Ekphrastic Writing Responses: Norval Morrisseau

Cycles, by Norval Morrisseau (Canada) 1985. Photo by Jodi Green. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. via Flickr.

The Copper Thunderbird                                    
 
                                             "I will give to them an undivided heart and put
                                              a new spirit in them; I will remove from them
                                              their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh."
                                                                                          Ezekiel 11:19
 
The turtle hissed beneath the leaves.     Beetles swarmed
the bright marquee of a local movie house.     Fall and Spring,
 
You and I in the balcony --     summer gone to winter dreams --
our lives transformed by the magic of film     in the same way
 
nature changes cycles     and time holds us, as Dylan Thomas
said, green and dying.     I knew the Raven, actually a Blackbird,
 
would wait in the oak trees     to cry out that its eyes were art;
that the Ojibwe     would find the land where food grew on water,
 
and how their hearts     would read the stones, the petroglyphs,
symbols of their songs and dances     while we explored the world
 
of rock'n'roll on a night-drenched driveway     until a turquoise
Ford Thunderbird     would carry our "tribe" to the Holiday House...
 
Norval (from Scots Norman, North Valley)      was called
the Picasso of the North.     In poor health at our age, his life was saved
 
by the animal wisdom of the seven clans --     the bear, who protects:
the fish who grows legs and becomes the turtle;     the deer, with hooves
 
that heal, like the horse;     and the bird with spiritual knowledge
of the skies, the moon and stars.     How full the moon, like an Ojibwe
 
moon-mask, as it sailed over houses in North Austin;     above
places where we danced     summoning the spirits of teenage love
 
as heavenly shades of night were falling     on a 45 rpm record.
If the earth were as simple as day & night     a world created  in black
 
& white (but it isn't)     how would the thunderbird signal the rain,
the lightning that "snakes" from under its wings?     The sound of a storm
 
and what does it mean?     The sun set in copper, with pigments
of light, as in  visionary puzzles --
                                                              how an artist imagined the Thunderbird's flight.

Laurie Newendorp
 
Honoured many times, and twice nominated for Best of The Net by The Ekphrastic Review, Laurie Newendorp is a poet writing in Houston.  Her love of animals, art and archaeology surface in "The Copper Thunderbird, " the name that Morrisseau's grandfather, a medicine man, gave his sick grandson as it was an indigenous Indian belief that a new name, as a part of a healing ritual, would restore health, creating a new person. The Holiday House is a drive-in hamburger restaurant in Austin, Texas.
               
​**

Cycles for Morrisseau
 
Lunar cycles, sun cycles,
carbon cycles, water cycles.
 
Many sacred rotations, 
spinning, churning
a vast centrifuge.
 
Mother mitochondria,
organelles dance and
revel with energy.
 
Cells rollicking in
minuscule sparks,
our symbiotic ancestors.
 
An infinitesimal seed.
Germinates, then cracks 
in a burst of vitality.
 
Emergent creatures vie
for oxygen. Giants breathe 
under sapphire waters.
 
Crawling, hopping, flying,
digging, climbing, strutting.
Eyes, fur, teeth, feathers, bones.
 
Bodies filled with liquid.
We live, die, and become
something mysterious.
 
May the world keep cycling 
again and again to sanctify
the wonder of life.

Rachel Prizant Kotok

Rachel Prizant Kotok (she/her) is the author of Morpho Didius, a collection of palindromic poetry (Armature Publishing, 2024). A finalist for the Tucson Festival of Books Literary Award for Poetry, she is a finalist for Southwest Review’s Morton Marr Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in Tiferet Journal, Star 82 Review, The Centifictionist, Wend Poetry, and elsewhere. She teaches English learners, lives in New England, and keeps a Gregor Samsa beetle figurine nearby when she writes.

**

cycles

norval morrisseau
also known as copper thunderbird

            
a picture is worth a thousand stories


your throbbing colours tell and retell
the stories passed down to you
stories that nourished your people
stories of the cycle of life
like the generations of salmon glutted red
returning to their death to birth
then nurture their watery grave
your throbbing colours tell and retell
the stories of your own life that you honored
as you struggled through your own telling
finally  there were the stories of the theft of your sacred gift
crafted from your visions and dreams
such were the stories that shaped you
and now your memory
like the red salmon glutted with life
                       
Lou Ella Hickman        
      
Author's note: Salmon take on a red colour just before spawning.

