion adorned you gallant steed ride into battle no demons dare attack noble beast winged warriors open-mouths warn before battle, wear iron gargoyles feel beating heart mine too beats we ride as one beast, man – sword drawn to strike down if we fall, rest my weary head, peaceful afterlife ensured Julie A. Dickson Julie A. Dickson advocates for captive elephants and shares her home with two rescued feral cats, Cam and JoJo. Her poems appear in various journals, including Girl God, Misfit, Deadbeat Poets and The Ekphrastic Review. Dickson holds a BPS in Behavioral Science and works with in-home seniors with Alzheimer's. She is a former coordinator for 100 Thousand Poets for Change and a past poetry board member. ** Teacher’s Peak found poem in Nietzsche’s prose What good is my happiness? It is poverty and dirt and a miserable ease. What good is my reason? Does it long for knowledge as the lion for its food? It is poverty and dirt and a miserable ease. It is not your sin, but your moderation that cries to heaven. Where is the lighting to leak your tongue? Where is the madness with which you should be cleansed? Man is a rope, I love those who do not know how to live, except their lives to be down-going, to be sacrifices. The time has come, I go my way, my down-going. Many, who called themselves his disciples, followed him, thus they came to a crossroad: there Zaratustra told them that from then on he wants to go alone, but his disciples handed him in farewell a staff, upon a golden haft, of which a serpent was coiled about a sun. He balanced the staff doubtful in his hands, for he disliked how gold always bestows itself; how the staff bestowed itself as a balancing act upon the shoulders of his sacrifice is a doubtful guess, for this was his last teaching etude; from then on animals’ roars backed his slopping equilibrium of infinitude. Ekaterina Dukas Ekaterina Dukas has studied and taught linguistics and culture at universities of Sofia, Delhi and London and authored a book on medieval art for the British Library. She writes poetry as a pilgrimage to the meaning and her poems have featured often in The Ekphrastic Review and its challenges selection, among others. Her poetry collection Ekphrasticon is published by Europa Edizioni, 2021. ** We Know We know it was supposed to be an honour, in fact, the greatest honour we Luristan steeds could have bestowed on us, but shit, the damn thing weighed a ton. It hurt like hell, rubbing our cheeks raw. Nevertheless, we bowed and deigned to grin and bear it, for we were famous, we Niseans, sought- after by the Spartans and the engines of the chariots of the Persian kings. J.R. Solonche Nominated for the National Book Award and twice-nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, J.R. Solonche is the author of 26 books of poetry and coauthor of another. He lives in the Hudson Valley. ** Homeward Through the Dark We gathered in the winding darkness there where six directions met beneath the swelling moon, upon the fires that danced upon the dancing dust and silver-plated hills, emblazoning our tents and huddled ovens, the rotund wombs of life that harbored warmth from each escaping breath and ravening pyre, from livid tongues of flame that joined each turning dancer to the sky. We gloried as our dark-eyed daughters birthed upon the frugal steppe an age of wonderers content to rattle reason’s numbers in the air and sit in little groups beneath the arching disk of night to contemplate the spangled whirl of rings and spheres and wonder what it meant to see them disappear within the wilderness of daylight’s sun-struck sight, to suffer past the shadow-play of night and firelight the fearful coruscating breath of noon and recognize the rasping presence of a fiery voice, that lunatic who beckons from the blinding entrance of the cave. And some would say that mind has world in it, or world has mind, yet by and by we found we’d always find the logics of disorder there, and all the while the winding sky whirls round itself out here, right here where there is somehow nothing but the turning, nothing but the shoreless river churning through the unremitting twist of time, no stable space beneath the coiling dark where worming thought might find its place and safely set its bearings. And all the while a distant starlight rumbles through the unreceptive air, across the unrelenting silences of futures past, the noise that dimly echoes only in the eye and leaves us free to picture life as we see fit, as dagger, dragon, banquet, bird or burning choir, or as a chariot of bronze we haul