 Boulevard Montmartre, by Camille Pissarro (France) 1897 Dear Ekphrastic Poets/Writers and Readers, When I view this exquisite piece of art, I love the blurred colours and light. Having visited Paris only once, strolling along the Seine, Moulin Rouge, Notre Dame and other familiar places bring me back to Paris in my mind’s eye, wandering Musee D’Orsay and the Louvre, browsing the Shakespeare bookstore, and sipping wine under a canopy of an outdoor café. It pleases me to read the interpretations of each writer, experiencing this art in their own way, the descriptions, poetic alliteration, subtle rhyming, all congruent with my own time in Paris. The fog and gentle rain obscure both vision and memories. Words entice me like the aroma of crepes and fresh croissants along brick paths in early morning, when the pavements are drying and the street vendors are setting up. Although it was difficult to choose, I felt most drawn to the writing pieces that represented the feeling of the art, the blur of color and the history of the boulevard in the purist sense. Thanks to all who have submitted, and especially to Lorette for the opportunity to serve as a guest editor! Warm regards, Julie A. Dickson ** Amuse Bouche (ii) Montmartre steals me. On sight, on entry. Waves of déjà vu sweeping over. Or maybe it’s wishfulness. Busy artist hands circle the square, stealing the light before it falls. At the turn of night, the bustle becomes itself, excitement’s undercurrent happening somewhere, everywhere. Street musicians offer acoustics with finger-light effort. The waft of pancakes, crépe de chocolat. The benevolent lights. We went walking. Merged into it. Fancied ourselves French. I thought about Van Gogh, trying to join his peers, painting in the square. And yet, this was Toulouse-Lautrec’s domain. His theatre stage, neon-lit. A cabaret of flying skirts and abandon. Absinthe bars. La fée verte flitting down beside you, to woo you from your senses. The café’s ambience. Still breathing all the history in its walls. Of a time we have come to love. Frozen in paintings. Funny how you can be nostalgic for a time you never knew. How lights make the darkness inviting. How the promise of sex in the air answers the call of tourist’s unspoken wishes. Strangers know what strangers want. The mill of Moulin Rouge spins steady with the smell of money, beckons you in. Beautiful women sell the illusion, beautiful men. Diamanté glints, eyes and teeth. Glamour is a muse here, concentrated, never to be snuffed. At the turn of the night. Nina Nazir Nina Nazir (she/her) is a British Pakistani poet, artist and avid multi-potentialite based in Birmingham, UK. She's had work published in various journals, including The Ekphrastic Review, Ink Sweat & Tears, Free Verse Revolution, Unlost Journal, Harana Poetry, Visual Verse and Sunday Mornings at the River. You can usually find her writing in her local favourite café or on Instagram: @nina.s.nazir and X (Twitter): @NusraNazir ** Rainy City Just raindrops falling, falling into wetness making waterways of roads and streets and it’s such a pretty scene. I try to focus on it try to see the calming colours but the drizzly, misty rain is shrouding me in a fog of fear. I take the deep breaths I need to forestall the rising panic though it’s such a pretty scene with the raindrops falling like silvery teardrops from glassy eyes, teardrops which will run their course and splatter like rain then disappear into wetness and become invisible as if by magic. Lynn White Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud War Poetry for Today competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Consequence Magazine, Firewords, Vagabond Press, Gyroscope Review and So It Goes Journal. Find Lynn at: https://lynnwhitepoetry.blogspot.com and https://www.facebook.com///www.facebook.com/Lynn-White-Poetry-1603675983213077/ *** Pissarro Pissarro’s time warp, braving juxtaposition, never forgetting. ** Paris Depiction: Paris. Once a lively city scene. Painter’s reminder. Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher has been writing since 2010 and has had many micro-flash fiction stories published. In 2018 her book Shorts for the Short Story Enthusiasts, was published, The Importance of Being Short, in 2019 and In A Flash in 2022. She currently resides on Long Island, New York with her husband Richard and dogs Lucy and Breanna. Being Short, in 2019 and In A Flash in 2022. She currently resides on Long Island, New York with her husband Richard and dogs Lucy and Breanna. ** Architexture Passage The Hôtel Russie offered lift, a Grand framed window overview, above the throng, along, nightlong, here carriage queue for Moulin Rouge around the bend, so out of site. Observant