Sister Lou Ella Hickman, OVISS is a former teacher and librarian whose writings have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. Press 53 published her first book of poetry in 2015 entitled she: robed and wordless. She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2017 and in 2020.   James Lee III composed “Chavah’s Daughters Speak” for a concert held on May 11, 2021, at 92Y in New York City for five poems from her book.  Another concert was held in Cleveland, Ohio on March 28, 2023, sponsored by the Cleveland Chamber Music Society.  Her second book of poetry, Writing the Stars,  will be released on October 4, 2024. (Press 53).

**
​
Cycles

Thinnest wavering lines connect us.
That, and the red we all share. 
Blood red that seizes your attention. 
Black lines and vermillion make your eye move
In a circle. A cycle.
Where does it begin or end?

Do you recognize us? Are you sure?
We traverse verdant land and emerald sea
Our bodies overlap.
We need each other like earth needs ocean.
Like you need us.

Bill Richard​

Bill Richard is a docent at the Phoenix Art Museum and has loved art since he sat on his dad’s lap as a toddler and looked at books of paintings. He is also a standardized patient for medical schools, helping prepare future health professionals by giving them feedback on their communication skills. His poems have appeared in publications such as Red River Review, Ilya’s Honey, and National Catholic Reporter.

​**

Sacred Hoop
 
I.
Look to the east
as the tadpole hatches,
catches horizon, glides
from sea to Mother Earth.
 
II.
Look to the south
as the fawn
matures to doe
under the moon.
 
III.
Look to the west
where a sun-kissed 
whale cow strives 
for water’s surface.
 
IV. 
Look to the north,
to star-studded Father Sky,
the turtle creeping
into the sea to die.

Barbara Krasner

Barbara Krasner holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is pursuing a World Art History Certificate from Smithsonian Associates as she works on a full-length ekphrastic poetry collection. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Ekphrastic Review, Nimrod, Cimarron Review, ONE ART, and elsewhere. She lives and teaches in New Jersey and can be found at www.barbarakrasner.com.

**

​To Norval Morrisseau Regarding Cycles

You speak in ancient seeming glyphs
of timeless climbs to final cliffs
from blackened depths to dampened beach,
from there to peaks the mountains reach

that pierce the very atmosphere
the conscious know as engineer
of moisture's cyclic fall and rise
permitting living enterprise

to draw from common circumstance,
at peril wrought by random chance,
existence both of self and sort
such evidence will long report

as heritage of time and space
that dawn renews for life's embrace.

Portly Bard

Portly Bard: 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.

**

The Cycle Continues

A coincidental thing occurred when I looked at “Cycles,” the Morrisseau painting-my
Brother, Jay, had sent me an article about an “air bike” he had fashioned from
Copious spare parts, garnered at little cost, he was known for squeezing a
Dime until it cried, he probably still has each one of our grandfather’s special socks-
Economy was in grandpa’s genes too, except for Christmas time, when he proffered
Full length crew socks to each of us, brimming with his spare change, rubber-banded,
Garaged in his underwear drawer for the last year, a favorite gift that I had to
Habituate myself to accepting without comment, knowing even a tiny discrepancy
Ignited fury, Jay’s face turning from glad to a mask of pain, at the thought of being
Jerked around by grandpa, as if there was a conspiracy to give me a quarter more-
King Jay was forbidden to count his money during our family celebration, & he always
Loathed waiting for the car ride home to do it, & for my part, I kept quiet, trying not to
Murmur one word about how much my haul was that year. I would pick out one shiny
Nickel and give it to him, saying he now had five cents more than me. There was no
Opposition in the car, he didn’t want to incur the wrath of dad, impatient to get home to 
Pabst and his motorcycles, hand-built built with precision and style, & he was often
Queried by magazines and newspapers about his fabulous cycles, (one with two engines)-
Resplendent with chrome kickstands-- and my mother, sitting atop the custom-leather seat,
Stunning, with her Jackie-Kennedy hair and pink lipstick, and my brother, an acolyte
Transfixed, but too restless to be taught first-hand by the master, who, sadly, left last August,
Utilizing his last breath to reassure us, (he that was so unsure of the world) of love, but
Veering back to the article, I know if dad could read it, he’d smile so big, as his boy
Wielding some sass, was quoted “I loved the idea of a bicycle with an Evinrude motor”
Xenogeneic, this hybrid cycle was touted as an original masterpiece by Farm Show Magazine
Zealot of the bargain, he said the total cost was $150.00. I don’t doubt it. The cycle goes on.
 