across the fragrant fields of night on silent wheels of fire. DB Jonas DB Jonas is an orchardist living in the Sangre de Cristo mountains of northern New Mexico. Born in California in 1951, he was raised in Japan and Mexico. His work has recently appeared in Tar River, Blue Unicorn, Whistling Shade, Neologism, Consilience Journal, Poetica Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, Innisfree Poetry Journal, Amethyst Review, The Deronda Review, The Decadent Review, The Amphibian, Willows Wept, Sequoia Speaks; Revue{R}évolution and others. ** Changes At first, they had a Mistress of the Animals, those Black Sea peoples, the plains and horse peoples of Asia Minor. They passed on their heritage from mother to daughter and they brought husbands into the maternal home. The Mistresses watched over their charges, offered grain and wine not blood, made whole, nurtured. The Mistress of the Animals was flanked by lionesses. Nurturing huntresses. Did the horses notice the tipping of the world when the Mistress was replaced by a Master, when the lioness guardians grew wings, talons and cruel beaks? Did they feel a change in the hands that held the reins? The plains were as wide, winters as hard, but the hands, were they as gentle? The winds that swept those antique plains swept away the tenderness. We reap the whirlwind now; horses bear heavier burdens and cruel bits. They race and jump and dance, carry children in endless circles. They obey, their eyes on the whip, noses sniffing our recycled air. There are no horse dreams in this brave new world. Poets on the shores of the world’s fringe wrote in the sands of the foaming shallows, in the stars that march across dark hill, of how the world has changed. Utterly. We snatch at the whirling debris, listen for hoofbeats. Jane Dougherty Jane Dougherty lives and works in southwest France. 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. ** Shaman the secret to channelling all that power is to be in the right place in your mind to let the magic flow ibex horns on my head torc round neck the griffins pour their chi through my core we make a mighty totem Emily Tee After years spent with numbers Emily Tee is now writing poetry and flash fiction. She's had pieces published in Ekphrastic Review challenges and in print with Dreich, with other work forthcoming elsewhere. She lives in England. ** Ars Bestia Domitor The urge to create is a burden we barely contain. Our thirst for control, belly hollow since the eve of birth; a bang heard when atoms shot out the eye of our horse. We need water, not droplets from our tap dancing, but an outpour that sustains. Our impulse is a wound that splits in two, the shape-shifter; our steed turns to dragons, their wings an arc to whip us, master of none, or possibly one- trick pony. We might be mad, but whatever we compose it’s an art. Maybe we are also flailing beasts, but beasts can’t tame beasts. Strength forgot- ten, toes dug in the stirrups, we ride on. Our blind horse leads us to the water, still we will not drink, the harsh bronze bit in our mouth. Heather Brown Barrett Heather Brown Barrett is a poet in southeastern Virginia. She mothers her young son and contemplates life, the universe, and everything with her writer husband, Bradley Barrett. Her poetry has appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, Yellow Arrow Journal, OyeDrum Magazine, AvantAppal(achia), and elsewhere. She has work forthcoming in Black Bough Poetry. Find her on Instagram @heatherbrownbarrett ** Indiana Jones and a Horse Bit Cheekpiece “Who do you think you are? A hatless Indiana Jones?” Elena tsk-tsked and wagged a finger at Desmond. “And at your age?” “Come on, Elena.” Desmond swiped a hand through what was left of his white hair. “What’s the harm in having a little adventure? I’m not quite ready to retire to a rocking chair and chew on a blade of grass.” “Couldn’t you take up a different hobby? Something safe and practical? Something legal? Wallpapering. Wiring. Woodworking. If you need suggestions, just ask. This old house needs work.” “Elena, you know I love you.” Desmond grabbed her hand and kissed her palm. “And I’d do almost anything you want. But really, do you expect this retired English professor to fix a leak? Surely not when we can pay someone to do it.” She regained the use of her hand and picked up the small bronze object lying on Desmond’s desk. “And what will the woman you love do when you’re hauled off to jail for stealing this...this....” “It’s a horse bit cheekpiece.” “Oh, really? And you knew that simply by looking at