programmed episodes, like Haystacks, Rouen Cathedral, a baker’s dozen plus, impressed, for cash required as principal - not portraits, Paris wealth elites. En plein air pain had brought inside, as pointillism set aside for full life, movement, shimmer sense, both aerial and linear, those nightlights under canopies. An architextured cityscape in urban oeuvre, boulevard, a bustle like blurred photographs of crowds beneath trees, beyond shops, where some suit selves for Mardi Gras. In light of change for tutored young, his Passage as Van Gogh, Cezanne, transitions, modern, pathways new - warm glow of gas, glass panes above yet stream of street, electric lights. Eccentric strikes, eclectic sprites play in the damp road mirrorwork; that downpour passed, as glower clouds, so were his final points, the stars of pure paint over layered oils? Stephen Kingsnorth Stephen Kingsnorth (Cambridge M.A., English & Religious Studies), retired to Wales, UK, from ministry in the Methodist Church due to Parkinson’s Disease, has had pieces curated and published by on-line poetry sites, printed journals and anthologies, including The Ekphrastic Review. He has, like so many, been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. His blog is at https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com ** Paris La Ville Lumière—City of Lights, of Dreams, Of Love: La Ville d’Amour. Whose night is day-- Whose stars are mirrored in the sky which streams Them back again: La Seine: the Milky Way. La Tour Eiffel, la Louvre, et Notre-Dame, A strand of diamonds strung along the quai Like Left Bank lovers hand in hand on prom- enade beside the Ile de la Cité. La Boulevard Montmartre, Claude Monet, Dumas et Victor Hugo, Baudelaire, Et l’Opéra, Bizet et Massenet, Couture, Le Métro, et cafés plein aire. C’est magnifique, tres chic, La Ville Romance, Et par bon chance, la capitale de France. James A. Tweedie James A. Tweedie is a formal poet living in Long Beach, Washington, with four books of poetry published by Dunecrest Press. He is the winner of the 2021 Society of Classical Poets International Poetry Competition, a Laureate's Choice in the 2021 Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest, a First Prize winner in the 2022 100 Days of Dante Poetry Competition, and recipient of the quarterly prize for Best Poem by the Lyric. *** Walk Down This Boulevard And you will find that distances dim, friction fades and spaces shimmer under the soft glow of these ochre lamps. The crown of trees silhouette against a sapphire sky. The rustling rain winds syncopate with the whispered breaths of men in bowler hats and black coats seeking escape. The cobbled pathways glisten despite the rush of cold shadows, the crowd of sodden dreams. Here, silent stories shift shapes each night, as silken fountains of faith come awake. Here, the habit of hope is impossible to break. Preeth Ganapathy Preeth Ganapathy is a software engineer turned civil servant from Bengaluru, India. Her recent works have been published in several magazines such as Star 82 Review, Panoply Zine, Visual Verse, Quill & Parchment, Shotglass journal, Sparks of Calliope, Tiger Moth Review, The Sunlight Press, Ink, Sweat & Tears and various other journals. Her microchaps, A Single Moment, and Purple, have been published by Origami Poems Project. ** Radiance Camille! Everyone should call you Uncle! You were a gift giver, a mentor, a lifter of hearts, Starting in your balmy childhood in St. Thomas. Born into brightness, surrounded by tall palms, Shifting shades in the warm, slow rivers, inching Toward the soft sea, women chatting on the shore, A parasol reflecting the sun’s eternal radiance, You saw everything and needed to paint each holy Moment-- shadows, colours, every one of them, And darkness, where every shade of green and brown, Red and blue still linger along with light, which Is never extinguished. You were the herald, crowning the peasants, The farmers and their humble homes with glory. Your jewels were the knots on trees, Clods of dirt, the ragged clothing of children And the drooping leaves of the olive trees in the Last silvery shades of dusk. Of course, you came to the City of Lights, And on the Boulevard Montmartre a Paris You still saw it all. In your old age, you painted this vibrant Street six times, looking down from a high hotel window When your eyes had started to fade. You still discerned The daylight, the boundless joy of Mardi Gras, cloudy Mornings, winter, spring and finally, night. Nine electric streetlights formed a line to the End of vision, and all along the way, light and Darkness danced in endless exuberance with the faint dots of stars. Rose Anna Higashi Rose Anna Higashi is a retired professor of