 Hamlet Shakespeariana, Serie Heroinas Literarias, by Fernando Vicente (Spain) 2022. Used with artist permission. 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 Hamlet Shakespeariana, by Fernando Vicente. Deadline is November 10, 2023. You can submit poetry, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, microfiction, or any other form creative writing you like. 1000 words max please. We are thrilled to have Kate Copeland as our challenge editor and curator for this session. She has been a guest editor several times already, and brings a wonderful variety of artistic styles and talents to our attention. We are also delighted to announce that Kate has joined our editorial team here at The Ekphrastic Review and will continue to serve our readers as a challenge editor approximately every other month. Please join us in welcoming her. She generously shares her time and her curious eye on behalf of the journal, our writers, and our readers. THANK YOU KATE!!!! ** Dear Ekphrastic Challengees, This ekphrastic challenge offers you the incredible work of Spanish artist Fernando Vicente! Fernando is a self-taught illustrator, whose work was first published in magazines during “la movida madrileña," the countercultural movement in Madrid during the Spanish transition to democracy. His art has appeared in newspapers and various (cultural) supplements, Fernando has also illustrated book covers and record sleeves. Find his work via: https://www.fernandovicente.es/en/ The artwork I have chosen is part of the series Heroinas Literarias and is called Hamlet Shakespeariana (see for the whole series: https://www.fernandovicente.es/en/fine-art/heroinas-literarias/ ). It is an amazing piece and I know it will just prompt you into writing the most beautiful lines and stanzas! Thank you so much for submitting your writing, I am very much looking forward to reading your work. And thank you Lorette, for having me on board as challenge-editor and curator for TER, I am looking forward to choosing art and reading beautiful words every two months indeed. I feel very honoured to be included in your wonderful Ekphrastic Review! Enjoy the Vicente Shakespeariana challenge everyone, Kate Copeland ** The Rules 1. Use this visual art prompt as a springboard for your writing. It can be a poem or short prose (fiction or nonfiction.) You can research the artwork or artist and use your discoveries to fuel your writing, or you can let the image alone provoke your imagination. 2. Write as many poems and stories as you like. Send only your best works or final draft, not everything you wrote down. (Please note, experimental formats are difficult to publish online. We will consider them but they present technical difficulties with web software that may not be easily resolved.) Please copy and paste your submission into the body of the email, even if you include an attachment such as Word or PDF. 3. There is no mandatory submission fee, but we ask you to consider a voluntary donation to show your support to the time, management, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review. It takes an incredible amount of time to curate the journal, read regular and contest submissions, etc. Paying all expenses out of pocket is also prohibitive. Thank you. A voluntary gift does not affect the selection process in any way. 4. USE THIS EMAIL ONLY.
Send your work to 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 VICENTE CHALLENGE in the subject line. 6. Include your name and a brief bio. If you do not include your bio, it will not be included with your work, if accepted. Even if you have already written for The Ekphrastic Review or submitted other works and your bio is "on file" you must include it in your challenge submission. 7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 8. Deadline is midnight EST, November 10, 2023. 9. Please do not send revisions, corrections, or changes to your poetry or your biography after the fact. If it's not ready yet, hang on to it until it is. 10. Selected submissions will be published together, with the prompt, one week after the deadline. 11. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we do not send out sorry notices or yes letters for challenge submissions. You will see what poetry and stories have been selected when the responses are posted one week after the deadline. Understand that we value your participation as part of our ekphrastic community, but we can only choose a handful of the many entries we receive. 12. A word on the selection process: we strive for a balance between rewarding regular participants and sharing the voices of writers who are new to our family. We also look for a variety of perspectives and styles, and a range of interesting takes on the painting. It is difficult to reproduce experimental formatting, so unfortunately we won't choose many with unusual spacing or typography. 13. By submitting to The Ekphrastic Review, you are also automatically joining our subscribers' list. Your submission is your permission. We don't send spam and we don't send many emails- you will not receive forty-four emails a day! Our newsletter occasionally updates you on some of the challenges, news, contests, prize nominations, ekphrastic happenings, prompt ebooks, workshops, and more. 14. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges! 15. Please share this prompt with your writing groups, Facebook groups, social media circles, and anywhere else you can. The simple act of sharing brings readers to The Ekphrastic Review, and that is the best way to support the poets and writers on our pages! 16. Check this space every Friday for new challenges and selected responses, alternating weekly.
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 Niagara Falls, by Frederic Edwin Church (USA) 1857 Dear Ekphrastic Writers and Readers, I was mesmerized and intrigued by the submissions received for this challenge. Since I grew up on the banks of the Niagara River with picnics near thundering falls, words like these bring me back to my childhood. I was enamored with poems/words that captured the sheer power of the falls, making me feel its pull, drawing me back to that time. I recall the tiny speck Maid of the Mist, seen from the railing, walking clad in the thick yellow slickers and boots provided, later, a disposal poncho through the Cave of the Winds, marveled at the spectacular rainbows, dry rocks in 1969 when they diverted water from the falls, on the Canadian side from the top of the Skyline tower restaurant in 1964, the view breathtaking. I also enjoyed a few renditions of those who also have Falls memories. Thanks to all who sent their work – so many poems/ stories, it was a difficult decision to choose… Special thanks to The Ekphrastic Review editor Lorette C. Luzajic for allowing me to serve as guest editor for this wonderful publication! Best Regards, Julie A. Dickson ** Spellbound The last time I knew innocence I was surrounded by breathtaking steadily booming over the falls misting our awe-struck faces confirmation we are mere specks in the realm of natural wonders. I could have lingered there forever drinking in its mesmerizing thunder unknowingly balanced on the fraying thread between well-being and illness before scalpels, needles, chemical treatment made their grand entrance; momentarily living in the presence of ferocious power, I could not get enough. Elaine Sorrentino Elaine Sorrentino, communications director by day, poet by night, has been published in Minerva Rising, Willawaw Journal, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Ekphrastic Review, Writing in a Women’s Voice, Global Poemic, ONE ART: a journal of poetry, Agape Review, Haiku Universe, Sparks of Calliope, Muddy River Poetry Review, Panoply, Etched Onyx Magazine, and at wildamorris.blogspot.com. She was featured on a poetry podcast at Onyx Publications. ** To Frederic Edwin Church Regarding Niagara Falls So much like ours, your river's course becomes the path of nature's force embracing ever lower plane and carving ever deeper main except where soil is bared to rock or rise becomes a stubborn block that, barring flood, will be its bound or island it will flow around as ending tributaries merge and hasten more the mounting surge to roar of sudden, fated falls, the splendor eye so well recalls by glimmer of prismatic twist in fountain of its risen mist. Portly Bard Portly Bard. Old man. Ekphrastic fan. Prefers to craft with sole intent... of verse becoming complement... ...and by such homage being lent... ideally also compliment. Ekphrastic joy comes not from praise for words but from returning gaze far