 Christ with the Woman Taken in Adultery, by Han van Meegeren (Netherlands) 1942 Join us for biweekly ekphrastic writing challenges. See why so many writers are hooked on ekphrastic! We feature some of the most accomplished, influential poets writing today, and we also welcome emerging or first time writers and those who simply want to experience art in a deeper way or try something creative. The prompt this time is Christ with the Woman Taken in Adultery, by Han van Meegeren. Deadline is November 12, 2021 . You can submit poetry, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, microfiction, or any other form creative writing you like. 1000 words max please. The Rules 1. Use this visual art prompt as a springboard for your writing. It can be a poem or short prose (fiction or nonfiction.) You can research the artwork or artist and use your discoveries to fuel your writing, or you can let the image alone provoke your imagination. 2. Write as many poems and stories as you like. Send only your best works or final draft, not everything you wrote down. (Please note, experimental formats are difficult to publish online. We will consider them but they present technical difficulties with web software that may not be easily resolved.) Please copy and paste your submission into the body of the email, even if you include an attachment such as Word or PDF. 3. There is no mandatory submission fee, but we ask you to consider a voluntary donation to show your support to the time, management, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review. It takes an incredible amount of time to curate the journal, read regular and contest submissions, etc. Paying all expenses out of pocket is also prohibitive. Helping the editor share the time and expenses involved is very much appreciated. There is an easy button to click below to share a five spot through PayPal or credit card. Thank you. 4. USE THIS EMAIL ONLY.
Send your work to 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 VAN MEEGEREN 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, November 12, 2021. 9. Please do not send revisions, corrections, or changes to your poetry or your biography after the fact. If it's not ready yet, hang on to it until it is. 10. Selected submissions will be published together, with the prompt, one week after the deadline. 11. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we will no longer send out sorry notices or yes letters. You will see what poetry and stories have been selected when the responses are posted one week after the deadline. Understand that we value your participation as part of our ekphrastic community, but we can only choose a handful of the many entries we receive. 12. A word on the selection process: we strive for a balance between rewarding regular participants and sharing the voices of writers who are new to our family. We also look for a variety of perspectives and styles, and a range of interesting takes on the painting. It is difficult to reproduce experimental formatting, so unfortunately we won't choose many with unusual spacing or typography. 13. Please note, some selected responses may also be chosen for our newly born podcast, TERcets, with host Brian Salmons. Your submission implies permission should he decide to read yours. If that happens, you will be notified and sent a link to share. Thank you! 14. By submitting to The Ekphrastic Review, you are also automatically joining our subscribers' list. Your submission is your permission. We don't send Spam and we don't send many emails- you will not receive forty-four emails a day! We send a newsletter zero to two times a month, with hopes of more consistency in the future. It updates you on challenges, news, contests, prize nominations, ekphrastic happenings, prompt ebooks, the podcast, and more. You can cancel at any time, of course, but may find yourself back on the list after another submission. We hope you don't cancel because we like to stay in touch occasionally! 15. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges! 16. Please share this prompt with your writing groups, Facebook groups, social media circles, and anywhere else you can. The simple act of sharing brings readers to The Ekphrastic Review, and that is the best way to support the poets and writers on our pages! 17. Check this space every Friday for new challenges and selected responses, alternating weekly.
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 Indonesian Shadow Puppet- Kresna, Wayang Kulit Purwa, Central Java, photography by Alain Secretan (USA) 2004. (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) TANKA break free from the past-- tell my past self ARIGATO even more than goodbye 過去の自分 とお別れを する時は さよならよりも ありがとうだね Uchimura Kaho 内村佳保 ** TANKA both are the real me-- one is the playful, extroverted me the other is fearful of COVID, the introverted me どちらとも ほんとのわたし なんだよね ひなたのわたし ひかげのわたし Uchimura Kaho 内村佳保 Born in Japan, Uchimura Kaho (内村佳保) lives in Tokyo. Her slogan won the grand prize at the Japanese Reconstruction Agency Slogan Competition 2017. Her book report won the special prize at the Defence of Japan 2019 Book Report Competition. She is the author of two novels, Jyuusansai no TAIDOU and Inishie Gatari vol.1. Her Tanka (a genre of classical Japanese poetry) won the grand prize at Minokamo city Tanka Competition 2021 and the Nikkei Newspaper the Best Tanka of the Year Award 2020. Find more on her website https://uchimurakaho.studio.site ** The Dance of the Blue God (based on the story of Krishna and Kaliya Naag) A blue god tiptoes by the Yamuna’s banks. Below the waters of the sacred stream, the many hooded Kaliya Naag* lurks, carnelian eyes stalking through gaps in lily pads. Waters churn, poisons simmer, swirling dark whirlpools, but the blue god, undaunted, wades into its depths. The leviathan cleaves the waves, twisting into muscular knots, coiling its scaled ferociousness around the blue god. He draws a whirlwind into his lungs, his thorax filling with the weight of planets and stars. The blue god pummels the serpent’s skulls, feet pounding, dancing the cosmic dance. Blood sprays across the waters. Distraught naginis* rise, ruby heads bowed, pleading for mercy. The blue god softens, growing lighter. The vanquished snake cowers in supplication, slithering away in an ebony wave, entourage in tow. Clear of venom, the Yamuna glistens mirroring the midsummer sky. The blue god floats above the rushes - lost rubies and pearls rising from the foam, crusting his dripping silks, lighting his prussian shadow. Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad *Kaliya Naag - In Hindu traditions, a venomous snake that terrorised the waters of the Yamuna river *Naginis- the two wives of Kaliya Naag Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad is an Indian-Australian artist and poet who serves as a chief editor for Authora Australis. She holds a Masters in English, and is a member of Sydney’s North Shore Poetry Project. Her recent works have been published in both print and online literary journals and anthologies including The Ekphrastic Review, Black Bough Poetry, Bracken Magazine, and The Eunoia Review. She won the 66th Moon Prize awarded by Writing in a Woman’s Voice Journal, and an Honourable Mention in the Glass Poetry Awards 2020. She lives and works in Sydney on the land of the Ku-ring-gai people of The Eora Nation. ** His Dark Materials A child of light, I come to life as darkness. My filigree skin carved by a craftsman’s hands, painted in bright-hued colours: blues and purples, scarlet red. My story is played out against the thin scrim of passing time, the flicker-flame of history, my limbs articulated by strong threads of fate. I do not control my own voice but sing his song. I am a dancing doll, manipulated by a master puppeteer; nothing more to me than backlit shadow. Louise Longson Louise Longson lives in West Oxfordshire. She is a qualified psychotherapist, specialising in trauma and enduring mental health issues and currently works to support those distressed by chronic loneliness and isolation. A late starter to writing poetry, she settled down to it in 2020 at the age of 57, and her work has appeared in various publications including One Hand Clapping, Fly on the Wall, Dreich, Vaine, Nymphs, The Ekphrastic Review, Drifting Sands, The Poetry