The Ekphrastic Review says a big congratulations to Kimberly Hall, whose poem, "Three Symphonic Sketches" has won the Water contest! Thank you to Kimberly and to all of the wonderful finalists below, and to every single one of you writing to these curated thematic collections. I am especially thankful to Sandi Stromberg for her time and consideration and for this important work. All of the reading for this contest was done blind. So we were surprised by the results after deliberations. Several finalists had more than one work in the top 20. The winner, Kimberly Hall, had three! Also surprising was how many of the finalists wrote to the same work of art. There were 50 choices to write about, but so many great pieces after the famous Great Wave painting, Klee's painting, the moonlight on water work by Henry, and my own abstract work, A River Without Water. While a wide variety of the works showed up in the entries, a few inspired many to write wondrous things. The finalists' works are shown below in alphabetical order by name, with Kimberly's winning poem first in the sequence. We thank each and every one of you for reading these writers, for sending your submissions, for supporting the journal, and for making this community so amazing. THANK YOU. Lorette ** Congratulations to everyone who entered the Water contest, and of course, to the finalists and the winner. I loved immersing myself in the myriad responses. I read each and every piece several times with appreciation for each writer’s thoughtful and compelling work. Then, I faced the challenge of making selections. Kimberly Hall’s “Three Symphonic Sketches” rose to the top for her ability to capture the symphonic sound of Hokusai’s Great Wave. But please read all the selections presented here. Each one invites us to experience more deeply the chosen work of art. Sandi Stromberg ** The Finalists The World to Come, by Valerie Bacharach The Catch, by Lizzie Ballagher The Glasgow Boy Speaks, by Lizzie Ballagher Icons, by Portly Bard A River Without Water, by Portly Bard What my glass-half-empty eyes see…by Dorothy Burrows Rain God Vessel Lamentation, by Helen Freeman Nightfruit, by Julia Griffin Haibun on A River Without Water, by Kimberly Hall Portents: Haiku, by Kimberly Hall Three Symphonic Sketches, by Kimberly Hall (First Place Winner) The Shadows, by Amy Holman Eddystone Lighthouse, by Anton Melbye (Denmark) 1846, by Sue Mackrell Canticle of Dreams, by Mary McCarthy A glass of words from the kitchen tap, by Sandra Noel What the wind knows, by Sandra Noel The Mariana Trench, by Barbara Ponomareff the river's slow face, by Janet Ruth Writing with Hokusai, by Janet Ruth Final Sky, by F.F. Teague First Place Winner!!!! Three Symphonic Sketches In 1905, composer Claude Debussy requested that the image of Hokusai’s Kanagawa-oki Nami Ura be printed on the front cover of the published score of his newest orchestral work, titled La mer; Debussy kept a copy of this artwork in his studio, and used it as inspiration. I. First, a wash of colour. Shimmering harps and strings like sunlight soar high above the waves, bass and bass drum rolling steady beneath them. Chords and motifs dissolve into a soundscape of blue – brisk blue wind over bubbling blue water, light flutes and dark bassoons and boundless rippling cellos – all watercolour and ocean spray, blossoming against the horizon. a cloudy spring haze – seawater and sunrise meet, claws crest and retract II. Second, the scherzo. Not just colour, but movement. A strange and glittering dance with ever-changing steps. Phrases seem to shape themselves – texture and timbre toss each other in and out of earshot, with a sort of playfulness that cares not whether it leads its listener to familiar shores or into unfamiliar depths. foam like dragons’ pearls, dancing on the waves – waves that scatter boats like fish III. Finally, the storm. Horns and trumpets, rumbling first and then growing, growing, as a growl grows into a roar. Wind and bass and brass and strings – the whole orchestra strengthening into a swell, swelling into a surge – surging into a thunderous chorale that reaches up through the mouth of a distant sea and brings the great wave to life. the sea-god wakes, and between its curls – the dawn’s first glimpse of Mount Fuji Kimberly Hall Kimberly Hall (she/her) is a queer and neuro-divergent poet and writer. She received her master's degree in behavioral science from the University of Houston-Clear Lake. Her poetry and prose can be found in online publications such as First Flight, Sappho's Torque, and Equinox, as well as in several ekphrastic poetry anthologies and a brand new anthology from Mutabilis Press. She still gets the idiomatic butterflies