more aware of fortune art becomes to eyes that fathom heart. ** An Item on my Old Bucket List Niagara—some say the name is a bastardised form of the Iroquois "Onguiaahra." They say it means "The Strait." Now "Niagara" has become associated with a thunderous image. That I can feel. I only ever imagined its deafening voice, its power, its white foam, its cold spray, imagined myself in a slicker with a hood-- preferably blue (or red)-- on a boat, getting nearer, nearer, nearer, before we are being sucked into unimaginable depths, Charybdis and Scylla, my fellow passenger quiet in the face of such a relentless force. When I close my eyes I see dark clouds pulling up, attracted like magnets to a cauldron of deep water, angry foam, killer rocks. The door to Hades. Who will pay the ferryman? Rose Mary Boehm Rose Mary Boehm is a German-born British national living and writing in Lima, Peru, and author of two novels as well as seven poetry collections. Her poetry has been published widely in mostly US poetry reviews (online and print). She was twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, once for the Best of Net. Her latest: Do Oceans Have Underwater Borders? (Kelsay Books July 2022), Whistling in the Dark (Cyberwit July 2022), and Saudade (December 2022) are available on Amazon. A new collection, Life Stuff, has been scheduled by Kelsay Books for February 2024. https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/ ** The Ice Crack’d, 1912 Let’s go back to a time forgotten- Time when all stood still at this reckoning When the stars spewed light like a string of shiny pearls Gleaming, coyly placed, half-hidden in a breast To enkindle the earth with heavenly illumination And begin Niagara's immaculate creation Falling, tumbling river dodging over rock formations Over and over: an international maritime border Canada’s pride America’s daughter Danger lies in beauty wild and unforgiving Many years Niagara made a sparkling temptation When Honeymooners and brazen lads took the chance To walk upon the icy bridge made of water It seemed a game, not risking life in great parlance The tall, strapping boys built a warm beverage station Canadian citizens welcomed Americans as close relations The menacing sun appeared as a propitious omen, Settling over that imagined, glassy isthmus Until a fatal crack shuddered out a warning: Jagged flaws in the ice were quickly forming Honeymooners from New York were taking in the sights The young Quebecians downing cups of hot chocolate All looked to one another, faces full of fright Far too late to make preparations Crossing an international border without immigration Was a delightful idea with just the right amount of mystery Until the couple, sharing one last kiss Before rushing waters pulled them apart, taking their breath Were noted in the annals of Niagara's history By boys turned into men by cheating death. Debbie Walker-Lass Debbie Walker-Lass, (she/her) is a poet, collage artist, and writer living in Decatur, Georgia. Her work has appeared in The Ekphrastic Journal, Poetry Quarterly, Haikuniverse, The Light Ekphrastic and Mediterranean Poetry, among others. She has recently read live for The Poet’s Corner. Debbie loves beachcombing on Tybee Island and hanging out with her husband, Burt, and dog, Maddie. ** Nik Wallenda Walks a Wire Across Niagara Falls Into a theatre of wind and mist a cable dips, disappears. He moves steadily, each step shortening the improbable. He dissolves into thunder. The camera loses then finds his face soaked, focused on distance relenting. In shoes his mother made elk-skin suede his feet curl along the wire. He tells the cameraman his arms are numb. Weighs the long pole in sighs, side to side. And we can see the waters waiting the letting go the urge to. He inches ahead each second of inertia a pinpoint from which we too step forward. Diana Cole This poem was previously published in Muddy River Poetry Review. Diana Cole, a Pushcart Prize nominee, has had poems published in numerous journals including Poetry East, Spillway, Cider Press Review, The Public's Radio 89.3, Friends Journal, Verse Daily, The New Verse News and Orison Books. Her chapbook, Songs By Heart was published in 2018 by Iris Press. She is an editor for The Crosswinds Poetry Journal and has taught a number of poetry workshops. Her full length book, Between Selves, was released this summer by Indian Press, Cyberwit.net. She has been published a number of times in The Ekphrastic Review. When not writing she is a stained glass artist. ** Dad, You Have Left Us with this falling desire to find the most magic breezes, the best of both worlds, to drive some mighty drives. Let us go back to 1986, when my parents opened shop then proudly spent the money in big cities, on bigger cars, at biggest waterfalls. A road trip, and all is grand, all goes fast, and y’all say how-ya-folks-doing. Yellow taxis, subway steams, rush-hush diners, sneakers' streams. We got culturally confused over morning coffee with no menu, the fries on every sandwich, the toppings on every sundae, in every National Park. No end to the eye, no end to the sights. Wonderstruck, we got and our giant car past traffic lights swinging from wires, we got pulled over on I-90, by shiny-sunglass-sheriff. Onwards to Graceland, for the King, forwards to the Falls, for dear Marilyn. Liquid silver river, blue-green falling with no fear for borders, or for yellow ponchos. Nature is a thunderous wonder, nature at its thunderous best. Feeling like film-living in the mist of rainbows, the foredeck pointing at caves and hidden myths. Dad, you have left us with this healing desire to hold on to memories, of cities, of road trips, the water. You have shown us your tall way, to fall without fail. Kate Copeland (To my dad, October 1997) ** Falling Days Now the gulls have chased away the long- and lacewings, Now the silt has risen from the river floor to overturn her days and ways, and now their boat trip has not shown the mist she had hoped to see, she sees that rainbows still fall on, that tides rest at her feet and barrels drift away anyway. He might brighten up once they drive down to the lakes, once he stops mocking her love for the waterfalls that make her think straight, he wants to control her rise and fall but her moods to sing like birds and butterflies, is a step further towards the edge of falling days, where her best choice is, to choose her road carefully, is to be aware of plunging without sinking. To see he might just be in her way. Dive in, dear girl, but rise, down the shiny waves. Kate Copeland Kate Copeland started absorbing words ever since a little lass. Her love for language led her to teaching; her love for art & water to poetry…please find her pieces at The Ekphrastic Review, First Lit.Review-East, Wildfire Words, The Weekly/Five South, AltPoetry and others. Over the years, she worked at festivals and Breathe-Read-Write-sessions; she is now curator-editor for The Ekphrastic Review and runs linguistic-poetry workshops for the IWWG this year. Kate was born @ harbour city and adores housesitting at the world. https://www.instagram.com/kate.copeland.poems/ ** Memories of a Niagara Falls Morning, 1856 White. Cold. My first noticing was the dense mist. Not tendrils curling around like fingers but thick like a blanket, moisture-rich, like being inside a cloud. It would burn off later as the sun climbed in the sky. I needed there to be good visibility for the crowd. Next, as always, I noticed the noise. A pleasant natural cacophony at a distance, it became a pounding, rushing freight train as I walked towards The Spot. We'd scouted it weeks before, using word-of-mouth and triangulating with newspaper reports from a few years back. The crushing sound, the energy of the spray - it really made me feel alive. My good friend Itzak was already waiting, well wrapped up in his long greatcoat with the collar turned up, thick padded leather gloves, his long mutton chop sideburns slick with the water vapour and his dark curls were straggling from under his peaked cap. Itzak's lips curled into a smile at my approach and he had that devilish twinkle in his eye confirming why he was the only person I could have trusted to help me with this caper. If - no, when - I made it to the bottom of the Falls I'd be famous. No-one else had ever managed the journey and survived, and certainly no woman, though truth be told very few had tried, and even then not voluntarily. The last poor fellows had fallen, one almost rescued then pulled under by the cruel currents. My journey would be sensational in a different way. The reporter would be here soon, as