Shed, Obsessed with Pipework and the various publication of Indigo dreams Publications. She is a winner of the Dreich ‘Slims’ competition 2021 with her chapbook Hanging Fire. ** Blue Shadow The Supreme Being of the Mahabharata has followed me from childhood, starting from the mantle of the dank middle room of our East Ham house. Kresna is my mother's god, whose colour is all attractive black. In my imagination, his blue shadow is a vestige like a Javanese puppet silhouette, waiting for the dalang to direct the next act. My mother loved Kresna, but hated being married. My father rolled Pay-Pay when it was affordable, smoked indoors while listening to the BBC on a transistor radio, and lazed on layers of blurring Hindi newspapers that covered his torn recliner. My mother collected Tesco stamps toward free suitcases and placed flowers at the foot of her god's picture. It was the 1970s and the National Front began its hold in Britain. My father brought every scrap of anger home from the pubs. Get out in the garden, he would say. My play outdoors was eclipsed by mornings sitting on the floor with my beaten mother. Her clothes concealed everything except the disappearance of what I loved, her sweet hope, her delicate way of speaking with her eyes. My mother took photos of her visible wounds, mailed them to her sister, and told me the story of how Sheshnaag protected baby Kresna. I forgave my father because I knew his humanity-- not his godless violent insanity, not his addiction, not his inability to fit in English society, not his failings as a head of a household, not his version of immigrant status, not his inability to fulfil his father's expectations, not his unfulfilled dream to go to college—I forgave him because he played the harmonica, held my hand as we walked to the library, and because he came to watch me, a brown-skinned angel in a Christmas play. My mother scolded me for crying when he spent the night in jail. She wept in front of her idol, shielding herself from my suffering. Rhony Bhopla Rhony Bhopla is a poet and visual artist. Her previous work has appeared or is forthcoming in Cosumnes River Journal, Pratik Magazine, and Notre Dame Review. Her multimedia piece The Indian Accent is featured online by the Crocker Art Museum. Rhony has an interest in indigenous artworks and heritage sites from around the world. She is a student in the Pacific University's MFA in Writing Program. When she is not writing, Rhony enjoys cooking and gardening. ** Not As My Shadow (A Puppet's Lament) I was, of course, by artist made, and by another then portrayed. My soul was borrowed voice and hand that spoke and moved me as she planned to tell a tale that otherwise could not have greeted ears and eyes through shadow cast upon a screen by light I blocked, where held unseen, I mourned the days ahead forlorn of home too soon I now adorn in purgatory known as art long absent life of soul and heart at least admired, perhaps, on shelf not as my shadow but my self. 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. ** Will Not My war is gone. My war is gone and you are not my war. I stand here suspended. You wait behind but my war is gone and you are not my war. My war brought riches. My war brought crowns of jewels and robes of bones and red vests that were the suns of the war. Now my war is gone and you are a shadow. You are a shadow dreaming of my war. A shadow suspended in my space but you are not my war. My face is a burned bark left at the end of my war. My arm is attached with bolts longing for the next war and all you can do is shadow me with hopes to be my next war but you shall never be my war. You trail me like a scout and mock me like a child but you will never be my war and you will never be me. My war is gone and you who are a tiny shadow will know no war. You who are already dead will know no war. You who do not know you are dead will know no war. You who wait for the arrows to pierce your shadow will know no war. You who are not my war will never be my war. My war is gone. John Riley John Riley has published poetry and fiction in Smokelong Quarterly, Better Than Starbucks, Ekphrastic Review, Banyan Review, Connotation Press, Fiction Daily, The Molotov Cocktail, Dead Mule, St. Anne's Review, and numerous other anthologies and journals both online and in print. He has also published over thirty books of nonfiction for young readers and continues his work in educational publishing. ** Dalang’s Opening Synopsis The kenong gongs! Time for Wayang Kulit to commence For I am Dalang Puppeteer of all Java, the nation. Pay attention to learn My lessons and intricate messages Of tales from Antasena Contradicted, by Bagawan Bagaspati. As music syncopates Soothing your soul, heart, mind Warriors face each other Holding, heinous heirlooms in hand. Shadows shall come Shadows shall go Shadows shall rise To reflect on the wall. Blood will be spilt From the daggers and dialogue As lives will be lost To your loud screeches of horror. Through the magic of flight With the heritage of Cupu Madusena Dead Pandavas will revive To the predilection of you audience. The jamboree will last From crepuscular through to dawn so Prepare yourselves children Let our Wayang Kulit commence … Alun Robert Alun Robert is a prolific creator of lyrical free verse. He has achieved success in poetry competitions across the British Isles and North America. His work has been published by numerous literary magazines, anthologies and webzines in the UK, Ireland, Belgium, Italy, India, South Africa, Kenya, USA and Canada. Since 2018, he has been part of The Ekphrastic Review community particularly enjoying the bi-weekly challenges. He is a member of the Federation of Writers Scotland for whom he was a Featured Writer in 2019. ** Strings Attached Shadow thing walks, dances Tethered strings attached, hands Rendered not your own, bidding done Indolent arms forced to response, resistance Not possible, accept fate and lose that Grimace – attitude does not become you, Sadistically, you are controlled All actions dictated by puppeteer - The audience whispers, applauds in glee, they, Touted from streets, purses open to pay, Admit to prime seats, flamboyant dress, Colorful garb distracts, flushed faces fanned, Hats held in laps, mesmerized are the Eyes, follow strings attached to limbs Designed to deceive; what a show! Julie A. Dickson Julie A. Dickson is a Pushcart nominee, rescuer of feral cats, advocate of captive zoo and circus elephants whose poems appear in various journals including Sledgehammer, Misfit, Open Door and The Ekphrastic Review. Full length works are available on Amazon. Dickson enjoys writing to visual prompts, including art, nature and autumn colours. ** Java Shadow Puppet This puppet of leather and wood glides, graceful and lithe manipulated by unseen forces to tell the story of love and battle fear and victory and – again and always – love The puppet gleams with colours and curves But the shadow – The shadow is alive And that is the secret to the story Katherine Saxby Katherine Saxby is a veteran English and French teacher, an optimistic but negligent gardener, and an adventurous vegetarian cook. Katherine is always looking for ways to improve her lesson plans, her accent, her pie crust, and everything else (including her poetry). ** For Want of the Unattainable She lived in a land of make believe her suitors were the guards of demons and dreams - their spears pierced broken hearts of maidens’ lost hopes and made them whole. She was defended protected and bartered her gossamer self against all perils. Arms bowed behind her serpentine back, the taut black cord of want, lust, need, tortured her ruptured soul as it pleaded for love. Jane Lang Jane Lang has written for years. Her work has appeared in several online journals including Quill and Parchment, the Avocet, Creative Inspirations and The Ekphrastic Review. She has been published in several anthologies and written and given two chap books to family and friends in lieu of Christmas cards. She lives in the Pacific Northwest in a big house with her lofty ideas and ideals. ** Shadow of the Deity Kresna…deity, elegant in your fine robes of white and red, Your skin gold leaf, your face painted black. These are the colours of your spirit, symbols of your qualities… maturity and strength, knowledge, and serenity. Your