whenever anyone mentions these things where she can hear them. The World to Come An imperious galaxy holds multitudes. A clock ticks past and future as gold and cobalt fish swim in random patterns of here and gone, return and leave. See the mother with her two faces, heart-shaped mouth when she remembered love, the other all blank eye and shuttered lips. A vermillion fish, nostalgic for its beginning, glimmers. The clock ticks star and planet while flowers sprout in scented water, spread their leaves and petals. See the mother’s upraised hand, empty of names. The moon eats the sun, the clock spins eternity, fish dazzle in the darkening sea. Valerie Bacharach Valerie Bacharach is a proud member of Carlow University’s Madwomen in the Attic writing workshops. Her writing has appeared or will appear in publications including Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Pittsburgh Quarterly, The Tishman Review, Topology Magazine, Poetica, The Ekphrastic Review, Talking/Writing, and Vox Viola. Her chapbook, Fireweed, was published in August 2018 by Main Street Rag. The Catch Hungry, still, for solitude, he sent us off across the lake ahead of him: went aside alone, this time, to meet with God, his Father. Reluctantly, we rowed away, hauled, heaved against the growing surge of angry waves that sent us floundering, spinning, helpless on the disfigured face of Galilee’s wide water. We tasted terror then, tormented by the force of wind that clenched our innards, pitched us into Sheol’s deeps, dashed us down the crags of water into the gnashing teeth of a storm. Now: how in a towering tide & torrent were we to fare without our Lord? The mast curved over, sang out, whined. Our puny rudder failed. The sail sprang out & snapped, tore, flashed away into a squalling wind until we bawled in fear of death, shouted, eyes shoreward, that we saw an apparition. And yet, no phantom it was but Christ himself in very flesh walking the rage & roar of wave-crests, holding wide his all-embracing arms to clip & keep us in. No catch of fish more dear to him! We understood at once he was the Everlasting One, He who then cried out to us: Cannot I who hurled stars across the void, who brooded over deep primeval waters-- cannot I, radiant over chasms of blue darkness, now walk across this wildness so to find you, call you home? Lizzie Ballagher In 2022, Ballagher was chosen as winner in Poetry on the Lake's formal category with a pantoum entitled ‘Across the Barle’. Her work has appeared in print and online on both sides of the Atlantic; it has also been presented in podcasts on Poetry Worth Hearing (Anchor fm). Several of her poems in the last two decades have, too, been set to music. Contributing regularly to Southeast Walker Magazine, she lives in the UK, writing a blog: https://lizzieballagherpoetry.wordpress.com/. The Glasgow Boy Speaks, 1887 River Landscape by Moonlight, George Henry, 1887) South o’ the border all the blether’s now aboot Victoria’s Golden Jubilee, while here in the North Countree men gang up long before the skreich o’ day tae drive haem rivets, slave at smelting lums along the Clyde-- and all tae keep her majesty in a style she is entitled tae (they say) with Sassenachs and swaggering lairds who think we’re teuchters-- gyte as the moon that sinks down tae the river-- clarty by our guid labours… Yet, open up your een, ye glaikit southren folk, and see the braw dance o’ light even in the scribble of an antic moon, the reek o’ blazing furnaces-- the heft o’ steel and coal; the sweat on backs o’ men bowed doon…. Here winter days are nae sae lang, so we mun keek wi’ inner een tae find the brilliance o’ bonny light in darkness. Lizzie Ballagher Glossary blether gossip, chat gang go skreich o’ day daybreak drive haem drive home lums chimneys Sassenachs the English teuchters rough characters gyte mad clarty dirty guid good een eyes glaikit gormless, empty-headed braw brave, beautiful nae sae lang short mun keek must look Icons These once the pride beneath the prow of storied wood from stern to bow are now but remnants left to gauge the wonder of their golden age when keels beneath the waterline would harness wind above the brine in timbered sails to brave the roar that souls defiant dared explore by going west to reach the east believing waters never ceased, that plane ordained they ought to fear was more illusion wrought by sphere and spirit by which they were led was more than merely figurehead. 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. River Without Water I see the bottom of a heart imagined as ravine where love is intermittent rain it always seems between and idle dreams are fragile shards that peek from coral sand as precious trove of treasured lore enduring close at hand yet better left where widely strewn, assembled unrestored, in art that gives them homage due, but leaves them unexplored, accepted as the arid pain where scars were etched...and will remain. 