would the usual troupes of tourists, as soon as the dense fog lifted to unveil the splendour of the Falls. "Who's that? Is he the man from The Gazette?" I asked Itzak, pointing to a tall stranger. He looked old, probably as much as thirty. The man nodded in our direction but seemed preoccupied as he turned to look at the water cascading over the edge. "Him? That's Frederic. I spoke with him yesterday afternoon. He's some sort of artist, sketching the Falls. You know how popular it is for postcards and pasting onto tourist tat." "He's not drawing us, is he?" I was suspicious of the detached, aloof stranger. "No, no worries there." Itzak flashed me another smile. "He told me he's only interested in the Romantic Ideal of nature. He won't even paint what he sees, but only the best version of it, he said." "Hah! Perhaps he'll have a new romantic ideal in mind later!" Itzak smiled again and stepped to the side to reveal the barrel. It was large, dark, heavy - befitting the seriousness of its purpose. Painted on the side in large white letters was "Bella D'Angelo, Niagara Falls, 1856". Inside, it was packed with soft, cream, newly spun wool. My playful mind suggested that it would be just like climbing into the clouds themselves, although thankfully drier. "Are you sure you'll have enough room in there?" "We've tested it out, Itzak. There's enough room for me to snuggle down, for you to add the last soft pillow of wool on top and bolt on the lid. As long as Bertrand is ready with the boat at the bottom all will be well." "Ah, here's the reporter now. Let me help you in and you can talk to him from there before you nestle down. That will make it more dramatic." And that's where it all went awry. It was a combination of the slippery rock under Itzak's foot as he helped me, the proximity of the barrel to the edge - after all The Spot was the perfect launch place for a reason, that reason being ease of falling – and the power of gravity sucking at the weight of the barrel with me half in it. I'll give The Gazette reporter his due. As obituaries go, it was nicely written. I'd get the fame I wanted but not quite in the way I desired. Emily Tee Emily Tee writes poetry and flash fiction. She's had recent pieces published in Willows Wept Review, The Ekphrastic Review and elsewhere online, and in print in some publications by Dreich with other work forthcoming elsewhere. She lives in the UK. ** Niagara November 1978 After Thanksgiving dinner in North Tonawanda We drove to Niagara through chilly evening fog, parked and walked carefully toward the falls. The sidewalks and grounds were frosted lace, along the path branches of flash frozen trees had spent blossoms suspended like icicle earrings. Although we remembered 4th grade science and the hydraulic water cycle we forgot to realize that when they melt the radiant ice diamonds will mingle with human breath mist their way to heaven before returning to earth in never ending rotation to churn and crash over the falls as they had for Frederic Edwin Church in 1857 when his breath and artistic vision captured and contributed to the movement of the eternal roar. Daniel Brown Daniel Brown has recently published at age 72 his first collection Family Portraits in Verse and Other Illustrated Poems through Epigraph Books, Rhinebeck, NY. He has most recently been published in Jerry Jazz Musician and Chronogram Magazineand was included in Arts Mid-Hudson 2023 gallery presentation Poets Respond To Art in Poughkeepsie, NY. ** Hearing the World Differently The gallery lies in silence. Clusters of faces pause canvas to canvas lips miming words, the unheard musings of the many. I inhale their movement, jackets and backpacks jostle the canvas to my right the vertical drop of Niagara Falls drawing us into its power. The tide turns. My eyes conjure sounds only I can hear, decibels of cyan and teal the roar of acrylic licking the frame. I taste the grit of salt on teeth, sea-spray fresh on my face. Violet tones colour my mood, the distinctive tang of oil on wood. I open my senses, hear it all. Kate Young Kate Young lives in England and enjoys writing poetry, painting and playing the guitar and ukulele. Her poems have appeared in various webzines, magazines, and Chapbooks. Her work has also featured in the anthologies Places of Poetry and Write Out Loud. Her pamphlet A Spark in the Darkness has been published by Hedgehog Press and her next pamphlet Beyond the School Gate is due to be published in the next month. Find her on Twitter @Kateyoung12poet. ** Uncertainty Dichotomy of light and shade rainbow blurred in cloud and rain white suicidal water tangible tears of spray rocks of despair, eddies of grief days of uncertainty and loss Still the blue face of control cascades of courage and resolution accepting the crags of destruction the far horizon of the past tethered on the edge of memory Sarah Das Gupta Sarah Das Gupta is a retired teacher living near Cambridge, UK who has taught in India and Tanzania. Her work has been published in over 12 countries including US, UK, Australia, Canada, Germany, India, Croatia and Romania ** Hear Me Roar The roar of Niagara Falls, while eluding sound, doesn’t fail to irradiate sight with its jazzy waves and frothy strokes of jade — these sweeping illusions, swallowed whole by the Deep, howl against deafening winds, westward and warbling — veiling the fading sunlight holding Hope hostage -- as renegade avalanches are welcomed by a deluge of stratus tears wailing louder than the Sky itself — the gaze lustily cascades over escarpments of towering cliffs while the river’s limbs engulf the clamoring boulders — dark talons of the night threaten to eviscerate the roaring cacophony of discord with the manifestation of gloom alone— if the eyes can imagine the jaded purging into the Deep, can that which does not roar still be Heard? Ann Marie Steele Ann Marie Steele, who resides in Charlotte, NC, America, is a writer who dabs in poetry, essays, and short stories. She holds a BS in Journalism (News-Editorial), and an MA in Secondary English Education. Ann Marie pens pieces about love and loss, and what she observes and experiences. The loss of her youngest son, Brandon, has influenced much of her writing. Her poetry has been described as “resiliently defiant.” Ann Marie has been published in The Ekphrastic Review with her pieces, “Every Lilly Donned with Grief” and “I Dare You, Pretty Please.” When not teaching high school English, Ann Marie enjoys partner acrobatics, where she can often be seen flying upside down. ** Looking at Church’s Niagara Falls on the Web Niagara is a revelation of the cosmos to each and every man. David C. Huntington Sure, I’ll breathe poetry there. My mind will be an embouchure through which your powerful waters pour thunder. I will hear nothing else, not the sharp sound waves spearing my bellows, nor honeymooners whose croons you swallow into white foam and spew out as a shimmering arch of rainbow. You’ll teach me about the cosmos by proving the paradox of water in motion: that its motion is a stillness, that its stillness is ever in motion. My body will be a speck of silence swallowed by your howling emerald olivine chrysoberyl pale blue ice snowy pinnacles, your ten-thousand-year-old ceaselessly cataracting avalanche, your constant breath ever billowing through one diapason, yet not one prism in your mist ever splits light the same way. Like that bared jagged root snagged on your brink, I’d abide inside your relentless remaking. Eyes on a digital or hands on a canvas covered with smooth strokes would never equal the whole of me, mind, body, heart and soul, all immersed in the whole of your eloquence greater even than my whole world, you patient shale-shaper, finale of the Niagara River, you Ice Age’s fossil water, you rhapsody of ancient glaciers ever burgeoning into new birth, you under whose arcades lovers sport crowned with bright sprays, you whose sheer impetus splashes the sun’s and moon’s incandescent faces, I keep calling you Whirlpool, Horseshoe, Luna Falls, Iris Falls and you chant to purple clouds a booming Gravity is Grace. Lucie Chou Lucie Chou is an ecopoet working in mainland China. Currently an undergraduate majoring in English language and literature, she is also interested in the ecotone between ekphrasis and ecopoetics, and in exploring the magic presences of other-than-human living beings bleeding into the lonely arrogance of human experience. Her work has appeared in the Entropy magazine, the Black Earth Institute Blog, the Tiny Seed Journal website, The Ekphrastic Review, Transom, and in the Plant Your Words Anthology published by