​Debbie Walker-Lass

Debbie Walker-Lass is a poet, writer, and collage artist living in Decatur, Georgia. Her work has appeared inPunk Monk Journal, Three-Line Poetry, Haiku Poetry, The Light Ekphrastic, The Ekphrastic Review, and The Niagara Falls Poetry Journal, among others. She has recently appeared in local spoken-word showcases & attended the Rockvale Writer’s Residency earlier this year. Go Braves, (There’s always another season!)

**

Cycles

He was a collector of stories, as beachcombers collect. He assembled some of them here, for the Anishinaabe—the people of First Nations.

Here is Mi-zhee-kay, the turtle who saved the world from the great flood. Here is Mishi-ginebig, the horned serpent who lives underwater, its shed skin symbolizing rebirth. Here is the fiercest of all,Misshipeshu, the Great Lynx with spines on its back, master of the water and adversary of the Thunderbird, master of the air. And others, all with tales.

These are stories that twist good and evil, forward and back, male and female, in the Two-Spirit world that transforms one thing into another. It is all here in the storyboard: the cycle becomes a transmutation of life and death, of non-human and almost-human. I watch them cycling ‘round and the painting becomes kinetic, a kaleidoscope of form and color. There is no right-side-up here; turn it as you wish.

These images magnify the oral tradition. We anthropologists collect them, stories and images alike. Henry Schoolcraft assembled tales from these Ojibwe, Franz Boaz from the Inuit, both of them reflecting our fascination with folklore a century back. Longfellow created his own story here: Hiawatha, the misnamed Ojibwe warrior, Manabozho. Stories worth telling, worth seeing in pictures.

Beachcombers, all of us, our collections keep these stories from washing away.

Ron Wetherington

Ron Wetherington is a retired anthropologist living in Dallas, Texas. He has a published novel, Kiva (Sunstone Press, 2014), creative non-fiction, including prose-poems, in The Dillydoun Review, Literary Yard, Penumbra, Abandon Journal and The Ekphrastic Review, and short fiction in Words & Whispers, Adanna, Androids & Dragons, and in Flash Fiction Magazine.

**

All these stones, incised with stories, rattling around in the gaps 
 
1
My memory is faulty and full of holes--
and yet the fossils of my youth keep turning up, unsought.
 
2
Is ancient farther away than yesterday?--
each is a gesture to something that no longer exists.
 
3
Embedded in my bones is the urge to transcend their gravity.
I tell myself that my body is merely a vessel.
 
4
Chaotic remnants, scraps of the unfounded--
I feel them trembling inside me.
 
5
Nothing disappears.  What is it 
that I need to do to find out what belongs to me?

Kerfe Roig

A resident of New York City, Kerfe Roig enjoys transforming words and images into something new.  Follow her explorations on her blogs, https://methodtwomadness.wordpress.com/  (which she does with her friend Nina), and https://kblog.blog/.

**

A Healing Frame

For vibrant colour, outline clear,
here’s Copper Thunderbird at work
as cycles round in credal dance,
though new name, ancient healing stance.

His faith was catholic, as meant,
evolving fusion’s widest spread
First Nation to the mystical,
including apostolic thread
as borne of fire, whisky risk dread.

Would he divulge too much himself  -
taboo to share his native myths?
With Cree syllabics as his sign,
once moose hide, birchbark for his line.

From ten his school was hunt, fish, trap,
and draw in elders’ discipline.  
An influencer, Thunder Bay,
he made his mark on Woodland folk,
new glyph traditions now bespoke.

A constable Shepparded him
to meet those who could open doors;
a mural, Expo ’67 
(I hold postcard my teacher sent!) -
while vinyl, movies, screened his art,
and astral travel played its part.