audience assembled back and front, the oil lamp illuminates your stage, a translucent screen welcoming your shadow. Gamelan, choir, bells, and gongs usher you in, angular limbs move with the voice of the dalang, the expert puppeteer. His life of training, knowledge of narration and movement handed down through millennia. Who gave you life? The buffalo, which gave its own, the team of carvers with their intricate tools, or the puppeteer with his ancient wisdom? Kresna…hero of the Mahabharata, in shadow form you take part in stories, epics from the ancient times, of battles between good and evil, of divinities and cosmos. Your shadow brings to life the ancestors, lamp light and music breathe forth their souls, to protect participants through the long night of performance. Maryjane Sherwin This is the first ekphrastic poem I have written. I became interested in this form of poetry after taking part in a short online workshop recently. I have a Degree in Archaeology and a Graduate Certificate of History from the University of New England. I usually work in administration, but I have taken time off to pursue creative writing. I live in regional New South Wales, Australia, with my husband, two dogs, two cats, and two guinea pigs. My grandson thinks it is Noah’s ark. ** Hocus-Pocus We are all shadows, said Plato, sitting in a cave watching movies-- our backs to the sun-lit world, our eyes shackled to the wall before us And outside the cave people walk and sing and make love; and inside the cave we laugh and cheer and cry as the fire casts their shadows on the granite screen before us And the Wayang puppet-masters of Java meticulously re-create the illusion with control rods and handles and joints and screens and oil lamps and laughter-- and none dare notice the artful hocus-pocus Mark C Watney Mark C Watney is an immigrant from South Africa who teaches English at Sterling College in Kansas. As his brain ages, and his chess ratings drop, he is discovering a poetic sensibility he lacked as a younger man. Recent publications: Acumen, Dappled Things (First place, Jacques Maritain Prize for Nonfiction), The Ekphrastic Review, Saint Katherine Review, Front Porch Review, Presence, Cider Press Review, and others. ** Shadow Puppet The drumming in the wall is disorderly. His voice manipulates the metre of her pulse which I cannot ignore so I knock on the door. It opens a crack. The tension in her eyes slips through and I sense his presence back-stage. He lifts her arm, a master of puppetry. It is stiff with intricate lies tattooed and stained in purple and blue but it drops effortlessly to her side, the tell-tale signs concealed in the low lighting cast in the hall. He articulates her mouth, choosing words carefully to match the shapes made by the opening hinge of her jaw. I observe her stick-like features projected as shadows on the wall, power at his fingertips, a closed door. Kate Young Kate Young lives in England and has been passionate about poetry since childhood. She generally writes free verse and loves responding to art through ekphrastic poetry. Her poems have appeared in The Poetry Village, Words for the Wild, Poetry on the Lake, Alchemy Spoon, Dreich and Friends and Friendship. She has had poems in two Scottish Writers Centre chapbooks. Her work has also featured in the anthologies Places of Poetry and Write Out Loud. Her pamphlet A Spark in the Darkness is due to be published by Hedgehog Press next year. Find her on Twitter @Kateyoung12poet. ** Shadow Puppets I still see you in the shadows. It’s where you’ve always been casting shadows over my life playing your part in its theatre while staying hidden to project an image which makes me feel as manipulated as you surely are behind that screen. It will take courage to draw back the blind to let me see your features, let me see who you are and who you can be when you’re free, when we both are free. So step forward. Step out of the shadows and on to the stage to greet me. When I see your smile we’ll rewrite our parts free of the puppet master and out of the shadows. Lynn White Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud 'War Poetry for Today' competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Apogee, Firewords, Vagabond Press, Gyroscope Review and So It Goes Journal. Find Lynn at: https://lynnwhitepoetry.blogspot.com and https://www.facebook.com///www.facebook.com/Lynn-White-Poetry-1603675983213077/ ** When Sita Learned to Dance "Yes, I'm being followed by a moonshadow, Moonshadow, moonshadow, Leaping and hopping on a moonshadow -- And if I ever lose my hands, Lose my plow, lose my land..." Moonshadow, Cat Stevens 1. First the shadows danced moved by a child's hands: Rama said Gamelan rhymes with hands. 2. Words were braided into branches of trees, and shadows danced moved by the Gamelan's hands. 3. The moon was as full as a porcelain plate and lovers danced moved by the Gamelan's hands. 4. Ravana watched Sita learning to dance, dancing like shadows in the Gamelan's hands -- 5. how her heart caught the colors of morning! And the ring on her hand came from Rama's hands... 6. she'd be safe if she stayed in the circle of land as their shadows danced in the Gamelan's hands... 7. Outside the circle -- outside of good fate -- Ravana changed shapes in the Gamelan's hands. 8. An evil drama, that was Ravana! & Sita cried out, kidnapped... Could she be saved by the Gamelan's hands safe in the brown arms 9. of Rama? The candles grew dim, and the hour was late as the shadows danced, dreaming in the Gamelan's hands. Laurie Newendorp Laurie Newendorp lives and writes in Houston. Her recent book, When Dreams Were Poems, 2020, explores the relationship between art and writing. Honoured multiple times by the Ekphrastic Challenge, her poems have received honourable mention for the Pablo Neruda Prize and second place in The Houston Poetry Fest's Ekphrastic Poem Contest. The Gamelan is the "puppet master" and musician in the Wayang Kulit, his stories like the Ramayana often told in an outdoor setting. "When Sita Learned To Dance" is a Ghazal. ** Shadows in Time: A Sijo Sequence I. Pale shadows elongate with each passing hour of daylight, as seconds quickly become years in our tender memories, age dancing across our minds in a rhythm too unforgiving. II. The past and the present are both foreshadowed, omens presaged, by the routine lengthening of the night as seasons progress, the equinox of youth, so very sweet, rapidly forgotten. III. Slowly, the new becomes the old, and the old becomes the new in a cycle at once familiar and so very shocking, just as we are surprised at how our own shadows shorten with time. IV. They will shorten ‘til they cast no more, no longer absorbing or reflecting any of the sun’s light throughout the seasons, and the only shadows that we still cast are merely memories. V. Even those supple impressions will be forgotten in time, and once we are truly gone, our stories wafting on the wind, only the shadows of our bare headstones will bedim the sun’s light. Rose Menyon Heflin Originally from rural, southern Kentucky, Rose Menyon Heflin is a writer and artist living in Madison, Wisconsin. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies spanning four continents, and her poetry won a 2021 Merit Award from Arts for All Wisconsin. One of her poems will be choreographed and performed by a local dance troupe, and she will have an ekphrastic creative nonfiction piece featured in the exhibit “Companion Species'' at the Chazen Museum of Art. Among other venues, her recent and forthcoming publications include Deep South Magazine, DREICH, The Ekphrastic Review, Fauxmoir, Feral: A Journal of Poetry and Art, Fireflies’ Light, MacQueen’s Quinterly, The Minison Project, Tangled Locks Journal’s MoonBites, and Visual Verse. ** Its irksome this shadow that follows cancels out my moves taunts and teases traces my extremities from my nose to my toes making out that I lie like poor Pinocchio I’m no Narcissus seeking self-reflection I have no beauty but see my aging mother in all the windows so have no need of shadow. Diana Moen Pritchard From a log cabin childhood on a remote farmstead in the mountains of British Columbia, Canada to retirement in Guernsey, Channel Islands, there is a wealth of experience in between which Diana Moen Pritchard endeavours to capture in her writing and poetry. She has some of her poems published in Ver, Reach, Artemis, Second Light, The Poetry Business anthologies. ** Shadow Puppet Welcome to a world of sweet illusions, where a puppet’s shadow dances on a screen, where from the dreams we dream come solutions to all of our troubles and confusion, and life is a puppeteer’s play, scene by scene. Welcome. Here is a world of only illusions, where all ties to reality are loosened. Here shadows form stories of make-believe, and from the dreams we dream come solutions to the griever’s grief, to the lover’s broken heart, and to the loner’s longing; for we’ve come to a world sweetened by illusions, an enchanted world, where a profusion of pictures is all that we need or see, where dreams upon dreams are now solutions to everything, and everything’s a fusion of images, flickering and inter-weaved. Welcome to a world of sweet illusions, where the dreams we dream become solutions. Gregory E. Lucas Gregory E. Lucas writes fiction and poetry. His short stories and poems have appeared in magazines such as past issues of The Ekphrastic Review, Blueline, The Horror Zine, Blue Unicorn, and Peeking Cat. ** Shadow Play We are two headed, bobbing on the surface of water both hiding and revealing, the being and its mirror image, the real and the reflected. Where do the two merge? Where does one end and the other begin? Like night and day the same worlds yet strangely different in changing lights, puppets in a shadow play. Is god the puppeteer? Does he pull the strings? Are we really tethered, empty entities, fleeting, or is it a sleight of hand, misguided, on our own, are we conjured out of nothing? Akshaya Pawaskar Akshaya Pawaskar is a doctor practicing in India, and poetry is her passion. Her poems have been published in Tipton Poetry Journal, Shards, The Blue Nib, North of Oxford, Indian Rumination, Rock and Sling, among many others. She won the Craven Arts Council ekphrastic poetry competition in 2020 and was placed second in The Blue Nib chapbook contest in 2018. Her first solo poetry chapbook The falling in and the falling out was published by Alien Buddha press in January 2021. ** Shadow Puppet When he shines his light on me I am nothing but the thing he wants: the twist and thrust of his puppet rods, dark on the screen of his desire. He dances me, a rhythmic indignity for all to see, trapped by a tune in his head... Does the crowd think me dead, though my eyes dilate in the lantern glow, or do they prefer not to know? Paul McDonald Paul McDonald taught at the University of Wolverhampton for twenty five years, where he ran the Creative Writing Programme. He took early retirement in 2019 to write full time. He is the author of over twenty books, which cover fiction, poetry, and scholarship. His creative work has won and been shortlisted for numerous prizes including The Bedford Prize, The Bridport Prize, The John Clare Poetry Prize, the Ottakars/Faber and Faber Poetry Competition, the Sentinel Poetry Prize, the Sentinel Short Story Prize, and Retreat West Flash Fiction Prize, nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and Best of the Net. ** Shadowing Jan, I still talk to you in my head almost every day. I hope you talk to me like that, too. Remember our spy phase in sixth grade when The Man from U.N.C.L.E. came on TV? This is going to sound crazy, but you know how my mind takes leaps. Today I saw a presentation of Java shadow puppets at an art museum. I think the only puppets I saw as a kid were on The Ed Sullivan Show. These flat puppets projected through a backlit screen reminded me of our spy nights. Remember how we’d sit on the hill across the street to shadow our folks watching TV? Their matching picture windows were almost like side-by-side screens. Boring! Well, it would have been if we hadn’t juiced it up by making up dialogues for the enemy agents who were only pretending to watch TV – their cover in suburbia. I’m pretty sure most shows were already in colour, but we still had black and white sets. The eerie blue light through cigarette smoke and sheer curtains showed us almost nothing – just who was on the sofa in front of the window and who got up. But we took our mission for U.N.C.L.E. seriously. You had a crush on Napoleon while I was nuts over Illya. Once a car with two men pulled up in front of my house. We squealed and ran. We actually believed those actors might drop by to help solve our case! Your folks hardly moved – just sat watching the tube with your mom’s head leaning on your dad’s shoulder. Remember how we wore ear plugs from our transistors, pretending we were intercepting transmissions? Their diabolical boss bribed script writers to slip clues into the night’s programming. “Shhh, Olga’s speaking. If anyone mentions red dog, they’ll meet the 7:30 a.m. train arriving from Pittsburgh at Grand Central Station tomorrow. No red dog means they’re stuck here another week. Wait, Olga just got up and left the room. She must be packing!” A few minutes later, there was a loud bang at Anna and Misha’s home next door. The window went black. “I’ll call you tomorrow!” I yelled, racing for home. My dad had thrown the TV against the wall and shorted out the power. I’d never heard the term broken home before, but I now knew what one sounded like. Alarie Tennille Alarie Tennille did have a crush on Illya Kuryakin (actor David McCallum). The rest of this writing is fiction. Alarie graduated from the first coed class at the University of Virginia. Now retired, she devotes a substantial part of her poetry life to The Ekphrastic Review. Please check out her three poetry books on The Ekphrastic Bookshelf and visit Alarie at alariepoet.com. ** Shadow Puppets Are elegant, intricate cut and painted, arms and legs long and thin as spindles, the hands delicate, expressive, their gestures clear, emphatic, unmistakable, cast in shadows against the lighted screen, they move like dancers through the old stories everyone knows, sacred and familiar, repeated in that magic theater. As night falls the music rises, flutes and drums beat and chime as voices sing an introduction. Lit, the fire lantern shines through the white cloth casting the puppet shadows into crisp relief, where every movement every small detail, is figured in the bright space between memory and creation where Master and audience find themselves again dreaming the old stories down to their eternal bones- shining like diamonds, true as all the fixed and errant stars we trust to guide us. Mary McCarthy Mary McCarthy is a Retired RN with a life long love of art and writing. Her work has appeared in many anthologies and journals, including Third Wednesday, Verse Virtual, The Ekphrastic Review, and Earth’s Daughters. She has been a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee. Her digital chapbook Things I Was Told Not to Think About is available as a free download from Praxis magazine. ** The King I Am Notice the gold leaf, leather, buffalo horn Magnificent ornament of my clothes. Craftsmen wear their fingers To the bone to make them, And my nose so proud It points like an accusing finger At you, my friend. Beware. It detects wisdom, good and evil. Each hot, Smokey night The play, my play, Has me confront monsters and men In my kingdom, in my palace. I chase ogres, glimpse beautiful Sita. Ring the gamelan! Draw near! Let the play begin! And yet. And yet… In this whirligig someone says, Some whispering child from the front row, That I am but shadow, A prop, someone’s hand in my stomach! I wait in the darkness Mute in the darkness Hiding my shame My gold and vermillion jewels But a dull smudge in the darkness. I am shadow now, only essence. There is a moment When the shadow draws back When the eyes in your heart Are opened and you see me In all my glory. Lucie Payne Lucie Payne is a retired Librarian and is writing as much as she can. ** In the Land of Shadow Puppets I snuff out the candle just as the gamelan gong sounds once, twice. A moment of silence and then the drums begin to beat. Shadows march out of my mind. Guided by bamboo sticks fixed to hands and feet, exotic shapes scissor across a sheet bleached white by light. They poke elongated noses into my psyche, its foibles and fancies. Hours pondering le mot juste. Holding my husband’s hand at concerts. His hugs that find us dancing through the kitchen. Who are these shades from another culture whose playfulness stirs a flurry of memories? Let them be spirits come to guide me. Let them know my name, rekindle joy. Sandi Stromberg Sandi Stromberg is a dedicated contributor to The Ekphrastic Review, which has honoured her with one of its Fantastic Ekphrastic Awards and twice nominated her poems for Best of the Net. Also twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, her poetry has appeared in many small journals and anthologies, most recently in MockingHeart Review, Equinox, easing the edges: a collection of everyday miracles, San Pedro River Review, The Ocotillo Review, and in Dutch in the Netherlands in Brabant Cultureel and Dichtersbankje (the Poet’s Bench). For ten years, she served on the board of Houston’s Mutabilis Press, dedicated to poetry.  