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. What my glass-half-empty eyes see… Upon an ink-blotched river, shimmering oil spills, patches and traces of chemical trash. A concrete walkway, cracked and lifeless; still harbouring the trunks of two dead trees. From old warehouse bones smart apartments, well-lit; but no brightness for the homeless. Against the urban skyline, from pyres of wrecked cars, a suffocation of thick smoke; the shiver of celestial sharks, their ghost-fins splashing in a boiling, rising ocean. A gigantic plastic orange, air-swept, bloated; bobbing uneaten above sick coral… the harvest moon. Dorothy Burrows Based in the United Kingdom, Dorothy Burrows enjoys writing flash fiction, poems and short plays. Her work has been published by various journals, including The Ekphrastic Review. For some years, she travelled to school on a ferry boat. Rain God Vessel Lamentation It’s this stance I’m forced to hold, my left knee aches, my right elbow too and I worry about the onset of arthritis. My moustache needs a trim, coyote headdress smells of squirrel, ringed eye openings skew my vision and a developing fracture surely spells trouble. They told me I’d be given a club and shield to supplement my four remaining fangs, but to say I’m gutted at their size is an understatement – almost like a watch and pen which would have been more use. Guess I’m not too sure why I need them. Nobody asks me what I want and aren’t I the god here anyway? Can someone please fill this water container or at least dampen me with mist and spritz me with dew? I long for clouds to subdue my surroundings like an arctic cloak and slick my cheeks with moisture. Mother of Jesus, tell them to fill me to the brim. Let me be drenched, overflowing, hailed by farmers and warriors, prophets and priests, parents and children the world over. Endue me, for pity’s sake, with even one drop of real power. Helen Freeman Helen Freeman started writing poetry during recovery time from a serious road traffic accident in Oman and got hooked. She has been published in several magazines and supplements including with Corbel Stone Press, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Clear Poetry, Algebra of Owls, Ground Poetry, Your One Phone-call, Open Mouse, Red River Review, Barren Magazine, The Drabble, Sukoon, Poems for Ephesians and The Ekphrastic Review. Some of her ekphrastic poems were published alongside related Diane Rendle paintings at an exhibition in Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh. She taught English for many years in Kenya, Tanzania, Oman and Dubai and now lives in Durham, England. Nightfruit So the bright orange Scribbles itself by night Into the deep blue: Beauty of Seville, Framed as a secret Spanish Exclamation point¡ Julia Griffin Julia Griffin lives in South-East Georgia. She has published in Light, Lighten Up Online, Snakeskin, and some other magazines. Haibun on A River Without Water Dry wind carries no water across these still beds. What was once bright and fertile now hears only the echo of rain, holds only the memory of flood. Scraps emerge like phantoms in the night. Feet splashing, a wet rush of blood, ripples and riptides and roaring thunder – shadows, sluggishly crawling out from darkened desert, coming to rest against eager palms. Scraps, like phantoms, dissolve once more, crumbling to dust in the hot white light of day. no thirst is quenched by memory alone – where dreams run instead of rivers. Kimberly Hall Portents: Haiku morning overcast – clouds like honeycomb, now sweet, hold tomorrow’s storms Kimberly Hall The Shadows It’s raining bullets in 1941, and the seamstress whores are waving white handkerchiefs in a chiaroscuro of recruitment and sympathy. The machines are shielded from the commands for pleats and A-lines, fitted; a waste. The seamstresses are lonely, Surrendering their men to Franco Amy Holman Amy Holman is a poet, literary consultant and artist. The author of five poetry books, including the prizewinning chapbook, Wait for Me, I’m Gone, from Dream Horse Press, and the collection, Wrens Fly Through This Opened Window, from Somondoco Press, her poems have recently appeared in The 5-2: Crime Poetry Weekly, The Chiron Review, and The Night Heron Barks. Eddystone Lighthouse by Anton Melbye (Denmark) 1846 Sue Mackrell Author's note: Words in italics are from contemporary sources. Sue Mackrell lives in Leicestershire, UK. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Loughborough University. Retirement from teaching and facilitating Creative Writing workshops gives her more time to write. Her poems have been published several times in The Ekphrastic Review and Agenda, also recently in Bloody Amazing (Dragon Yaffle) Diversifly (Fair Acre Press) Whirlagust III (Yaffle) and online in Words for the Wild. Canticle of Dreams Like a fist unclenched a leaf falling the balance of attention lapsed I slide wordlessly down past the surface into the dark ocean of sleep where bright fish rise finned and scaled the shimmering glint of sequins winking in glittering spangles that catch whatever light shines through the water my dreams fantastical and strange as their ancient shapes whispering without sound like liquid hieroglyphs antiphon to the long songs of whales that fill me with a desperate longing to stay here with them and learn to breathe without air 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. A glass of words from the kitchen tap I hold its story in my mouth, just long enough for the taste of clean to paddle on my tongue, to hear the echo of pins-and-needle rain. A hint of salt swaddles my throat, tells of another latitude, a time before your dark. It doesn’t seem to matter how many times I go to the tap to refill your glass; it remains full of wordless words, empty. Sandra Noel Sandra Noel is a poet from Jersey, Channel Islands. She enjoys writing about the ordinary in unusual ways, nature themes and her passion for sea swimming weaving through many of her poems. Sandra has poems featured online and in print magazines and anthologies. This year she has been longlisted by Mslexia Women’s Poetry Competition 2023, highly commended in The Yaffle Press Competition 2023, and commended in Poetry on the Lake’s Haiku competition 2023. Two of her poems are currently on the buses in Guernsey as winners in the Guernsey International Poetry Competition 2022. Sandra is working on her first collection. What the wind knows Even when the sea is turning inside out, and the ferry lurches green folk starboard, the bottle on the table knows how to hold the wine in the shape of itself; in the way a shadow holds the shape of the wave just long enough, until it crashes back to itself, and the boat lurches port side. Sandra Noel The Mariana Trench He dreamed himself through layers of dark, all smudge and pitch-black night penetrating the earth’s mantle in search of its core, he fell deeper and darker past trees, houses, the clock on the tower which faded as he passed dream-memories shapeshifted objects into pure form as if creating road signs to nowhere memories of gardens – flowers, leaf, petal and stem, some formed like the rays of the sun turned into symbols of loss. Only the fish, magical and singular, appeared to know where they were going as if connected by a sizzling current. Aglow, as if lit from inside by lanterns carried in children’s hands. Onward his body drifted amongst the shapes, weightless and heavy at once. Imagining his own phosphorescence, he sunk deeper and darker through time and space out of the known. Over 11,000 meters deep – to a depth even his dreams could not fathom. Barbara Ponomareff Barbara Ponomareff lives in southern Ontario, Canada. By profession a child psychotherapist, she has been fortunate to be able to pursue her lifelong interest in literature, art and psychology since her retirement. The first of her two novellas, dealt with a possible life of the painter J.S. Chardin. Her short stories, memoirs and poetry have appeared in Descant, (EX)cite, Precipice and various other literary magazines and anthologies. She has contributed to The Ekphrastic Review on numerous occasions and was delighted to win one of their flash story contests. the river’s slow face kingfisher cackles from the shadows seeing with ears eyes seek the river’s waking her face turned away view of sky painted pink with dawn just her reflections rosy dreams of cherry blossoms falling drift of mist a glimpse where mist pulls thin dark waters scribbled on river surface a few reeds a slight breeze dabbles at the stillness lifting Janet Ruth Janet Ruth is a NM ornithologist. Her writing focuses on connections to the natural world. She has recent poems in Oddball Magazine, Tulip Tree Review, The Ocotillo Review, Sin Fronteras, Spiral Orb and anthologies including Moving Images: poetry inspired by film (Before Your Quiet Eyes Publication, 2021) and New Mexico Remembers 9/11 (Artemesia Publishing, 2020). Her first book,Feathered Dreams: celebrating birds in poems, stories & images (Mercury HeartLink, 2018) was a Finalist for the 2018 NM/AZ Book Awards. https://redstartsandravens.com/janets-poetry/ Writing with Hokusai tallest