English Literature, Japanese Literature, Poetry and Creative Writing. Her prose works include the novel, The Learning Wars, the poetry collection, Blue Wings, and the website, myteaplanner.com, which she co-wrote with her niece, chef Kathleen Pedulla. She writes a monthly blog, Tea and Travels, which appears on this website. Her poetry has appeared recently in poetsonline.org, The Ekphrastic Review, Americamedia.org, The Avocet and The Catholic Poetry Room. She was a finalist in the Filoli Haiku Contest. Rose Anna lives in Honolulu with her husband, Wayne Higashi. ** Nighttime Boulevard Light from lamps pool onto sidewalks, rushing into night's uneven surface like rainwater across glass. Elanur Eroglu Williams Elanur Eroglu Williams is a writer and teacher. She studied English & Creative Writing in Montreal and Children's Literature in Dublin. She worked as an elementary school teacher and now works as a Reading and Writing GED Teacher in the Bronx. She lives in New York City with her husband and her dog, Luna. ** The Lure of Pissarro Paint-soaked Boulevard Smeared with golden hues. To walk among the ghostly crowds. To splash in your puddles. To smell the freshness of a Parisian rain. I want To live among your brushstrokes Blending into the precise indistinctions Until I, too, disappear In the distance As the evening disappears into the darkness. Kimberly Beckham Kimberly Beckham: Wanderer, photographer, reader, writer, hopeful human with two older demanding cats and a love of breakfast cereal and Lego building. ** Reflections on Camille Pissarro's The Boulevard Montmartre at Night What is it Camille that allowed hotel windows to be your eyes to be our eyes rivulets from glass panes and eye pain were your inspiration paint strokes of blurred Montmartre created yellow light from streetlamps, shop windows and lines of coaches against the dark blue night the Boulevard's bustling crowd rendered more complete and of themselves than mere cohesion could design. Daniel W. 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 Magazine and was included in Arts Mid-Hudson 2023 gallery presentation Poets Respond To Art in Poughkeepsie, NY. ** That was Then A rain of light, a jewel box, Paris nights on the grands boulevards were brilliant then. Roof slate, slick-glittered purple and midnight blue, and the hot gold of music poured from brasseries, peals of laughter, and the click-clack of hoofs, water-splashing. The echoes lingered long, so long I heard them before they faded. Les filles were the same, the paint, the pose, the clatter of plates, chink of glasses, and the brassy yellow light, smelling of choucroute and bright red lobster corpses. Waiters, white shirted, black tied and aproned, swooped like swallows, and in the dark all cars were Tractions. But the vibrant, multi-layered social architecture of the Impressionists, Piaf, Simenon, Jean Gabin and Zola was changing. In the streets behind the glitter, the girls waiting in dark doorways, cats at windows, washing hanging out to dry, music blaring, voices shouting in scènes de ménage, all were slowly being tidied away, pushed out beyond the périphérique into the soulless suburbs, so the rich of the world could have the playground of lights, the rain slicking off purple slate all to themselves. What was once a city of squalor and beauty, misery and merveilles, a noisy colourful cacophony of sounds and smells, of rain and refuse in streets where satin shoes and buttoned boots trod, where urchins followed red balloons, is now a cemetery inhabited by ghosts, as at home here as in Dubai, New York, London. They have it all now, squeezed of life and colour, cleansed of its ordinary people, workers, families, old folk with their chairs out on the pavements, babies in prams, dogs, street vendors and prostitutes. The argot of the titis parisiens has been replaced by sanitised interactions in the universal language of wealth, and the Paris of Maigret, Montand and Monet is dead. Jane Dougherty Pushcart Prize nominee, Jane Dougherty’s poetry has appeared in publications including Gleam, Ogham Stone, Black Bough Poetry, Ekphrastic Review and The Storms Journal. Her short stories have been published in Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Prairie Fire, Lucent Dreaming among others, and her first adult novel will be published in 2025 by Northodox Press. She lives in southwest France and has published three collections of poetry, thicker than water, birds and other feathers and night horses. ** Memories of a Forgotten Paris Bright lights shining with the colours of love and dreamers forgotten places long gone but still remain in the genetic memories of those that look for true love men still go under the warm glowing beams