The Witches Dance, by artist unknown (Scotland?) date unknown Join us for biweekly ekphrastic writing challenges. See why so many writers are hooked on ekphrastic! We feature some of the most accomplished, influential poets writing today, and we also welcome emerging or first time writers and those who simply want to experience art in a deeper way or try something creative. The prompt this time is The Witches Dance, by artist unknown. Deadline is October 29, 2021 . 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. 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 THE WITCHES DANCE 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 29, 2021. 9. Please do not send revisions, corrections, or changes to your poetry or your biography after the fact. If it's not ready yet, hang on to it until it is. 10. Selected submissions will be published together, with the prompt, one week after the deadline. 11. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we will no longer send out sorry notices or yes letters. You will see what poetry and stories have been selected when the responses are posted one week after the deadline. Understand that we value your participation as part of our ekphrastic community, but we can only choose a handful of the many entries we receive. 12. A word on the selection process: we strive for a balance between rewarding regular participants and sharing the voices of writers who are new to our family. We also look for a variety of perspectives and styles, and a range of interesting takes on the painting. It is difficult to reproduce experimental formatting, so unfortunately we won't choose many with unusual spacing or typography. 13. Please note, some selected responses may also be chosen for our newly born podcast, TERcets, with host Brian Salmons. Your submission implies permission should he decide to read yours. If that happens, you will be notified and sent a link to share. Thank you! 14. By submitting to The Ekphrastic Review, you are also automatically joining our subscribers' list. Your submission is your permission. We don't send Spam and we don't send many emails- you will not receive forty-four emails a day! We send a newsletter zero to two times a month, with hopes of more consistency in the future. It updates you on challenges, news, contests, prize nominations, ekphrastic happenings, prompt ebooks, the podcast, and more. You can cancel at any time, of course, but may find yourself back on the list after another submission. We hope you don't cancel because we like to stay in touch occasionally! 15. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges! 16. Please share this prompt with your writing groups, Facebook groups, social media circles, and anywhere else you can. The simple act of sharing brings readers to The Ekphrastic Review, and that is the best way to support the poets and writers on our pages! 17. Check this space every Friday for new challenges and selected responses, alternating weekly.  After Breakfast, by Elin Danielson-Gambogi (Finland) 1890 Editor's note: Dear Readers and Writers, Every once in awhile I have to stop in and say thank you, again, for making this wonderful thing happen. It is a true privilege to have the chance to challenge you with various artworks from all over the world, to set you scurrying out into your imagination or down the rabbit hole of the artwork's story. You wow me with wondrous things every time. Art history is my absolute passion, and sharing that with all of you is a rewarding experience. I learn so much more from all of you writers and what you see and write down. As we continue to grow, some challenges get an avalanche of entries, and as always, I find choosing the pieces the hardest task. I understand that the words are your heart and soul, your gift, your talent, and that means something to me. While some journals publish only a very few pieces, quarterly, we publish two challenge showcases a month and daily in the main section! I am astonished that the poems and stories inspired by art just keep coming. Your talent, ideas, and ways of seeing inspire me and show me something new, over and over. Thank you. When we aren't able to post your work, it is because of an embarrassment of riches. Thank you so much for being part of this family. We are now a worldwide ekphrastic community! I can't thank you enough for making this happen. Will all of you please share this page on your social media? The most important thing is more readers for our writers. Help us tell the rest of the world what they're missing! love, Lorette ** Through the Keyhole The woman’s cigarette turns to ash, the frail balloon of her thoughts rising with the smoke. If I could slip through the keyhole, I would sit in the chair abandoned by her breakfast friend, sip from the glass of cold coffee, put out the burning cigarette on the tablecloth’s edge. Remnants of companionship. It’s Saturday morning, two days after my husband’s death, and I gaze with her down the long hours ahead. Grateful for the company and a day that may be as empty as the shells of her soft-boiled eggs or an egg cup I could fill to the brim. Widowhood has surprised me, arrived unannounced. I’m drawn to her youth, all that lies ahead-- Italy, the Italian artist-husband, a painting life. And remind myself of the richness of my own past. Still, I envy the rebellion born in her bones, the different melody painted on this canvas. She’s a woman at home in her skin, as the French love to say. She could make herself into a perfect song. Sandi Stromberg Sandi Stromberg is a dedicated contributor to The Ekphrastic Review, which has honoured her with one of its Fantastic Ekphrastic Awards and twice nominated her poems for Best of the Net. Twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, her poetry has appeared in many small journals and anthologies, most recently in MockingHeart Review, Equinox, easing the edges: a collection of everyday miracles, San Pedro River Review, The Ocotillo Review, and in Dutch in the Netherlands in Brabant Cultureel and Dichtersbankje (the Poet’s Bench). For ten years, she served on the board of Houston’s Mutabilis Press, dedicated to poetry. ** Haiku North pole in a vase once plucked from the wilderness who knows its full bloom? 冬菊や盛りのときを人知らず Toshiji Kawagoe Toshiji Kawagoe, Ph.D. is a professor at Future University Hakodate. He lives in Hokkaido, Japan. His haiku was selected in the 21 Best Haiku of 2021 at the Society of Classical Poets and his poems in classical Chinese have been published in the anthologies of Chinese poetry. His academic works in economics are also published in many books and academic journals. ** After the Gold Rush The days that you saw me write made a gentleman out of you. It was the golden spot to rest down all my moonlit words and sunlight in little bell jars, for preservation of the most unique talent, a propensity for storytelling. A story is what you wrote for me when books bore my name and then slowly it seeped into you, the cagedness of the realisation, the origin of your inborn faults. That you were a man. That none of your innuendos could lay under the shadows of progress for too long. Then it started, the theatrics of being second best, playing second fiddle. Being the lesser half ground down to his knees and I laughed at your impertinence because your only words were merely on your account books, numbered to less than a dozen. It wouldn't have caused me a blush if they called me Jezebel But you were there, to interweave my accomplishments fitfully with