mountain a matter of perspective my fragile boat the wave crashes down truth worse than my fears bending prows into the bite of wind bending to fate should I pray or laugh into the howling? salt crusts my face Mt. Fuji diminished below sky full of ash foam reaches like fingers at the wave’s crest all that lies beneath Janet Ruth Final Sky He found her there at sunrise, on the beach, first sighting her from cliffs above the shore, one arm extended – not, though, in a reach, but as the tide had swept her from the floor of churning ocean. For a while he stood and told himself she hadn’t drowned; she slept, that’s all. She’d wake, recovered, and they would be happy once again. And then he wept and fell upon the sand and beat his fists upon the sodden grains and shells and stones amidst the early morning milling mists that struck their clammy chills within his bones. And still the sun rose in that final sky as he strode out to sea, resolved to die. F.F. Teague F.F. Teague (Fliss) is a copyeditor/copywriter by day and a poet/composer come nightfall. She lives in Pittville, a suburb of Cheltenham (UK). Her poetry features regularly in the Spotlight of The HyperTexts; she has also been published by The Mighty, Snakeskin, The Ekphrastic Review, The Dirigible Balloon, Pulsebeat, Lighten Up Online and a local Morris dancing group. Other interests include art, film, and photography.
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Landscape: Midnight Swim "You should avoid being too much in the real world, it isn't conducive to happiness... Does nothing of us last when we are dead? For the lucky ones, perhaps love." P.D. James, A Certain Justice How different the boat a lost smile on the water, faintly green in the moonlight. How different the single figure standing in the boat....embracing the wilderness. At a glance, she could be an animal -- long and thin -- a weasel or a stoat or an ermine standing upright on its back haunches its destiny, to be a royal collar in a Renaissance portrait. Looking for the light (a phantom moon slicing darkness) I now realize the solitary figure is a woman hands raised to hold up her hair from the nape of her naked neck. Her hair is dark, still wet though the water is a memory -- conflicted -- the clinging kelp like the whisper of lost love doubling the distance from the shore; then the boat, its fragile size and shape almost unable to support her weight as she takes her place briefly arching her slim body to recall their pleasure his hands sliding down the length of her as he told her what he wanted: to watch her swim, to become a part of the canvas before it demanded his full attention. And as his painting took shape did he feel her loneliness -- insatiable -- as he stripped all other life forms from the picture? They had been lovers; if painted together, sleek and entwined... But no. She is alone her skin like the sheer fabric of a night dress as if she'd stepped from his 4-poster bed instead of the grasses on a hidden shore. Will your palette float? she might have asked, eyeing the water and the caliginous colors he'd used to disguise any fires of incendiary passion. No Love, he'd answered, as if prescient we're eras away from an Age with styrofoam... Years later (ninety years to be exact) after modern art was liberated from Victorian convention would a great grand- daughter recognize the svelte, single figure standing in the boat as a part of her past? Or was the painting's message to be her future -- the oars that were unmoving -- bubble pools in the water indicating fish beneath the surface though they couldn't be identified; in the same way I wasn't identified, alone in Paris writing on the deck of a Dutch boat docked beneath the D'Orsay during a ferocious summer heat wave. Above, tourists with binoculars watched me from a balcony -- est-elle folle ou celebe? And inside, on the walls of the museum, a lone figure, framed, La Solitude -- art in the way Romantics dream of love, its lack, their wilderness. Although bright fish can't be seen in A Midnight Swim their scales shine like preliminary sketches in a spectrum of possibility. Even unconscious (and even unwritten) they are a wish and a promise: the inevitable dawn; the exquisite passion of an inextinguishable hunger as love begins to sizzle in an elemental skillet. Laurie Newendorp Laurie Newendorp lives and writes in Houston. Honoured multiple times by the Ekphrastic Challenge, she found Harrison's La Solitude to be reminiscent of a personal experience: in 1992, stranded in Paris during a heat wave, she stayed on a Dutch Bed & Breakfast boat, The Johanna, docked at the base of the Musee D'Orsay. Alone and struggling to finish a final academic paper (Yeats