Tiny Seed Press. A poem is forthcoming in from Tofu Ink Arts, both in print and online. She has published a debut collection of ecopoetry, Convivial Communiverse, with Atmosphere Press. She hikes, gardens, and studies works of natural history by Victorian writers with gusto. In August 2023, she participated in the Tupelo Press 30 / 30 project where she fundraised for the indie press by writing one poem each day for a month. She writes for a constellation of brilliant readers hopefully including street trees and feral animals she encounters in each city she travels to. ** Vantage Point Strands of darkening tangerine twilight tantalizes an Ontario skyline near Horseshoe Falls sending frothy waves, sheets of water cascading over rocky outcroppings into the Niagara River, as we stand on the observation deck at Skylon Tower mesmerized by its sheer force hours before moonlight casts its glow on a dark June evening sky, before we whisper under the stars. Dr. Jim Brosnan A Pushcart nominee, Dr. Jim Brosnan is the author of Nameless Roads (2019) and Driving Long Distance (forthcoming 2024). His poems have appeared in the Aurorean (US), Crossways Literary Magazine (Ireland), Eunoia Review (Singapore), Nine Muses (Wales), Scarlet Leaf Review (Canada), Strand (India), The Madrigal (Ireland), and Voices of the Poppies (United Kingdom). He holds the rank of full professor at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, RI. ** Leaping The first time it happened was on a family holiday when the parents piled the four of us into the back seat of our wood-panelled Plymouth station wagon, circa 1959. Dan 10 moi 9 Deb 5 Dave 4 I hear ya, the 4 Ds, what were they thinking? We piled in, we were piled on, we were on a camping trip from Ottawa to see the falls, the mythical falls! A long day journey with moi pleading car sickness so I could sit up front and not stay squished in the back with the squabblers. I know, you're wondering how can 4 kids be packed into the back seat of a station wagon: no problem: this trip was 20 years prior to that belt legislation. Plus, we had Heidi with us, a usually sweet dachshund, but cranky car companion. What were they thinking? Am writing this in the throes of slouching towards 75, can't remember anything much about the actual road trip. But we must've played horses and cemeteries. You get points for horses you see in the fields and you lose all your points if someone yells 'cemetery'. This requires lots of I saw it first. But I do remember the awestruckness of seeing the falls, feeling the mist, the magnetism of the cataract, the thunderous roar, the trembling...and the irresistible desire, more the irresistible need, to leap. To be one with the shoots, the flumes, the brume.... Even today, with small cascades, like Hogsback Falls on the Rideau River in Ottawa, I want to leap. Anyone out there feel the same tug? Perhaps Annie Edson Taylor did when she first saw Niagara Falls. To design and build a barrel, at age 63, and throw herself into the river and over the falls! We're talking a drop of 160 feet, a flow rate of 85,000 cubic feet per second! Though she was the first person to survive this remarkable feat, she was not the risk taker you might take her for: she sent her cat over the precipice a few days earlier, and he survived. You? Would you go over Niagara Falls for fame and fortune? Donna-Lee Smith Donna-Lee Smith resides in Montreal, Canada and has a hankering to leap.  Untitled, reverse glass painting, Qing Dynasty (China) c. 1800s 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 Untitled, by unknown artist of the Qing Dynasty. Deadline is October 27, 2023. You can submit poetry, creative nonfiction, flash fiction, microfiction, or any other form creative writing you like. 1000 words max please. The Rules 1. Use this visual art prompt as a springboard for your writing. It can be a poem or short prose (fiction or nonfiction.) You can research the artwork or artist and use your discoveries to fuel your writing, or you can let the image alone provoke your imagination. 2. Write as many poems and stories as you like. Send only your best works or final draft, not everything you wrote down. (Please note, experimental formats are difficult to publish online. We will consider them but they present technical difficulties with web software that may not be easily resolved.) Please copy and paste your submission into the body of the email, even if you include an attachment such as Word or PDF. 3. There is no mandatory submission fee, but we ask you to consider a voluntary donation to show your support to the time, management, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review. It takes an incredible amount of time to curate the journal, read regular and contest submissions, etc. Paying all expenses out of pocket is also prohibitive. Thank you. A voluntary gift does not affect the selection process in any way. 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 QING DYNASTY CHALLENGE in the subject line. 6. Include your name and a brief bio. If you do not include your bio, it will not be included with your work, if accepted. Even if you have already written for The Ekphrastic Review or submitted other works and your bio is "on file" you must include it in your challenge submission. 7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 8. Deadline is midnight EST, October 27, 2023. 9. Please do not send revisions, corrections, or changes to your poetry or your biography after the fact. If it's not ready yet, hang on to it until it is. 10. Selected submissions will be published together, with the prompt, one week after the deadline. 11. Due to the demands of the increasing volume of submissions, we do not send out sorry notices or yes letters for challenge submissions. You will see what poetry and stories have been selected when the responses are posted one week after the deadline. Understand that we value your participation as part of our ekphrastic community, but we can only choose a handful of the many entries we receive. 12. A word on the selection process: we strive for a balance between rewarding regular participants and sharing the voices of writers who are new to our family. We also look for a variety of perspectives and styles, and a range of interesting takes on the painting. It is difficult to reproduce experimental formatting, so unfortunately we won't choose many with unusual spacing or typography. 13. By submitting to The Ekphrastic Review, you are also automatically joining our subscribers' list. Your submission is your permission. We don't send spam and we don't send many emails- you will not receive forty-four emails a day! Our newsletter occasionally updates you on some of the challenges, news, contests, prize nominations, ekphrastic happenings, prompt ebooks, workshops, and more. 14. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges! 15. Please share this prompt with your writing groups, Facebook groups, social media circles, and anywhere else you can. The simple act of sharing brings readers to The Ekphrastic Review, and that is the best way to support the poets and writers on our pages! 16. Check this space every Friday for new challenges and selected responses, alternating weekly.  Page from Grimoires Illuminees, by Pierre Richard (France) before 1879 Alarum When I reread my book of spells, it hearkens straight to gods themselves who sit up and take careful note and seek to whom I fast devote this cunning magic’s potent brew and why this sudden cry and hue when sleeping secrets lie for ages undisturbed by fits and rages… Why this one enchanted nostrum, bound to make one’s courage blossom un-affrighted, wrath untethered, world warrior from humble shepherd turned capable of winning battle ‘gainst spirits, demons, raging cattle, fast with sword, and spry of foot, changing worlds where drops are put whether ‘neath a tongue or poured in ear this potion births a hellish fear. It rocks the planet pole to pole. And elder toverdoks will know because the past is prologue for what new wars wage, what fires roar, what madness shall now come to reign, what lessons shan’t be learned again. Truth be known, the draught’s for me, unhappy with what’s come to be, so tired of this weary strife of petty toils that entail a life. I seek destruction as solution: a nihilistic revolution. To make disparate fields all level the best angel becomes a devil. Gary Glauber Gary Glauber is a widely published poet, fiction writer, teacher, and former music journalist. He has five collections, Small Consolations (Aldrich Press), Worth the Candle (Five Oaks Press), Rocky Landscape with