ambition, two words as disparate as the land and the sea. And so I chose to ponder and squander all your meals away for a dowdy ensemble and broken egg shells and jam spilling out of porcelain, until you stormed out of the room, unable to gaslight me for creating paeans to the sunlight first thing in the morning. It dawned on you after five years of wedded weather that my words wouldn't fail me nor would my God elude me. She rested right there on the tip of my tongue and thundered like a flooded stream with the ink. I picked up the last of the broken plates and chose to show you the power of silence. My words were enough in that instance, on the page and beyond. That's why the breakfast table now is my study and you the last letter on my index. Prithvijeet Sinha The writer's name is Prithvijeet Sinha from Lucknow, India. He is a post graduate in MPhil from the University of Lucknow, having launched his prolific writing career by self publishing on the worldwide community Wattpad since 2015 and on his WordPress blog, An Awadh Boy's Panorama, besides having his works published in several varied publications as Cafe Dissensus, The Medley, Screen Queens, Reader's Digest, Borderless Journal, Aspiring Writer's Society, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Chamber Magazine, Live Wire, Rhetorica Quarterly, The Ekphrastic Review, The Quiver Review, Dreich Magazine, and in the children's anthology Nursery Rhymes and Children's Poems From Around the World AuthorsPress, February 2021) among others. His life force resides in writing. ** My Grandmother Gives Up: a Haiku Series I. She lights up a smoke Uncaring what people say Pummelled by boredom II. Unsure what to do WIth herself this fine fall day WIth nowhere to go III. So she puffs lightly And stares into an abyss As nothing stares back IV. Her sould unsettled Her heart beating out of time Her mind wondering V. With nothing to do She takes yet another draw Numb to her small world VI. Silently thinking How this world can go to hell How useless it is VII. Mentally wishing That is will kill her soon As she breathes deeply VIII. Inhaling slowly A puff of her cigarette The first of many Rose Menyon Heflin
Originally from rural southern Kentucky, Rose Menyon Heflin is a poet and artist living in Madison, Wisconsin who enjoys nature and travel. She was the August 2021 featured writer in Tangled Locks Journal’s MoonBites. Among other venues, her poetry has recently been published or is forthcoming in 50 Haikus, Ariel Chart, Asahi Haikuist Network, Bramble, The Closed Eye Open, The Daily Drunk, Deep South Magazine, Dreich Magazine, Eastern Structures, The Ekphrastic Review, Fireflies’ Light, Haikuniverse, The Light Ekphrastic, Littoral Magazine, MacQueen’s Quinterly, The Minison Project, Please See Me, Plum Tree Tavern, THE POET, Poetry and Covid, Red Alder Review, Red Eft Review, Sparked Literary Magazine, The Texas Poetry Calendar, Three Line Poetry, Trauma Timelines, Trouvaille Review, Visual Verse, The Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar, The Writers Club, and various anthologies. Her poetry won a 2021 Merit Award from Arts for All Wisconsin. An OCD sufferer since childhood, she strongly prefers hugging trees to people. ** How to Love a Daughter She will never forgive you your love. She will reject the profound knowledge that you are bound to each other. Oh, sometimes, very occasionally, she’ll almost be seduced by your insistence. Make no mistake, it’s only a truce, never peace. There is no steadfastness in her offering of absolution. She loved you once with a fierce and all-consuming emotion. That she will never forgive. Neither will she forgive that you had a life of your own, that you needed to leave for fear of the master. She looks at you and finds you wanting and tells you in a roundabout way that you failed. And you know you are guilty. You look into her eyes and feel her pain. She is judging you and you will never forgive yourself. Rose Mary Boehm Rose Mary Boehm is a German-born British national living and writing in Lima, Peru. Her poetry has been published widely in mostly US poetry reviews (online and print). She was twice nominated for a Pushcart. Her fifth poetry collection, Do Oceans Have Underwater Borders, has just been snapped up by Kelsay Books for publication May/June 2022. Her website: https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/ ** En Famille If Mother says one word about this cigarette, I'm going to strangle her. I can't remember the last time she said anything nice to me. Anything complimentary, anything remotely friendly. Even when I brought her those flowers, she said Where did you get those? The graveyard? Then she tried to cover it up by claiming it was a joke. Joke, my foot. She wanted to think I'd stolen them. Well, I didn't. It isn't stealing to take something out of the bin at the back of the flower shop. If everybody wasn't so suspicious about Rolf and me, we wouldn't have to sneak back there to have a smoke. And I really picked the best ones out of the bin. They were better than the ones Papa brought home after that big row he and Mother had – yes, the one about me. She kept telling him that he spoils me. He kept telling her she was being mean, which she is. She never buys anything for me because she wants to spend it all on herself. She'll probably smell the smoke when she comes in. I guess it soaks into the tablecloth, and the furniture. I can always smell Papa's pipe. There's a bubble of pipe-smell around him, like an aura. I can almost see it. It's not a bad smell, but it is strong. Maybe it soaked into that tweed jacket he likes to wear. I should slip into their dressing-room and smell that jacket when he's not wearing it. I could even try it on. I wonder what Mother would say if she found me trying on Papa's clothes? I know this much – the only time she gets close to me is when she wants to sniff my breath. She thinks she's being so sly, but I can tell see her nose wrinkle when she sniffs. What’s she looking for, anyway? Smoke? Brandy? Bad breath? Anything to criticise me about! If she's not sniffing, she looks me up and down and then she starts telling me I need to lose weight. She should talk! She waddles around like an old sow, and she tries to squeeze into those clothes that don't fit her any more, but she doesn't fool anybody. She definitely doesn't fool me. I wonder what Rolf's doing this morning. I wanted to let him touch me last night, but he got all trembly and dropped his cigarette. It's a good thing he wasn't touching me – if Mother found a cigarette burn on one of my dresses, she'd really kill me. What am I going to do today? I guess I could go sketching and get out of this mausoleum that Mother calls a house. I could pack up some cheese sandwiches and go to the lake and stay down there all afternoon. If she calls me, I can pretend I didn't hear her. Actually, I think the only reason she'd look for me is to make sure I'm away, so she can stick her nose in the liquor cabinet. I know that she tipples when Papa isn't home. I can smell it. Maybe Rolf will touch me tonight. I'll just need to make sure he puts out his cigarette first. Tom Sigafoos Tom Sigafoos is the author of The Cursing Stone, an Irish historical novel. His crime novella Pool of Darkness: Raymond Chandler in Ireland was shortlisted for the Penny Dreadful Novella Prize. His memoir and short fiction have appeared in in The Quiet Quarter Anthology, Trasna, Crannog Literary Magazine and other publications. A member of the Irish Writers’ Centre and the Irish Writers’ Union, he also serves as PRO for the Allingham Arts Association. See www.tomsigafoos.com for contact information. ** Weltshmerz Tired, oh so tired I am of this world’s quotidian tasks – every day the boiling of eggs the toasting of bread the brewing of tea. And the endless arguments – What is art? What is life? words flying across the breakfast table, like sparks from our cigarettes, rising in the air above us like smoke, till finally he pushes back his chair, goes out of the room once again leaving his cigarette on the table where it will burn a small brown spot in the tablecloth. I am tired. I watch it slowly smolder. Gretchen Fletcher Gretchen’s poetry and travel articles have been published in numerous magazines, newspapers, journals and anthologies. She won the Poetry