it?” She turned the bronze object this way and that, as if a new angle would reveal its secrets. “What horse in his right mind would prance around with that…thing in its mouth? It must hurt.” “The cheekpiece spoke to me.” “Don’t you mean it neighed at you? What did it say? ‘Steal me’?” “Very droll, dear. I’m afraid you never did have an appreciation for fine art. Around 700 B. C., a fine Persian artist slaved over it for heaven knows how long. It’s a masterpiece.” “How come last night you didn’t call my chicken Kiev a masterpiece? That’s the least you can do. I slaved over that dead chicken for hours.” “Dear, you’re missing the point. You know I love your chicken Kiev almost as much as I love you, but I can’t hang it on the wall.” “Well, you can’t hang this on the wall either. Not unless you want our first born, who, you might recall, is a police chief, to turn you into the authorities for grand theft. I assume this thing is worth a chunk of change.” Elena dropped the cheekpiece on the desk. It warbled an F sharp as it danced atop the oak desk before decrescendoing into a decidedly flat C. “If Albert hadn’t arranged for the return of the Shakespeare’s First Folio you stole--” “I prefer ‘borrowed.’” “Pilfered. Pinched. Purloined. Pick your favorite synonym. The museum had you dead to rights. Need I remind you that you weren’t wearing a mask? At least Indiana Jones had the presence of mind to wear a hat. You smiled right into the camera.” Desmond sighed. “Without Albert’s assistance. Let me restate that. Without our son’s heavily veiled threats to disclose the provenance of several of the museum’s prized possessions, you’d be in the state pen waiting for our next monthly conjugal visit.” “I love it when you employ alliteration.” “Don’t change the subject. You were able to remove this...this thing from the museum. I suggest you put that retired English professor mind of yours to good use and figure out a way to unremove it. Pronto.” “Elena, you don’t mean that.” “Oh, but I do. Did I mention I’m rereading Lysistrata?” “Oh, god, Elena. Not again.” Desmond groaned and jumped to his feet. “I just remembered I have to run uptown to do an errand.” Desmond snatched up the cheekpiece and cradled it to his bosom, In a faraway, forlorn voice, he said, “This would have been perfect over there, right next to the statue of Ishtar.” “I’ll miss you while you’re gone.” Elena bussed his cheek. “Darling, will you be back in time for dinner? I’m fixing beef Wellington.” “Beef Wellington?” Desmond sighed and studied the cheekpiece. “Oh, most definitely.” When she heard the front door close, Elena smiled and thanked her favorite author, Aristophanes. Long before that Persian artist was kicking in his mother’s belly, Aristophanes wrote a brilliant play that continues to inspire women. Just the mere mention of Lysistrata was enough to make Desmond behave. One of these days, Elena thought, I just might get around to actually reading it. Paula Messina Paula Messina writes short and long fiction, essays, and feature stories. She reads literary works in the public domain for librivox.org. When she isn't working on her novel set in Boston during World War II, she can be found strolling along the United State's first public beach. ** I Pursue Dance Lessons with My Unvaccinated Lover In the cracked-mirror room, we steer, quick and slow on the salsa floor—hole inside my stomach—and, nectar, inhale your blood orange, blonde leather, and white woods. Demons appear behind in dizziness, bronze winged, curled tails, burnt tongue-laughter, taunting my 2-3-5 & 8 roll while they squash other chickened students. The recess-lit habitat has a yield strength of taffeta: I bite the minutes, roll a mouthful, press your lovely shoulder blade the way I want love pressed into. Right left right and scariness or spaghetti awkwardness. Happiness is a horned god that centers the body. I am a nomad fighting past every past & future variant of myself. I am concerned about the unbitten Fredericksburg peaches and the hatch green chiles from our last road trip—another salsa recipe to ruin. Try to enjoy the dance without beads of sweat. Trust that a titanic array, a shimmering zenith will lead with steps to follow. 