Vagrants (Cyberwit), A Careful Contrition (Shanti Arts Publishing) and most recently, Inside Outrage (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions), a Eric Hoffer Medal Provocateur finalist. He also has two chapbooks, Memory Marries Desire (Finishing Line Press) and The Covalence of Equanimity (SurVision Books), a winner of the 2019 James Tate International Poetry Prize. ** Asylum Even here behind locked doors and high walls meant to keep the world safe from my wild contagion, I can see the angels burning like witchfire in the winter-bare trees. Even in my desperate confinement, they come in choirs, in regiments, tongues flashing sharp as swords, brighter than the sun. They sing the numbers of my bones, promise power and salvation, escape from this shadow world where I crouch, vexed by grinning demons rising thick as smoke, tormenting me with jabs and pinches, nightmares chasing me down at every turn, reciting my sins so loud it drowns the angels song, pushing me into the last dark corner of these narrow halls, where I have no remedy, where no one listens, and I can only write it all down, glory and terror in the pages of my own magical bible, a Grimoire of prayers and spells in black ink figures pinned down and crowding the arcane marks of my litanies. psalms and parables powerful enough to make the devils blush and buy me some small respite from their mad unending torments. Mary McCarthy Mary McCarthy is a retired Registered Nurse who has always been a writer. Her work has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including The Ekphrastic World, edited by Lorette C. Luzajic, The Plague Papers, edited by Robbi Nester, and recent issues of Gyroscope, 3rd Wednesday, Caustic Frolic, the Blue Heron Review, and Verse Virtual. Her collection How to Become Invisible will come out from Kelsay early next year. ** Saint du Paradi Puritans and pandits, Parisian nudists strip, rid satin. Unpaid audits strain. Drains spirit in drips. Spirit spits rants. Asp in an urn, Isis snips – disrupts. Standup, upstand, What does it mean to be a man? Ruby Siegel Ruby Siegel is a second-year student at a women's college in Columbia, Missouri. She is a member of the Stephens College chapter of the Sigma Tau Delta English honour society and the staff of the acclaimed student-run Harbinger Literary Journal. ** Pistol Cocked Now you see it, now you don’t, odd pages, scattered leaves, The Fall, a paradisal loss before, cast spell-book here not lexicon, or primer, abecedary, but abracadabra as cabal. Claiming benefit of age this syncretistic patchwork quilt, symbols - sign of codes at work, for esoteric, in the know; tried toxic mix in undertow, a gnostic few tossed in the hue and cry for burning, which at stake but jottings, crowded, more provoked. See glyphs join graphs in saturate, asylum more in raw art script than institute for lunatics. But manic, more researchers’ work; fervour disputes delirium, psalmody, glossolalia, a solipsistic zealotry, cross rooster perched with pistol cocked. Vicissitudes of Lorraine space, where Magic, Revolution, Church, and chanted prayers not understood, by ritornelles, homophonies, compete to claim the paranoid, a wettersegen in the storm. Illuminated manuscript which it both is, but ’ting is not. Stephen Kingsnorth Stephen Kingsnorth (Cambridge M.A., English & Religious Studies), retired to Wales, UK, from ministry in the Methodist Church due to Parkinson’s Disease, has had pieces curated by on-line poetry sites, printed journals and anthologies, including The Ekphrastic Review. His blog is at https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com ** The Magic Did Not Bring Her Back My Leah is gone. The magic did not bring her back. I desperately explored the passages, holding open the grimoire next to her while repeating the supplications. I incanted the liturgy as grief welled up inside. I sang the exhortations banishing the demonic from its imprisonment of her soul. I followed each instruction closely, and I wept. I fought in fury to revive her pallid form and there was no response. I spread the ochre as the text instructed, applied the resinous balsam in my anguish, the ancient balm from the terebinth of Gilead, tendered me through the merchants of Tyre. She lay still. I struggled in agony to command the forces of nature that had wrenched her from my life. Thomas of Chobham tells us that these forces are constrained threefold by sacred words, by healing herbs, and by magic stones. But I tried these, all, and Leah did not rise. The Apostle Mark tells us that invocation by touch is key: They shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover. I bathed her lifeless body in anointing oil. I cleansed her with rosewater to drive out the smell of death. I touched her pale lips with mine but found no warmth there, and Leah remained unmoved. Finally, and with effort, they pried her from my arms and wrapped her in the winding sheet of death. There was no entry through it for her soul’s return. They lowered her in reverence, into the pit of darkness, and my faith followed. I now tend Leah’s grave, scattering the roses she adored, showering the fragrances she prized. I speak to her of what we had. My tears keep moist the soil above her, and my heart laments its solitary beat, no longer harmonized with hers. Perhaps one day I will recover--but know this well: the grimoire failed. The magic did not bring her back. Ron Wetherington Ron Wetherington is a retired anthropologist living in Dallas, Texas. He has a published novel, non-fiction in The Dillydoun Review, Literary Yard, and The Ekphrastic Review, and short fiction in Words & Whispers, Adanna, and in Flash Fiction Magazine. ** mercy, blue angels don't cross that hexed picket line! the mighty blue angels are on strike doctors guard the entry to hospitals steadfast burns their righteous anger scalpels are swapped with placards appointment notes switched for banners gowned in-patients wait behind them ghostly smiles play on their wan faces and in the distant ivory towers of Whitehall what Grimoire holds the key to the deadlock? Emily Tee [Author's Note: Written on 19 September 2023, the first day ever that both hospital consultants and junior doctors held a simultaneous strike over pay in England, withdrawing their services except for emergency cases and basic ward cover. Further days of action are planned. Whitehall represents the seat of British Government.] Emily Tee writes poetry and flash fiction. She's had recent pieces published in Willows Wept Review, The Ekphrastic Review and elsewhere online, and in print in some publications by Dreich, with more work forthcoming elsewhere. She lives in the UK. ** The White Owl Tell the one about the owl as a choir of angels, side by side, their wings as white as any snow squall. I can trace the alphabetical harbingers, I’ll know the songs as if born to the symbols, as if Jesus Christ could raise me from where I fell, over and over. No saint, I could never carry a tune, yet when the pages opened, caught me cruising interstate 84/285, trying to make home before the sun set and the snow began to fly. Hear me singing all the words, pretending I’m Grace Slick, or Annie Lennox, “Sweet Dreams,” calling on the saints, or believing I can become one on this road, when God creates the tunnel of snow, flakes that travel like stars, as if I am hurling myself through the Milky Way, headed for heaven, chanting because all the symbols have become magic in my mouth, the dream one of not dying, my world a loud chorus of hallelujahs, as the curve of invocations rides on the wings of angels, and the white owl, no lie, flew wide winged, and led me home. Michelle Holland Michelle Holland lives and writes in Chimayo, NM. She is currently the Poet-in-Residence for the Santa Fe Girls School and the treasurer of NM Literary Arts. Her poems can be found in literary journals, in print and on the internet, as well as in a few anthologies. She has two book-length collections of poetry, Chaos Theory, Sin Fronteras Press, and The Sound a Raven Makes, Tres Chicas Press. ** Beyond the Sea The aether outstretches like parted hands of Christ, A hole in the sky of which divinity spliced. Fever world spin upon the axis degree, A withered white sun rises for a chosen three. Consider a pledge. Beyond the sea. Across cerulean desert and amidst salted air, The thaumaturge emerges bearing earthenware. Magic smoke rises obscuring turbid, lurking clouds, From incense censer’s foretelling demises and shrouds. Miracleworker born of shared red flesh, Sought forth lapis stone in place of success. Such visceral transmutations