Earth tones near neon here we see,
glass stained as pained by struggles, faith;
flogged fakes for real as fraudsters found,
but not his soul, artist unbound.

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

**

​Melancholy by the Creek

The intense summer retreated
Leaving the creek an old man-
Cracked and dry and thin-
Hiding in the autumnal mist.
I plunge cupped hands in, pull them out,
The water clear yet a crowded microscopic soup.
What tiny creatures have I plucked from their home
And their everyday business?
Have they existed only these last twenty-four hours 
or have they seen rise of the dinosaurs?
will they witness the fall of man?
Even smaller than these unseen critters are their atoms.
Could they be made of the same carbon that once composed my
Great-great-great-grandfather that I never knew? 
And what about the atoms contained in my own cells.
Joan of Arc’s hydrogen or
Robert Frost’s nitrogen? 
I’d be honoured and bewildered.
These tiny beings and me, I hope we do good with these atoms
While they are us, then go on to do better.

Samantha Gorman

Samantha Gorman, a lifelong lover of books, lives in Western Pennsylvania. After taking several creative writing classes, she found her voice and had begun the adventure of becoming a writer. She writes poetry, short fiction, and is working on her first novel.

**

Dream – The Aggañña Sutta1

for Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha)

Do man’s visions last? / Do man’s illusions? / Take things as they come / All things pass.
Lao Tzu, "All Things Pass"

Beyond the delusions of ‘immutable will/predestination’ and deterministic frameworks of ‘good ‘n evil,’ there’s an electromagnetism of the replicative Cycles of Cause ‘n Effect—where the electrons are the apostles of duality (prevail both as particles ‘n waves); where the protons never meet their demise (only morph into neutral pions and positrons); where the neutrinos are disciples of anti-matter (shape-shift into muons and taus at will);2 where the ‘universal constants’ struggle for the room to roam; where the Platonic ‘ideal forms’ are deprived of all value; where the psyche (spirit) is emancipated from the cobwebs of the ‘sacred tablets;’ where the asuras (devas ‘n devis) themselves are the loyal subjects to the continuum of dialectical ballet dance of prakriti and purusha;3 where the quest for a ‘universal prologue ‘n epilogue’ is as futile as desiring the O2 to manifest as a single molecule in the realm of Mu,4 his R.E.M. gets dissolved by the cock-a-doodle-do of a rooster’s at circa seven ante meridiem; he at once resolves to the digital stylus ‘n tablet to poem the dream while ‘tis still fresh like the spring water flowing down the temple of the Himalayas. 

Saad Ali

1. Aggañña Sutta: The creation narrative in the Buddhist tradition, which professes the cyclical nature of the existence/cosmos and its processes – without the need for a Divine Being, such as, Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva et al – where the expansion and contraction is repetitive.
2. McKee, M. (2014), “This Shape-Shifter Could Tell Us Why Matter Exists,” Nautilus.
3. Prakriti and Purusha: In the Samkhya School of Thought (Hindu Philosophy), ‘prakriti’ denotes matter and ‘purusha’ denotes conscious energy.
4. Mu: In Zen Buddhism (Chan School of Thought), ‘Mu’ denotes nothing(ness), without reason/purpose, et cetera.

Saad Ali (b. 1980 CE in Okara, Pakistan) – bilingual poet-philosopher & literary translator – has been brought up and educated in the UK and Pakistan. He holds a BSc and an MSc in Management from the University of Leicester, UK. His new collection of poems is Owl Of Pines: Sunyata (AuthorHouse, 2021). He has translated Lorette C. Luzajic’s ekphrases into Urdu. His poetry appears in The Ekphrastic Review, The Mackinaw, Synchronized Chaos, two Anthologies by Kevin Watt (ed.), and two e-Anthologies at TER. He has been nominated for the Best of the Net. His ekphrases have been showcased at Bleeding Borders, Art Gallery of Grande Prairie in Alberta, Canada. His influences include Vyasa, Homer, Attar, Rumi, Nietzsche, Dostoyevsky, Freud, Jung, Kafka, Tagore, Lispector, et alia. He enjoys learning different languages, travelling by train, and exploring cities/towns on foot. To learn further about his work, please visit: www.facebook.com/owlofpines. 