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 including Naugatuck River Review, Panoply, San Pedro River Review, and The Ekphrastic Review. His next full-length collection of poems, A Place Comfortable with Fire, is forthcoming from Lamar University Literary Press. ** Wakizashi. Walking to your house the day after you died I saw myself as a doll with arms and legs of stone protruding from a torso now a gaping maw in rictus - the wind streaming through the wet tangle of my grief. A vase of white chrysanthemums beckoned me through your loungeroom window, their petals soft with shadows from the half-drawn blinds, and I imagined Mum’s slippered footsteps sliding along kitchen vinyl, each swish echoing the sound of a swift sharp downward cut. Linda McQuarrie-Bowerman Linda is a poet living in Lake Tabourie, NSW Australia. She is just beginning her arts degree in Creative Writing. She has recently been published in three anthologies, on Viewless Wings.com, in The Ekphrastic Review, with poems forthcoming in the next edition of the Star 82 Review, right hand pointing and One Sentence Poems (OSP). Linda adores animals, family, and good champagne not necessarily in that order. ** Cheekbit From a Grave in Luristan, 700 BCE You. Your horn-crown declares your status, scares marauders, shields your horse's vision, to keep it straight, focused and true to your command. And yet ... we only found one of you? Why is it, a burial, such a holy thing, set to preserve man and beast and shield for a safe gallop into the afterlife, can so easily be raided? Neither your snake gods nor your devil's tails nor your beast-like human head can deter the ragged grave-digger, eternally electrified by greed. Anita Jawary Anita Jawary is a Melbourne artist, writer and poet. She waits for spring, and writes. ** Bridle A barren field, dirt-clod Rock-strewn, root-twisted Brats at the table, bawling. I offer a prayer to overcome. It is an impossible task. There is no other way but to go on The bare table gleams The dull morning beckons Each muscle in my body aches Wishes to lie entombed in clay. With a cacophony of children crying I can no longer dream of shifting this yoke So I ask the impossible Yoke monsters to my horse’s bridle: First the alchemy of the crucible Then the careful anvil work calling forth Griffons, dragons and me With horns on my helmet! Between the soft lips of my poor nag This magic bridle. So she must, at all costs, Cost to her gentle quivering lips Pull my plough Feed my family. Lucie Payne Lucie is a retired Librarian who is fascinated by ekphrastic challenges and is writing as much as she can. ** The Red Horse Louisa On a sunny summer day, I almost caused my father’s death in the old fenced lumberyard a photographer taking black and white pictures father holding the bridle of his red horse Louisa. I am holding father’s hand, skipping to his side I want to be in the photo pigtailed Magyar refugee girl. I pick up a horsewhip standing behind the mare father receives a rear kick steel hooves striking his chest father does not fall to the ground so I could hug him back to life he does not beat me with a rubber baton the sun continues shining, but four decades later oh I want to hug father again in his coffin, my little apu. River town Donaustauf, by the Danube Bavarian Forest chalk hills ridge on a sunny summer day, remember that day in the Baracke my brother József is born, a boy after four girls and I am a tomboy helping father feed three horses but father forgets me a small photo in the sunshine. Ilona Martonfi Ilona Martonfi is a mother, an activist, an educator, literary curator, poet and an editor. Born in Budapest, Hungary, she has also lived in Austria and Germany. Martonfi writes in seven chapbooks, journals across North America and abroad. Curator of the Argo Bookshop Reading Series. Recipient of the Quebec Writers’ Federation 2010 Community Award. Martonfi lives in Montreal, Canada. The Tempest, Inanna Publications, spring 2022, is her fifth poetry book. ** The Warrior-Poet of Luristan Consider the Farmer. When his field yielded an ancient crop of bronze, did he stand in awe in the middle of the row, turning the bit cheekpiece in his hands? An artifact of such deft craftsmanship, Master of Animals holding the reigns of two chimera-- part bird, part ibex—one balanced on a hare, the other on a fish. Or did silver dance in his eyes as he rushed to market? It was the 1920s. But step back some millennia. Consider the Rider. Perhaps a Mede or a nomadic Cimmerian from southern Russia or a Kassite. A man considered cultured for his time. Perhaps he was a warrior-poet like Lu Chi in second-century China, or a chronicler like Homer. Perhaps he told the struggles and suffering of his clan around campfires. And when he set the sacred bronze, the Master of Animals in his horse’s mouth, what bit did he clench in his own as the last crisis brought him to his knees? When