of cabalistic rites, Indulge runes, incantations and forbidden sights. The ladder to abyss reaches not the welkin, Ancient citadel fell upon knell whims. Thamuaturge stranger beckons the foolish and fair, Voici un vrai dieu remplaçant, mon frère. Malachite daggers, a comet’s bleak storm, Uphold your savior, mimic cruciform. Take the magician’s hand and be led afar, Beyond insect-bitten roots and moral abbatoirs. Angels plagued sick without Lord to call to, The theurgist who tricks and surrogate consume. Partake in discordant charms, partake a profane potion, Know now we are the sprogs of a since forgotten ocean. The husk of the Father calls forth the obscene, And the insidious Rex begs: Consider all a pledge to the ultramarine. Gehenna endured. Beyond the sea. Baylee Bleu ** Angels Descend The rising sun in holy sin, The lord has come. Bodies of ice, Blood undone, Angels call The time has come. In feathered skies, With silvered lies, Angels call Come with me, Children now– Your sun has set. Julie Wiley Julie Wiley is a senior English Major attending Stephens College. ** Evangelist It’s the Sunday morning in which Pierre Richard, a crazy and depressed French farmer (with whom, nevertheless, God likes to talk), begins to write. What did God, or Dieu, say to the French peasant? Did He talk to him about the upcoming Twentieth Century, and about a second millennium? That is the century of Arcadia, when intellectuals loved to tell people that life in the countryside is blissful idleness. Pierre Richard takes his grimoire, goes out on the balcony, and looks out over the countryside. He asks and, therefore, receives. The whole countryside is full of saints and angels like clouds of mosquitoes, a fleet of mosquitoes trying to land. The pages come towards him from the distance, and take the place of his eyes. He writes what he sees, but he doesn't see what he writes. Is he, Pierre Richard, the fifth evangelist? The evangelist Pierre Richard writes seriously, with a sense of duty about his encounter with glorious aliens. After he is returned to his Lorraine, he can’t stop drawing and thinking about their blue auras, not just halos – all the blue in the world. They have eyes so blue, that the blue is all around them. Like flames, as if they were surrounded by sky. Pierre Richard would like to join his hands in prayer, but he cups them and drinks everything. Angelo 'NGE' Colella Angelo 'NGE' Colella lives in Italy, where he writes poetry and prose in Italian and English, makes analog collages, asemic writings and DADA objects. ** Grimoire- Habi mas a denli fantien Great dark spirit hear my plea, bring forth my Request for power, most strong, call on all Immortal souls, I beseech thee, oh Master of blackest night, oh dark one, supreme Overlord – call on me your most loyal servant I do your bidding without pause, I draw upon your Reverence to slay those who oppose your greatness, Enemies of the night, unite in the quest! Julie A. Dickson Julie A. Dickson writes poetry from prompts such as memories and nature, but especially enjoys Ephrastic writing. Her interests include books and music, she advocates for captive elephants and feral cats. Dickson holds a degree in Behavioral Science, has been a guest editor, served on two poetry boards and her work appears in over 65 journals, including Lorlorien, Blue Heron Review and The Ekphrastic Review. ** How to Slay a Demon Use singing bowls in the morning to lure it out from whence it hides. For they are ninjas at stealing in where they’re not wanted. Let it approach curiously. You’ll know it’s nearby as the wheeee sound of the sonorous bowl will change pitch slightly. Then capture it within and put a lid on it. Without further ado, place it in a sunspot somewhere on the patio all afternoon and smile as it shrivels. If you don’t have a patio, any sunspot will do. How they hate the sun. They like fire, sure, but not that type of fire. It’s too holy, too wholesome. Try and discover its name. Ask for the universe to show you a sign. Bear in mind it may be unpronounceable. Whisper it thrice whilst turning widdershins on the night of the full harvest supermoon and you’re home free. Cackle maniacally at anything you find funny. This will irritate the hell out of it. Burn some sage in the morning to bless your dwelling. The cliché is true. Demons hate the stuff. They’ll definitely leave the room. Better yet, smoke some in a joint to be internally as well as externally protected. Drape your pet python around you for protection as you go about your business (perhaps not when you pop to the shops). It approves of reptiles and will look at you in a new light and wonder whether you’re a demon from another realm and not actually a trickster. Either way, it will keep its distance for it is wary, nay, respectful of serpents. If you don’t have a python, not to worry, you can skip this step. Now, they are stubborn to oust for they insist on returning again and again until they get what they want - which is generally all-round destruction in one form or another as it’s the only entertainment they get what with being damned and all - so you have to remain one step ahead at all times and never slack on your demon-slaying routine. As a last resort, call upon the Archangels, the house sprites and the faeries of the garden and bid them cast their gaze upon the feral underling and evict it from your house. That will make it think twice about hanging around. It may end up loitering in the garden however, which could make the faeries think twice about lending a hand. Be as boring as possible. Perhaps spend all day reading books and doing nothing remarkable or noteworthy. Have no parties, watch no TV, spend all day in bed, paint your toenails, have a face mask, then lounge around reading yet more books. It will find you so tedious and dreary it will leave of its own accord. Nina Nazir Nina Nazir (she/her) is a British Pakistani artist, poet and general creative bod based in Birmingham, UK. She's had work published in various journals, including Ink Sweat & Tears, Free Verse Revolution, Unlost Journal, Messy Misfits Club, Harana Poetry and Visual Verse among others. When she's not teaching, she's making art or poems. Other than that, she is never not reading. You can find her on Instagram: @nina.s.nazir and Twitter: @NusraNazir ** The Year I Went Without Being Saved I shall have come alone. Or not at all. And then I shall say. Let me stay on this chair, Lord. Here in the anonymous dark. For even the light switch is a reach. Is more versed in Your poor servant’s repertoire. And so, let me speak Your name. And the name of all Your associates. Deep inside of my mouth. In that cave of a thousand nights. Where I’ll have dreamt only of sleeping. And in that breath I’ll have held. Till it was the death of me. That haunted house I’ll have shared with not one ghost. Who thought of themselves as a ghost. Or not having a story to tell. O Lord, how a second word gives us a sword. And a third, something closer to You. And the wars you inspire. But then to write it is not. Worth it or the trouble. Mark DeCarteret Mark DeCarteret's work has appeared in 500 literary reviews. ** Hidden Prophecies A magic tome of symbols and spells, Unknown still in intent and meaning, Of writings within, only one foretells. Figures of green jointly compels Letters to words, together convening A magic tome of symbols and spells. Images of blue hides and propels Cabalistic clues weaving, intervening Of writings within, only one foretells. Birds, swords, heads repels Unwanted eyes from gleaning A magic tome of symbols and spells. Hidden messages in fading pastels, Detailing prophecies in brown, demeaning Of writings within, only one foretells. A masterpiece to see for all it tells, One day, of a reconvening. A magic tome of symbols and spells, Of writings within, only one foretells. Katie Davey Katie Davey is an aspiring author from the rural parts of House Springs, MO. She has worked on Harbinger Magazine as a staff intern. She plans to become a member of Stephens College’s chapter of Sigma Tau Delta in Fall 2023. She will earn her BFA in Creative Writing, with minors in Equestrian Studies and Psychology, at Stephens College in May 2024. ** Before Camelot Beyond the dyke, dipping low my indigo clan— scrolling whorls and charms—wait Wait until tarnished knights stumble through the barbs They throng atop our steepled hill beating harmonies of death to ring around the stones Our hoary tongues tut curses that shift ravens from their crags and loose them as the whistley flight of arrows But still the hooved up Roman clods trample down and even crusty