Society of America’s Bright Lights, Big Verse competition and was projected on the Jumbotron as she read her poem in Times Square. She has led writing workshops for Florida Center for the Book, an affiliate of the Library of Congress. Her chapbooks, That Severed Cord and The Scent of Oranges, were published by Finishing Line Press. ** After Danielson-Gambogi "Her early years were however spent at Ilmajoki as her father attempted farming there. Because of the Finnish famine of 1866–68, the farm failed. After being forced to sell the farm, her father Karl shot himself." Wikipedia, “Elin Danielson-Gambogi" After the Finnish famine, After the farm failed, After Father was forced to sell the farm, After Father forsook, After the frosty silence in the garden, After the agony in stony places, there are still somehow languid Sunday mornings stretching into afternoons of emptied egg shells and long smokes in front of feathery sketches and an Asian fan, After Breakfast. She puffs her languor into a cloud. I think it is the gray flag of her disposition. Her hooded eyes, offset by rosy cheeks, show she has mastered the pose of indifference or she mirrors it and I have mastered it as the After years have demanded of me--so you think. One day you will read a few facts about me-- fragments from an encyclopedia (If you still call it that) and stich them together, to try to know me, and you will put poets’ voices in a painter’s mouth. I could say to you, “Just look. I have painted what I want you to see. Don’t palimpsest me out of memory.” But then, the girl in my painting could have asked me not to make her my mirror. We do what we can do, imperfect as it is and as it will be always, until After. Brian O'Sullivan Brian O'Sullivan teaches rhetoric and modern English literature in southern Maryland. He has had work published in One Art, Everyday Fiction, and several nonfiction academic journals. ** Morning Meditation Warmth of porcelain on skin warmth of tea in throat, warmth of cigarette in hand warmth of smoke in chest, the luxury of morning, space and time to breathe, free of the press and urgency of the world, to sit quietly, lost in thought, composed. Still life, before clearing the table. Jaime Banks Jaime Banks is a marketing/communications professional and freelance journalist who has recently returned to her first love, poetry. She lives with her husband in the DC area. ** A Morning What first? Clear the table? Wash the dishes? Search for my truant husband? Let me enjoy the cigarette and escape to a Fantasy place of music, dance and poetry, Where life is sweet and contagious Where my heart flutters with anticipation And my soul dances with precision. Let the goddess of time extract more minutes of reverie And allow me to quietly extinguish the last Wavering wafts of my cigarette. Ellie Klaus Ellie Klaus was born and raised in Montreal. She has lived different selves over several decades: daughter, wildlife biology graduate, vision quest traveler, family life educator, president (of her son's school committee), friend, confidante, lover, wife, mother, caregiver and now caregivee, if there is such a word. Each has contributed to a different perspective of living, of life. The pieces of the puzzle are evident and coming together, although the final image is yet to be revealed. So, writing has reemerged as a creative endeavor to release some of the angst that arises from living a confined life, or any life for that matter. She has a poem entitled 'Bones' that appears on NationalPoetryMonth.ca April 9, 2020 and poems appearing inThe Ekphrastic Review and Pocket Lint. ** Anonymous Journal Entry From Finland July 17, 1890 After breakfast, they always leave, even if they have nowhere to go, and I get a little lonely. I guess you’d have to be lonely in the first place to bring home a different man every night and charge him. They’re desperate; I’m lonely. It’s a perfect storm. I want to cry, but I smoke instead, looking at his plate: bits of shell from boiled eggs, a mess on the white tablecloth. There are a few sips left in his white coffee mug. I don’t let them use the good china. I hate sloppy eaters, and so many of them are, but when a man gets a warm body and a hot meal, he comes back, and that is the way I afford this blue dining room, white china and teapot with blue foliage, and fresh daisies. I take a long drag, feeling unbalanced, which is the way I feel most of the time. They say I have a nervous condition, the doctors, and prescribed this line of work because I am incompetent with a sewing machine, too nervous to be a nurse, and my brain, said the doctors, is so scrambled that I wouldn’t notice when the syphilis kicked in. And yet I am still able to feel the untouchable darkness of my sins—a darkness no man can touch. The daisies though…they’re here now. Their smiling faces and soft petals make me wonder if they grit their teeth through the suffering of being cut from their mother source of soil. Are they looking around right now at these blue walls and white tablecloth thinking, this is the last scene. Sometimes I think maybe I’ll have one last bouquet of daisies and when they die, I’ll off myself. Last night—I won’t say his name just in case this daybook gets lost and his wife finds out—he stunk to high heaven. I hinted several times that he may find a bath relaxing, but he was eager. And once they’re in the house, they’ve got me. It’s too late to show them out once you’ve invited them in. They’re like vampires in that respect. Rejecting a man is the worst crime a woman can commit. Sometimes I daydream, smoking my cigarettes, that someday things will be different. That one hundred years from now, this house will still be standing, and a young woman will go to work and not a workhouse. Mostly I dream that someone will know where my grave is—that someone will care—and plant all the daisies they can find. Megan D. Henson Megan D. Henson received her MFA in Creative Writing from University of Kentucky. She is the author of two books of poetry by Dos Madres Press: What Pain Does (2018) and Little Girl Gray: Sestinas (2020). ** After After Breakfast You paint in filigree detail as Nordic morning distills, clarifies daisies, china, glass. You tame her in cream silk and intricate lace, each shadow and fold as delicate as eggshell. You seat her sated, slumped in reverie, yet leaning forward, defiant, not caring a crumb, refusing the rattle and rush of sink or easel, carving out for all time just one moment to simply exhale. Still-life. Cursory solace. You hint at the sister who bounces in to stub out her Lucky Strike and crack into the apple-green day. You don’t show at all the dog who romps ahead in Lapphund elation, looping liberating. Racing outdoors, white skirts thigh-high, wind at their backs thrusting them against the skyline, they bound over buttocky hills, Pink Lady cheeks, hair loosening, crimson culottes ablaze like wild-fire. Helen Freeman Helen Freeman has been published on several sites such as Ink, Sweat and Tears, Red River Review, Barren Magazine, The Drabble, Sukoon and The Ekphrastic Review. She lives in Durham, England. Her instagram page is @chemchemi.hf ** Summer's Time Finland's fens are pale ice blue and white. Forests stride the shadows and defy the sun on Sundays. Warm heart of home, daisy charmed, where the scooped polished cup reflects deep inside the leaves of fortune like trails through snow. Time lies heavy here at the curving summit of the world, and lists north, toward blue ice. Here fire is life, and smoke a beckoning, reckoning worth the burn. Fire burns in the stove in summer, when heat is is at the back, warmth in the mouth. For who can say man lives by bread alone under the looming run of days when summer is a reverie, A minuscule repast, shattered shell, a crumb. The white smoke takes the form of breath, Rises, disperses from the glow, and is gone as if it never was. No time is time for summer in the mind. T.S. Page T.S. Page is a life-long poet. Her first work was at age 8, and her love of poetry has been a reward for the introspective life. Over 600 works have been carefully collected from her daily life for many decades and her first chapbook, Heliotrope, A Woman's Turning, is online at Amazon. For the past year she has begun to submit poetry for publication. She studies philosophy currently, along