he thundered across frosted fields into battle. When he dragged himself back weeks, maybe months, later to his river-home. When he found his people scattered, now bones in a fallow field. Did he weep, cry out his grief to the Master, to the animals, to the bit he had thought blessed? Did he feel deserted, suffer a loss of faith? Or did he reach deep into his pain and begin to gather words of mourning and war, knowing to suffer would always be man’s fate? Sandi Stromberg Sandi Stromberg’s poetry has been nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize and twice for Best of the Net. She is a dedicated contributor to The Ekphrastic Review, which has honored her with one of its Fantastic Ekphrastic Awards. She has contributed to the Review’s Throwback Thursday and is currently the guest judge of the Jo Zider Challenge, https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-challenges/ekphrastic-writing-challenge-jo-zider-with-guest-editor-sandi-stromberg.  Join our Art of Tarot contest! Click here or on image above for details. Be inspired by a selection of curated images on the theme. Write flash fiction of poetry. Win prestige and cash prizes! Special guest judges Riham Adly and Roula-Maria Dib.
 We are very pleased to announce our new ekphrastic contest, on the theme of Tarot art. And we are absolutely thrilled to have guest judges Riham Adly and Roula-Maria Dib on board! Riham, our flash fiction judge, reads, writes, and teaches from the framework of the unconscious and has a special interest in Tarot imagery. Roula-Maria, editor of Indelible Journal, is a renowned Jungian scholar and poet. Find out more about these writers, their work, and what they'll be looking for below. The Tarot's evolution from parlour games to gambling houses to divination claims is as fascinating as the timeless and mysterious archetypal images on the cards. The Tarot is widely used today for cartomancy, but it started out as a popular game and took a mystical turn in the 18th century. A modern approach is to use the archetypal symbols that fascinated Carl Jung for therapeutic purposes, psychological reflection, and creative exercises. We can't wait to see what these images inspire you to write! ** The Art of Tarot Rules 1. $10 CAD (approx. $7 USD) entry fee gets you an ebook with 36 Tarot-themed images, and you can submit three flashes or poems. First place prize for poetry and for flash fiction land $100 CAD prize each. 2. You can enter as many times as you like, using The Art of Tarot purchase button below as many times as you wish. 3. Poetry and flash fiction, up to 750 words per piece. 4. Use one or more of the artworks in the booklet to inspire your stories and poetry. You can interpret the artwork and the theme in any way you are moved to. Read the judges' overviews in this post (below) to get a feel for what they're looking for. 5. Ten poems and ten flashes will be chosen by the editor of TER and by our guest judges to publish in The Ekphrastic Review. Three poems and three stories will be finalists. One poem and one flash will take first place and each win $100CAD. The judges will read submissions blind. 6. Include a 75 words or less bio. 7. Use TAROT in the subject line. 8. Deadline is November 23, 2022. 9. Winners will be announced in December. 10. Submission email: theekphrasticreview@gmail.com A Word From Our Guest Judges Sometimes, the only way for us to confront a truth is to summon that never-ending fast track we call life, viewing it in a whirr, before slowing down to examine its components under the microscope. Having discovered that Tarot cards are nothing but archetypical images representing one’s journey—or what mythologist Joseph Campbell describes as “the hero’s journey,” we can use these symbols to create stories that thrust us further into the essence of our characters' journey, their perspectives and core emotions. The journey could be something as subtle as small adjustments that characters realize they need to go through, or revelations that are deep and internal. I would love if you could explore the storylines and the archetypical images in those cards using details, colours, and associations to see into the depth of your own Self. From there, explore new themes in your own writing, perhaps revisiting recurring themes, and understanding where it’s all coming from, as you craft your flash fiction. Riham Adly It is a with great honour and pleasure that I partake in this exceptional event, The Art of Tarot, so carefully put together by the inspiring artist, poet, and writer, Lorette