Merlin cannot draw the bloody gutter away from our green-bladed valley After all those that dwelt in the forbidden places filled now with chanting men pretending to be God die slowly their fingers out of place—red at the bone telling tales they did not know before I am swift—it has always been my thread to grace but even I cannot outpace the mist whispering at my heel So shrouded in the smoky breath of dragons I hurl Caliburn to crest the setting sun Its bloody pedigree bright and gone Pulled deeply down into the blue-lit world And seen only by the Lady waiting patiently in the lake for another to arrive Adele Evershed Adele Evershed was born in Wales and has lived in Asia before settling in Connecticut. Her work has been published in over a hundred journals and anthologies such as Every Day Fiction, Grey Sparrow Journal, Reflex Fiction, Shot Glass Journal, and A470, Poems for the Road from Arachne Press. Adele has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net for poetry. Finishing Line Press published her poetry chapbook, Turbulence in Small Places this year and her novella-in-flash, Wannabe, was published by Alien Buddha Press in May. Her second poetry collection, The Brink of Silence will be available from Bottlecap Press later this year. ** Untitled scribble scribble scribble. He is watching me. it must be right it must be holy it must be perfect. i am a scribe for the Lord and it must be perfect. Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews. one in the corner another in the middle. an angel here a demon there. He can see me. i’m doing everything i’m supposed to. i’m following His word. sigil sigil sigil one after the other. forgive me Father, for i have sinned but i’m doing my best i swear to you, Lord, i’m doing my best. River Louraine ** Philology Stanley the Cockroach, astral etymologist and subjective violator of many a scholarly work of biographical entomology, devotee of the Shrine of Libation to the Arcane Sigil, cloaked in mystique but bereft of the vanishing banknotes of Banksy, arrived at Singapore Airport after eight hours infesting an airline catering cube. Industrious vermin were paid no penalties. When there was a job to do, Stanley was no slacker. In defiance of a union ban on luxury travel, he jumped quickly onto a trolley bound for Helsinki, premium economy. Stanley took his fill of pre-packaged butter chicken. After twelve hours travail, when the head steward threatened to dip him in chocolate and serve him as petit four in place of sultanas, he took advantage of the sick leave provisions of his industrial award, pleading a gastroenterological emergency. His sole intention being rest and recreation, he rode in a taxi to a hotel at Ullanlinna, where the restful aspect of his lustful ambition was frustrated by a four o’clock check-in. Stanley waited, in this city where life starts later. When, at eleven, the Design Museum opened, he crawled across the threshold and skittered down the stairwell to playfully relieve himself across walls of graffiti that philologists were destined to misread, for several centuries, as modern Sumerian cuneiform. When, at last, his room was ready, he ran around foolishly, soiled the linen curtains, cavorted with the bed bugs—an afternoon of fun, finished by sharing the butt end of a smoking hot roach. Back at the museum, those philologists worked conscientiously on a theory of relationship of languages, linking the literature of ancient Mesopotamia with the damage done by silverfish to first edition Finnish print runs of the Kalevela. Among the reference sources attributed as seminal to this semiotic dreamwork was a hieroglyphic tableaux drawn by the nineteenth century alchemist, the Master of Moselle, whose grimoires turned up recently in an antiquarian bookstore in Metz. Stanley’s myriad offspring celebrate his naming day, in solemn memoriam of the time their ancestor revolutionised philology, the day he doodled all over the walls of the Design Museum. Andrew Leggett Andrew Leggett is an Australian author and editor of poetry, fiction, interdisciplinary papers and songs. His work has placed or been shortlisted in various literary awards including the Joanne Burns Microlit Award, the Bridport International Poetry Prize, the Australian Catholic University Poetry Prize, the Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize, the Arts Queensland Val Vallis Award, the Arts Queensland Thomas Shapcott Award and the IP Picks National Poetry Manuscript Prize. His latest collection of poetry Losing Touch was published by Ginninderra Press in 2022. In addition to medical degrees and postgraduate qualifications in psychiatry and psychotherapy, he holds a research masters degree in Creative Writing from the University of Queensland and a PhD in Creative Writing from Griffith University. He is an Adjunct Associate Professor with the James Cook University College of Medicine and Dentistry. He was editor of the Australasian Journal of Psychotherapy from 2006-2011 and prose editor of StylusLit from 2017-2022. ** how the king dances tonight stand on your throne, wretched beast, fur coat kissing the soil-stained floor. gurgle bloodied delight, teeth crimson-coppery and, we the peasants crawl in on raw knees, backs hunched with horror sing! folk, sing for your king, howl anger into symphony. how the earth rears her head, you ride her emotion, sobbing laughter through clenched jaws, pained, teeth clicking together and, strike the poppy tiles with your staff, cry! king, cry for the people from which you hung souls onto hooks and, tonight you step down take a peasant girl by the hands and, dance! monster, dance, face touching hers, and your eyes blaze concealed guilt. laugh! wretched beast, laugh the horror into cruelty, and the peasant girl screams into your shoulder: how the moonlight stares, silent, down upon a cursed dance. Aisha Al-Tarawneh Aisha Al-Tarawneh is a nineteen-year-old from Denmark and Jordan. Some of her favourite writers and poets include Vladimir Mayakovski and Nikolai Gogol. She enjoys watching KHL hockey and practicing recurve archery, as well as kickboxing in her spare time. ** To the Golden Son An Alchemist sits at his table, jars and glasses surround Lapis lazuli paint etches the pages, thoughts and theories abound. Quod natura relinquit imperfectum, ars perficit The person searching for potions That are most arcane. Gold for the purest souls and lead the person’s bane. Quod natura relinquit imperfectum, ars perficit Searching through the obscure, searching for something of substance. Refining matter to reach perfected amounted conductance. Quod natura relinquit imperfectum, ars perficit Hoping to reach Jesus Christ and his four Holy Gospels, Following the teachings of His many heavenly apostles. Quod natura relinquit imperfectum, ars perficit Documenting his research written in gallnut inklings, Searching through the angelic properties that are slowly dwindling. Quod natura relinquit imperfectum, ars perficit The Alchemist diligently works to stand beside the Son. To work towards the Philosopher’s Stone that hundreds of minds have spun. Quod natura relinquit imperfectum, ars perficit Mads Christiansen Mads Christiansen (any and all pronouns) is an author/illustrator from the suburbs of Chicago, IL. They are a member of Sigma Tau Delta in Stephens College. Currently, they are working towards finishing their English Bachelor's in May 2024 and plan to do their Master’s next in Library and Information Sciences. ** The Garden She had a vision—that’s what she told them, after. The ones who remained. In it, God promised that they were chosen to make a new world, an Eden. But she lied. There was no vision: no choir of singing angels, no holy fire lighting up a bush, no cinder that burnt her lips with the truth. Instead, there was a chicken. It stopped producing eggs, and so she wrung its neck like her mother taught her, and fried it up. She didn’t know what to do with the beak and the feet; it made her too sad to dump it like trash. She buried the beak, the feet, and the bones near a rose bush. It seemed a peaceful place to rest. A week later, a bulbous, baby head sprouted like a cabbage patch doll where the chicken bones lay. She should have drowned it in gasoline and burnt it to ashes. Was it guilt that stopped her? Or was it because it looked vaguely human—chubby cheeks, but green skin; brown eyes, but no irises. She found herself treating it like a stray kitten: she gave it water, fed it bits of the leftover chicken with her fingers, and scolded it when it bit her and drew blood. She brought out an umbrella to shade it from the sun, blankets