**

Degrees of Magnitude: Three Earthquakes
 
The first. 

Awakened from a deep sleep, I screech like a macaw whose tail is pulled.  I’m certain I’m being attacked. A malicious intruder is hiding beneath my bed, stretched flat on the carpet. His hand is gripping the mattress frame, shaking it. He’s kangaroo-kicking the supports, making sure I’m petrified with fear before he leaps up to throttle me. That’s the only possible explanation. My bed rattles loudly, like a cup filled with dice. Everything else around me is as tranquil as a meadow. No pictures have fallen off the walls. No crashing sounds are coming from the kitchen. Ceilings haven’t crumbled. Walls haven’t cracked. Table lamps haven’t broken. This can’t be an earthquake.  
 
The second.

Quickly, I estimate how far I have to run. Five steps. A door is supposed to be a better spot to stand during seismic activity than the middle of a room. If a house is properly constructed, the lintels are reinforced by timber studs under the plaster. Can I reach the safety of the arch in time?  The floor is rolling like a board mounted on ball bearings. I begin to doubt my ability to walk, or to balance. Once, on a sailboat, I felt this same uncertainty, and yearned for sea legs. Now the earth is a surfacing whale. Waves are rippling over its back.  Rock-solid foundations pinning the building in the ground seem to slide, the way a melting ice cube slides over a puddle of water. For the full minute the temblor lasts, I’m the prisoner of a whirlpool. Finally, the upheaval weakens in strength, the tempo of convulsion slows. Under my shoes, a fainter motion continues, small aftershocks that crawl instead of undulating, the twitching movements of a bug on a rock creeping back and forth and side to side. Drifting atop our planet’s molten core, the continent seems to hesitate, trying to decide where its new resting place will be.  
 
The third. 

On arrival at my office job one morning, I’m met by a friendly colleague who invites me into our warehouse. He’s given me the tour before, knows how impressed I was by the aisles of massive metal racks, eight feet tall, piled high and heavy with boxes of products. They’ve shifted positions overnight. Those fixtures wouldn’t budge if assaulted by a platoon of workers, or rammed by a forklift. Tremors displaced them as easily as if they were made of toothpicks. Across the length of the cavernous space, the long rows are snaking. There’s no other word to describe the curves.  As I struggle to comprehend what I’m seeing, similar images float into my mind. Water meandering along loops in the San Joaquin River. Ridges being traced by wind across the contours of a sand dune. The shelves have preserved for us the path they followed, the shape of how the earthquake moved.
 
K Roberts

K Roberts is a professional non-fiction writer, a published artist, and a first reader for two magazines that publish experimental prose. Recent essays have been accepted for publication in Soundings East, Axon: Creative Expressions, and The Listening Eye.

**

Serifs.

From the margins of the text
From the frayed edges
From between the insular script 
From underneath the sleeves of sleep 
From the kinks of synapses 

From the margins of the text

From the frayed edges

From microscopic spores in 

fingerprints from crushed up foragings 

From the margins of the text
From the frayed edges

Creatures emerge and evolve to crawl
From the pages out into the forest

From the margins of the text
From the frayed edges

Limbs and tails unfurl from ink and pinpricks 

Wings claws teeth peck out through bindings 
Fledglings fall tumble slither disentangle from the scriptures

From the margins of the text
From the frayed edges

Creatures emerge and evolve to crawl 
Limbs and tails unfurl from ink

From the margins of the text
From the frayed edges

Eyes blink open
Lungs breathe air 
Skin stretches into shape
Hearts begin to beat.

Saskia Ashby

Saskia is a UK experimental fine artist who enjoys being active across a broad field and encouraging others to be creative without anxiety .

**

​ All Things
​
 Green for grass that nourishes,
for the buds of early Spring
the emerald, olive and darker tones
of the leaves of the summer forest.
 
The Earth Mother, brown, umber
nurturer, sustainer, provider
creates the colours of wild flowers
the plants which feed and heal.
 
Blue for the sky, whose dome
reflects its changing moods
of brightness, menace, anger;
the dark fury of the storm,
the fierceness of the lightning.
 
Blue too for mountain streams,
river rapids that roar through canyons
meander lazily to the oceans
which ebb and flow to the lunar cycle.
 