C. Luzajic. While I don’t understand much about the Tarot in terms of technique, what I know is that it is a powerful array of symbols and images that move our archetypal energies into action. And the difference between “knowing” and “understanding”, by the way, is also something Tarot cards teach us. They speak to us in the language of poetry, which we grasp without any conventional tools of rational comprehension. Because symbols point toward possible meanings, the images of the Tarot speak possibilities without fixed meanings, pointing to the non-rational aspects of who we are. Unlike literalism and just like poetry, the Tarot brings back this symbolic essence of connection to other forms of reality. These cards are their own unique “alphabet” sparking truths through negative capability and synchronicities—a fascinating “alphabet” that the psyche can only fathom archetypally. We would see that each card has its own character, flavour, or personality, which matches one of our many archetypal voices that were activated while looking at it. And it is with great excitement to read your poems inspired by such rich visual language, the language of symbols, open—as ever—to hosting the unconscious. The ekphrastic journeys of your poems are evidence of your transition from the “visual” to the “visionary,” where the different voices of the images come to you to be embodied in such beautiful verse! Roula-Maria Dib Riham Adly is an award-winning flash fiction writer from Giza, Egypt. In 2013 her story “The Darker Side of the Moon” won the MAKAN award. In 2022 she won second prize in the Strands International Flash Fiction Competition. She is a Best of the Net and a Pushcart Prize nominee. Her work is included in the Best Micro-fiction 2020 anthology. Her fiction has appeared in over 50 online journals such as Litro Magazine, Lost Balloon, The Flash Flood, Bending Genres, The Citron Review, The Sunlight Press, Flash Fiction Magazine, Menacing Hedge, Flash Frontier, Flash Back, Ellipsis Zine, Okay Donkey, and New Flash Fiction Review among others. Riham has worked as an assistant editor in 101 Words and as a first reader in Vestal Review. Riham is the founder of the “Let’s Write Short Stories” and “Let’s Write That Novel” in Egypt. She has taught creative writing all over Cairo for years with the goal of mentoring and empowering aspiring writers in her region. Riham’s flash fiction collection Love is Make-Believe was released and published in November 2021 by Clarendon House in the UK. She is the first African, Arab woman to have a flash fiction collection published in English. Riham shares her craft articles about writing flash fiction through her blog “Riham Writes” and reviews a new flash fiction collection every month on her FB group “Riham Reads Flash.” Roula-Maria Dib is an award-winning literary scholar, poet, and editor whose research interests include literature, modern poetry and poetics, creative writing, and Jungian psychology. She is endorsed by the British Academy and holds a UK Global Talent Visa. Roula is the winner of the British Council’s Alumni Awards 2021-2022 for the Culture and Creativity category in the UAE and had also won the American University in Dubai’s Provost’s Award for Outstanding Literary Achievement 2020; her book, Jungian Metaphor in Modernist Literature (Routledge, 2020) was shortlisted as a finalist for the international IAJS book awards, and some poems from her collection, Simply Being (Chiron Press, 2021) received Pushcart Prize nominations. She is the founding editor of literary and arts journal, Indelible, and creative producer of literary event series, Indelible Evenings, as well as Psychreative, a virtual salon for researchers, artists, and writers with a background in Jungian psychology. Her MOOC, “Why Online Creative Communities Matter” is featured on Academia.edu. Formerly (until June 2022), she was a professor of English at the American University in Dubai.  