to warm it by night. She sang lullabies for it to sleep, read Green Eggs and Ham over and over again, interpreting its quivering leaves as laughter. When it grew vines and scarlet flowers that smelled of sulfur and smothered her flower beds and veggie patch—she called its jealousy over zucchini and roses adorable. When the HOA fined her $500 for the unruly weeds, she laughed at their snottiness and threw away every other warning without reading it. In late Summer, the flowers died, leaving large husks in their place. The vines strangled her mailbox, creeped in the cracks of her windows and door frame, laid roots in her sink. Shoulder’s appeared, then a stomach, and webbed, finger-like leaves. The epidermis resembled that of a sunflower–dark green with a fuzz of prickles that snagged her shoe laces, her clothing, the ends of her hair. She started carrying around a pair of scissors, cutting off whatever got caught, be it fabric or hair. Her friends asked questions: had she heard from her ex recently? Was her boss acting like an ass again after the whole HR drama? Was she involved in any cult? No to the ex—fortunately. Yes to the asshat boss—unfortunately. And come on, a buzz cut is so anti-cult, she protested. The next door neighbor’s fourteen year old chihuahua disappeared around Halloween. By this time, the pseudo-sunflower stood like a scarecrow on two thick, leg-like stems. The bizarre head remained, wreathed by yellow petals, but stoic. Blank. It obliged her by letting her drape faux spider web over it. The husks had molted, revealing brown beady eyes and chubby cheeked baby heads. She spread a black tarp over them–to keep you warm, she explained—and dressed the tarp like a graveyard. The neighbors’ teenage kid knocked on her door, asking about the dog. She listened, then told her theory (coyotes). But when the kid stumbled into one of the obscured baby heads, she held her breath, waiting. The sunflower bent its head, a vine-y arm outstretched—and then the kid ran off, unaware of the danger. She knew then where the chihuahua went. It went where her chickens had gone. Where the zucchini and roses and her own hair had gone. She should have done something then, rather than stand and smile blandly at the creature towering over her. In December the not-so-new plants burst from the black tarp—head, shoulders, stomach, feet. She binged Hallmark movies, eating take out (she gave up cooking in the kitchen once the vines snaked from the sink, into the fridge). Hearing leaves rustling, she cranked the volume, telling herself that they wanted to watch the cheesy movies with her. When she left for work, she noticed that they were forming fake pine trees, winding leaves and vines around the youngest growths. They accepted the strings of twinkle lights she offered, but when she added a blow up Santa in the center—they popped it. A vine stabbed through its cheerful head. And when the first snow came, coating all of the growth in ice and white, it filled in the gaps between vines, petals, and leaves transforming them into something more substantial. The oldest of them, her nameless friend, appeared to have wings. She started daydreaming it was an angel, a divine bringer of justice. Somehow, it would make everything okay again. The boss who grabbed her breast “as a joke” would be fired and blacklisted. The ex who took the TV, the last roll of toilet paper, and her favorite fuzzy blanket, but left his dirty dishes on the counter when he moved out—would wreck his precious motorcycle. The annoying HOA president who called her every day at 6:45pm, threatening to sue her for negligence—would come home to find it burned to the ground. She came home that night. The fresh snow sparkled under the headlights of her car like the most delicious answer. She grabbed the leafy hand of the fake angel, ignoring how her skin burned from the millions of burs in its skin, and met its gaze for the first time. The truth—the ugly pointy reckoning—she destroyed the world. No vision prompted her, no demon or angel. It was just a question. She cultivated it for months, feeding and coaxing the decay until it was ripe with hunger. She only had to ask. Annalee Simonds Annalee Simonds writes creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. Her work has appeared in The Ekphrastic Review's Challenge series. This year she has read The Crucible five times in a row with her students and can't stop quoting it. When she's not teaching or writing, she dabbles with watercolour. She lives in Utah. ** Magic Magic is illusion we enjoy willingly suspending disbelief. Demons are diversions we deploy damning them as curse and cause of grief believed because of all that we deny, for which in worthy measure we're to blame, becoming random risk that we defy and innocence we falsely dare to claim is yoked to faith from which we've turned away that, glistening with envy's emerald green, we vainly see as augury of sway still there by incantation we can glean invoking without penance precious Grace dispensed as if by magic we embrace. 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. ** Blue Bowl "Some sorcerers do boast to have a Rod, Gather'd with Vowes and Sacrifice, And (borne about) will strangely nod To hidden Treasure where it lies..." Vingula devine "Kiss the day goodbye And point me toward tomorrow -- Can't forget, won't regret What I did for love... what I did for love." Marvin Hamlisch/Edward Lawrence Kleban What I Did For Love "In the blue eye of the medievalist there is a cart in the road..." Another November, Stanley Plumly I watched my daughter's fingers shape the earthen clay into a soup-plate, a shallow void in its center to hold the rain; shadows mingling in the water to prognosticate a pattern, why gypsy-lovers can't come back to cast their spell, telling fortunes in a tinker's wagon filled with tarnished silver. Aya is The apple of God's eye -- what I could never be -- my gift the tragedy of poverty born, as I was, into a time before I could know a divining rod is shaped like a sling-shot, a "Y"; how it sends a stone to skip 4 times across the pond beneath the Ash tree where Aya sits and reads of passion and success, magic secrets of The Grimoire Illuminee; why she will choose blue glaze azure as the sky, with v-shaped instructions on the manuscript page; and blue as the sea beneath a fat, full moon, a dotted "I" (God's Eye) over the turbulent ocean. We had no books in a sorry beginning, and no boats only our dreams, and magic that would lead me to this brilliant, fearsome night, illuminee where you would say I was to be your history, how we would wake to the call of the weathervane cock as nature funneled knowledge in the earth's vibrations -- La radiesthesie sourcier -- the children warned again not to swim in ground water; to wait (O God, spare the rod!) as prophecy promises gemstones and gravesites; forty-seven tones in Indian music; an angel with sword and lyre, and nine women floating through the spheres wearing hennis -- capriotes -- cone hats their metaphorical megaphone to hear the stars and the messages encoded in my daughter's plate -- Aya's scry bowl, rainfall itself a kind of divination tomorrow waiting in a dusty corner -- bless'd art thou in the future's workshop. Laurie Newendorp Laurie Newendorp's book, When Dreams Were Poems, 2020, explores the surreality of life itself as did the ancient "grimoires" used by magicians. At a time in history when Christianity was at a crossroads with old world magic and the tenets of religion, all forms of "magic" --necromancy, fortune telling, divining rods, scry bowl readings and Tarot cards -- were taboo in church doctrine. A study of Hindu mythology and old Irish language used in early legends required the poet's use of the Sanskrit Dictionary (a formidable task!) which revealed the multiple meanings of words such as Aya, used in "Blue Bowl." It is a feminine name meaning "wonderful, amazing, a miracle" with an underlying meaning of the strength of the goddess, forty-seven tones of Indian music, the ancient Indian science of the creative arts, AE as a letter in the Old English alphabet, the number 4, and the ash tree (like a blue tree trunk or spinal column on the page of Pierre Richard's Grimoire.) The capriote (cone hat) indicates the penitent's attempt through penance to get closer to God. It is remarkable for the complexity of meaning on Pierre Richard's page that it resembles a child's drawing. which seems to make the picture an example of primitivism, art naif, a magic "how to" to explain the artist's inner being. |
Challenges
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