with theoretical physics, and has a degree in German language from the University of Florida. In the past she told original Florida Folk Tales from her family tradition at the Folk Festival in White Springs Florida. One play, John and the Moon Maiden was written and performed for children in Martin County, Florida. Four grown children are her contribution to the world. She is particularly interested in the ideas of Spinoza, as well as Schopenhauer, and plans a book of poetry on some of these enlightened themes. ** Barometric Breakfast Egg me on. I’ll boil summer, lick it like ships skimming over clenching death. Nights of corduroy & velvet, of smoke & stars moaned until morning’s quenched fire. You of the dry eyes, our yellowed yolk of summer dulled, cool & still. Leave the cracked crockery, the coffee cold in my belly, your broken breath scattering shards of embers, frosty ash casual in its cruelty. Our crumbs are better suited to winter’s bones Charlotee Hamrick Charlotte Hamrick’s poetry, prose, and photography has been published in numerous online and print journals and anthologies, recently including Emerge Journal, Reckon Review, Love in the Time of Covid Chronicle, and New World Writing. She’s had nominations for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, Best Microfiction, and was a Finalist for the 15thGlass Woman Prize and for Micro Madness 2020. She is Creative Nonfiction Editor for The Citron Review. She lives in New Orleans with her husband and a menagerie of rescued pets where she sometimes does things other than read and write. ** Yesterday's Canvas You leave your cigarette balanced on the edge, threatening our white linen. I examine the middle distance of your absence, your sharp bone-handled knife, your tall medicinal wine. I have no opinion on your absence. No more opinion than the listening daisies, who have no memory of your passionate presence. You return with the tray, stub your cigarette into the egg cup, gather the napkins, the teapot, the dish of salt. You stack the plates, crushing feathered shells. I push back my chair, slip the cigarettes into my pocket, place the daisies on the sideboard, gather the tablecloth, shake the crumbs out the door. Fold and fold, in and in, catching blue-green shadow. I set my easel here, at this end. Yesterday's canvas, my brushes and rags, my smock. You set your easel there, at the far end of our long feasting table. All day long the daisies inhale, without complaint, your weary exhalations. Monica Corish Monica Corish is an award-winning writer of poetry and fiction, and an Amherst-trained writing group leader. She is currently working on a novel set 6000 years ago in the north-west of Ireland. www.monicacorish.ie ** After Breakfast Inverted fan tacked to a pale wall lace descending sketches belie a hand insouciant. Fat bellied teapot in ash and blue one almost matched tea cup--hers-- he prefers his tea in a Russian glass. Her dish pushed away, eggs untouched a distraction from the cigarette dreaming in her hand along her face. Broken egg shells on a painted plate pieces of toast abandoned on a white cloth a woven fringe at the edge exposed like lingerie betrayed. His chair angles back, precise yet in haste. Her eyes dissolve to the center of the room as a winding waft of smoke escapes her lips with secrets revealed. His plate, the knife, askew the clash of sounds echoing in a hollow room. Daisies lean as if to capture her waning dream. How long will it be before his cigarette left burning, over the edge of the table, will flame more than the faint color in her cheeks. He expects to return by then she will be gone. Carol Lee Saffioti-Hughes Carol Lee Saffioti-Hughes. Seeker of wild things in the north woods of Wisconsin. Member of the Root River Poets, Racine Wi. and the Spectrum Gallery and School of Arts. Numerous poems published in the U.S., other work in England and Canada, including inThe Malahat Review. Most recent poem published in Poetry Hall, tranlated into Chinese. Chapbook: The Lost Italian and the Sound of Words, Brighter Path Press. ** Could It Be If you returned, I could hear In the floating shadows and The abandoned cigarette. From the emptiness of the egg shells. The words had made a hurried escape, Could it be that you had waited? Until the descending grief had melted- Walking the streets silent in rain, Watching the sky turning grey, The sun limiting its patch, us crossing the land, Connecting its diagonal ends. In the room, the red bangles lay exposed and The perfume emanated from the bottle. As I reached for the shriveled bougainvillea petals Held in place through the dried stamen and pistils. Drawing the curtains to the sides, Letting the moon occupy The soul now bare on the floor Ready for the journey it had waited for. Of making immortal the childhood lores. Could it be that you had stayed? Until the Jupiter and Venus had aligned and We had held the unborn. Abha Das Sarma An engineer and management consultant by profession, Abha Das Sarma enjoys writing the most. 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, here and elsewhere. Having spent her growing up years in small towns of northern India, she currently lives in Bengaluru.  Indonesian Shadow Puppet- Kresna, Wayang Kulit Purwa, Central Java, photography by Alain Secretan (USA) 2004. (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Join us for biweekly ekphrastic writing challenges. See why so many writers are hooked on ekphrastic! We feature some of the most accomplished, influential poets writing today, and we also welcome emerging or first time writers and those who simply want to experience art in a deeper way or try something creative. The prompt this time is Indonesian Shadow Puppet, by Alain Secretan. Deadline is October 15, 2021 . 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. 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 JAVA SHADOW PUPPET 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 15, 2021. 9. Please do not send revisions, corrections, or changes to your poetry or your biography after the fact. If it's not ready yet, hang on to it until it is. 10. Selected submissions will be published together, with the prompt, one week after the deadline. 11. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we will no longer send out sorry notices or yes letters. You will see what poetry and stories have been selected when the responses are posted one week after the deadline. Understand that we value your participation as part of our ekphrastic community, but we can only choose a handful of the many entries we receive. 12. A word on the selection process: we strive for a balance between rewarding regular participants and sharing the voices of writers who are new to our family. We also look for a variety of perspectives and styles, and a range of interesting takes on the painting. It is difficult to reproduce experimental formatting, so unfortunately we won't choose many with unusual spacing or typography. 13. Please note, some selected responses may also be chosen for our newly born podcast, TERcets, with host Brian Salmons. Your submission implies permission should he decide to read yours. If that happens, you will be notified and sent a link to share. Thank you! 14. By submitting to The Ekphrastic Review, you are also automatically joining our subscribers' list. Your submission is your permission. We don't send Spam and we don't send many emails- you will not receive forty-four emails a day! We send a newsletter zero to two times a month, with hopes of more consistency in the future. It updates you on challenges, news, contests, prize nominations, ekphrastic happenings, prompt ebooks, the podcast, and more. You can cancel at any time, of course, but may find yourself back on the list after another submission. We hope you don't cancel because we like to stay in touch occasionally! 15. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges! 16. Please share this prompt with your writing groups, Facebook groups, social media circles, and anywhere else you can. The simple act of sharing brings readers to The Ekphrastic Review, and that is the best way to support the poets and writers on our pages! 17. Check this space every Friday for new challenges and selected responses, alternating weekly. |
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