Nature's Way, by Jo Zider (USA) contemporary. Click on image for artist site. Editor's Note: We are very excited to have our long-time ekphrastic contributor Sandi Stromberg as our guest editor this time! She has chosen an artwork by Jo Zider. Welcome, Sandi and Jo. Lorette Guest Editor's Note: Dear Co-Lovers of Words and Art, As an addict to The Ekphrastic Review and its biweekly challenges, I’m thrilled to be a guest editor. I hope Nature’s Way, by Houston artist Jo Zider will draw you in and stimulate your imagination. For the past four years, I’ve benefitted from these challenges, especially throughout the pandemic. In the process, I’ve been introduced to a wide variety of art as well as to the writers whose work is often selected. And while editor Lorette C. Luzajic encourages writers to be a continuing part of the challenges, she also makes ample room for new voices. Her intent has always been to create a family of co-lovers of words and art. My choice of Jo’s art seemed a good segue after the successful Zoom workshop Lorette led for members of Houston’s Women in the Visual and Literary Arts (WiVLA). I’ve been a member since 1999, and Jo was one of the first artists I met. She is a ceramicist and sculptor whose work and passions can be found on her website https://jozider.com/. The piece I offer as a prompt is part of a series titled Earth at the Edge. Many thanks to her for permitting the use of her art. She and I both look forward to your responses, whatever form they may take. Sandi Sandi Stromberg’s poetry has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize and for 2020 Best of the Net. She is a dedicated contributor to The Ekphrastic Review and recently contributed a Throwback Thursday. In 2021, the Review awarded her a Fantastic Ekphrastic Award for her contributions to the genre. Her poetry has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including San Pedro River Review, The Ocotillo Review, Houston Chronicle-San Antonio Express-News, Snapdragon, Words & Art, Visual Verse, Weaving the Terrain, Enchantment of the Ordinary, and in Dutch in the Netherlands in Brabant Cultureel and Dichtersbankje (the Poet’s Bench). ** The Rules 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 Nature's Way, by Jo Zider. Deadline is September 16, 2022. You can submit poetry, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, microfiction, or any other form creative writing you like. 1000 words max please. The Rules 1. Use this visual art prompt as a springboard for your writing. It can be a poem or short prose (fiction or nonfiction.) You can research the artwork or artist and use your discoveries to fuel your writing, or you can let the image alone provoke your imagination. 2. Write as many poems and stories as you like. Send only your best works or final draft, not everything you wrote down. (Please note, experimental formats are difficult to publish online. We will consider them but they present technical difficulties with web software that may not be easily resolved.) Please copy and paste your submission into the body of the email, even if you include an attachment such as Word or PDF. 3. There is no mandatory submission fee, but we ask you to consider a voluntary donation to show your support to the time, management, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review. It takes an incredible amount of time to curate the journal, read regular and contest submissions, etc. Paying all expenses out of pocket is also prohibitive. Helping the editor share the time and expenses involved is very much appreciated. There is an easy button to click above to share a five spot through PayPal or credit card. If you would like to give more, you can do so here. Thank you. A voluntary gift does not affect the selection process in any way. 4. USE THIS EMAIL ONLY. Send your work to ekphrasticchallenge@gmail.com. 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 ZIDER CHALLENGE in the subject line. 6. Include your name and a brief bio. If you do not include your bio, it will not be included with your work, if accepted. Even if you have already written for The Ekphrastic Review or submitted other works and your bio is "on file" you must include it in your challenge submission. Do not send it after acceptance or later; it will not be added to your piece. Guest editors may not be familiar with your bio or have access to archives. We are sorry about these technicalities, but have found that following up, requesting, adding, and changing later takes too much time and is very confusing. 7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 8. Deadline is midnight EST, September 16, 2022. 9. Please do not send revisions, corrections, or changes to your poetry or your biography after the fact. If it's not ready yet, hang on to it until it is. 10. Selected submissions will be published together, with the prompt, one week after the deadline. 11. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we will no longer send out sorry notices or yes letters 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. 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. |
Challenges
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