White for the virgin snow
for the soft clouds of Summer,
for the lace woven on the waves
for the angry spray on falls.
 
Bound into the seasons’ cycles,
the fish, the turtles, and all
the myriad, watery, creatures.
The bear wandering the wilderness,
the imperial eagle, the mountain King
The moose too with its great antlers.
 
All are intricately bound, 
part of a green, brown, blue 
and white seamless whole
even the fall of a sparrow
challenges the rhythm or pattern.

Sarah Das Gupta

Sarah Das Gupta is a  writer from Cambridge who enjoys many types of art and found herself in agreement with Morrisseau's ideas.

**

I Blink
 
The water dimples beneath my feet,
the greenery intertwined with the rocks
so vivid, they couldn’t be the bottom,
but here I hover several feet above them,
the sun warming my iridescent body.
I flit over the water after my brief respite,
the wind rushing around my translucent wings--
 
I blink.
 
My pink tongue envelopes the small creature
that flew right into my path, the perfect treat
on this fine, sunny day. The warmth of the green leaf
I spread my toes, and taking in one last look
of the vast blue sky with wispy clouds of white,
the trees of immeasurable height that my cousins house in,
I leap from my perch and, with a soft plop, I dive,
the cool water cocoons me. I kick to begin my swim--
 
I blink.
 
I swallow the fighting frog,
its tiny body no match to mine.
After watching it for several minutes,
it finally jumped, 
having no clue to its fate
once in my domain.
My belly now satisfied,
I glide through the water,
my scales glinting with my movement
under the sun’s beams that filter
through the restless substance of my home.
In deep thought,
I travel towards shallower territory,
unbeknownst to me,
as I enjoy my peaceful journey--
 
I blink.
 
A satisfying crack of bone
explodes in my mouth,
my powerful jaws
destroying my meal in seconds.
Swallowing, I feel it travel the length
of my body
until it settles in the pit
that is my stomach.
Swaying my body back and forth,
I slither through the rocks,
the grass,
the roots
of nature’s maze.
The sun warms my body,
and I take a deep breath,
allowing myself to just be,
not worry about where to go,
where to be,
where to start over.
The ground shudders,
an audible rumble echoes,
but I pay no heed,
watching the flowers bend and bow
under wind and fellow creatures--
 
I blink.
 
My claws sink into fine flesh,
the fresh scent of iron blood
seeps into the air.
I grin.
My feathers ruffle in the wind
as my arms flap furiously,
fighting for height.
Once up high enough,
I rest my arms,
gliding along the sky,
in line with the trees
of reds, golds, and greens.
With gentle beats,
I hover with the wind’s help,
passing off my slithery kill
to my loving partner
to feed our youngsters.
With one last glance,
I dive back down,
looking for another unsuspecting creature
to finish off our meal.
The soft tips of the grass tickle my arms
as I pass over the ground,
searching,
searching,
searching--
 
I blink.
 
The screech ends abruptly,
my prey not having time
to realize,
it was my meal,
having watched it tease me
as it flew so graciously
over
and around
in circles
over my head
for hours.
But now it came down
to me
and it became mine
to eat.
Fly no more,
it shall not tease me
with its elegance
any longer.
Grumbling,
I waddle my way
along the rocky ground,
the clatter giving away
my location
long before my hiss
or lengthy short body
could ever hope to
accomplish.
All who see me
fear my long, 
jagged teeth
embedded in
my camouflaged skin,
allowing me to hide
on both land
and in water.
 
As I slip into the clear liquid,
I watch as a buzzing fly
lands on the water,
its tiny, black feet
hardly denting its surface--
 
I blink.

Katie Davey
 
Katie Davey is an aspiring author from the rural parts of House Springs, MO. She has published two pieces through two separate challenges for the Ekphrastic Review, the first titled Hidden Prophecies as part of the Richard Challenge, and the second titled Listen Well, Listen All, of My Tale to Caution All as part of the Vicente Challenge. She has worked on Harbinger Magazine as a staff intern and is a member of Stephens College's chapter of Sigma Tau Delta. She earned her BFA in Creative Writing, with minors in Equestrian Studies and Psychology, at Stephens College in May 2024.

​