while the ins and outs of business create an ongoing hopeful cycle that will continue until love’s message is answered young Parisians utter real poor thoughts of love in the dark lights of golden hues houses stem from romantic ponds of falling rain real pouring thoughts of heartache love speaks nightly forever in the frozen image forgotten but with massive fondness gifted to us from paintings pointing towards the night with parties in the street beauty imprints onto my soul justifying greatness lots of jumbled colors and patterns provoke a sense of lost memories Heather Sarabia Heather Sarabia is a visual artist and long-time writer. She lives in Madison, WI and is on the autism spectrum. Despite being nonverbal, she is a prolific writer, typing out poetry and prose with assistance. Her writing centres on her lived experience and hope for justice. Through her work, she consistently strives to gain freedom from the systems of dependence that leave her feeling trapped. Her work has recently appeared in The Ekphrastic Review. ** The Boulevard Montmartre Is it rain or the jumble of tears that fill my eyes as I look down the boulevard? How bright the streetlamps are as they recede in not quite perfect order. How the buildings glow-- their dappled skirts reflected in the street. We walked here it seems only a minute (or a lifetime) ago. You left. Nothing was finished. I was unfinished. Now the night is both blurred and shining. The shops call to me in their amber voices-- Come, come. Carol Siemering Carol Siemering: "I have been writing poetry for all of my life which is getting ridiculously longer (I will be 81 this month!) I have been published in a a number of magazines and journals including the Blue Collar Review, Fish Drum Magazine, the Catholic Worker, the Bellowing Ark, Unlocking the Poem, and The Ekphrastic Review. ** A Love Letter to Montmartre in the Rain Oil colour-filled tubes bright with the promise of rich hues reflect the fragmented views of heavy graphite skies obscuring the light. The rain is a melody and each droplet is a note in the symphony of Parisian reality. A dance of light and shadows A melody of muted colors The city of lights, darkly beautiful now, lies waiting. Impressionist strokes blur the boundaries weaving reality through dreams as droplets dance on canvas skies. A painting emerges from the chaos of the storm. Nivedita Karthik Nivedita Karthik is a graduate in Immunology from the University of Oxford. She is an accomplished Bharatanatyam dancer and published poet. She also loves writing stories. Her poetry has appeared in Glomag, The Society of Classical Poets, The Epoch Times, The Poet anthologies, The Ekphrastic Review, Visual Verse, The Bamboo Hut, Eskimopie, The Sequoyah Cherokee River Journal, and Trouvaille Review. Her microfiction has been published by The Potato Soup Literary Journal. She also regularly contributes to the open mics organized by Rattle Poetry. She currently resides in Gurgaon, India, and works as a senior associate editor. She has two published books, She: the reality of womanhood and The many moods of water. ** Urban Mirage Velvet darkness curtains the sky cafés and shops mere slashes of light reflecting pools of gold and liquid shadow onto the broad pavements which quiver and flow in the lamplight In street cafés anonymous figures crowd under striped canvas Dark trees, like feather dusters line the floating boulevard Thin straight trunks anchor the crowds which float past. A fragile world, brilliant, poetic seductive is held, suspended in the darkness which waits, possessive, hovering at the end of the street Sarah Das Gupta Sarah Das Gupta is a teacher from Cambridge; UK who has also lived in India and and Tanzania. Her work has been published in many magazines and in over 15 different countries. ** Parisian Lights Dance along that boulevard Those glowing streetlights Those cafe candle flickers Lure me back time and again Rose Menyon Heflin Rose Menyon Heflin is a poet, writer, and visual artist living in Madison, Wisconsin, although she was born and raised in rural, southern Kentucky. She has had over 200 poems published in outlets spanning five continents, and her poetry has won multiple awards. One of her poems was choreographed and performed by a dance troupe, and she had an ekphrastic creative nonfiction piece featured in the Chazen Museum of Art’s Companion Species exhibit. While primarily a poet, she has also published memoir and flash fiction pieces. Among other venues, her poetry has appeared in Deep South Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, Salamander Ink Magazine, San Antonio Review, and Xinachtli Journal (Journal X).
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Challenges
|