And The Tarot) necessary for a graduate degree in Creative Writing, she left the boat at night to find food; and to make trans-Atlantic calls to the father of her children. If asked why she continues to love him, after both divorce and his death, she might tell you one reason is that he accepted (and paid for) her nightly calls from Paris before she was able to return to Houston. Thomas Alexander Harrison is said to have created dreamscapes, which is why the atmosphere of La Solitude has a resonance with both "Landscape: Midnight Swim," and the ekphrastic poems in her book of poetry, When Dreams Were Poems, 2020. ** ripples morning fog the canoe slides into grey silence my paddle disturbs the bay the gulls are silent blue heron Egyptian statue among the reeds tide rises fog rests gently on shoulders and lashes bell buoy muffled benediction I am not alone Kat Dunlap Kat Dunlap grew up Norristown PA and now resides in Massachusetts where she is a member of the Tidepool Poets of Plymouth. She received a BA in English from Arcadia University and holds and MFA from Pacific University. She edited two college writing publications as well as the Tidepool Poets Annual. For many years she was Director of the National Writing Project site at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and is currently the co-owner of Writers Ink of MA. Her chapbook The Blue Bicycle is being prepared for an autumn launch. ** An Abandoned Plot holds a roof, rising bamboos guard empty spaces- drifting crumbs reach the fence where sits the crow in morning breeze. I gaze long at night sky until it begins to talk- until the letters dance in nooks of heaven. I anchor in clear waters- until the stars fall in slow drizzle. My breath in dying mist. Abha Das Sarma An engineer and management consultant by profession, Abha Das Sarma enjoys writing. Besides having a blog of over 200 poems (http://dassarmafamily.blogspot.com), her poems have appeared in Muddy River Poetry Review, Spillwords, Verse-Virtual, Visual Verse, Sparks of Calliope, Trouvaille Review, Silver Birch Press, Blue Heron Review, here and elsewhere. Having spent her growing up years in small towns of northern India, she currently lives in Bengaluru. ** Woods and Waters This night is mine, and all around, the moon is calling me to come...to ride upon the light that kisses night within the earth’s deep moaning. The night is mine, and as I smile, eclipsing day and duty, it’s here I run to sail upon this lake of ebony and silken sun- less beauty of the night, my night.... Here, I am ruler of my realm as all alone I stand, and in the grand- ness of the starlight I am... I am...a traveler of sky and sea, ...of woods and waters. There is no you... nor they... nor us... in this wide world of night, as I stand seeing far away the light of day fast fading in the march of time. But here, each moment stills... to hush the rush and random shouts of mobs and gobs of powers’ red abuse. Here, I stand. Here I am...bare to wear fair sparkles of the night, my night, afloat on dreams of boundless blue where there is no you. L. W. Owen Linda Watson Owen is the Mississippi Poetry Society's 2023 Poet of the Year. Her book, A Gift of Dappled Light, is a compilation containing a variety of her award winning poems and favourites of readers and audiences. It is available through Amazon. ** Finding Solitude in Watery Silence The words are stagnant in my mind like the lily pad clad surface of the pond, and they curl into the shells of my ears and bury themselves in my flesh. A metaphorical parasite that can no longer vocalize, no longer bleed dry the murmurs and stories in the paper and whispers exchanged in ballrooms "She went out to swim at midnight and a fisherman found her body the next morning." An empty boat A sunken oar A discarded dressing gown I could feel the sloshing of the freshwater in my lungs and yet, I could still hear their whispers Still feel the cold, rough hands that pulled me into the boat and the scream that erupted from the old man's throat when he realized I was dead. I was dead. I was dead? The coroner only knew I had no pulse and yet, in the cellar of the morgue on the rusted table, he mumbled to himself about how this “young woman of high society” was found washed up on the bank, tall grasses tangling in my silken hair and mud painting my porcelain skin I had no bruises, no gashes, no strangulation marks, no skin underneath my fingernails. He didn't know if it was by my will or another's that I was no longer alive I didn’t know either. But after concluding my autopsy report and plucking the aquatic larvae from my body he wrapped my body and sent it off in a carriage to be buried and still I couldn’t open my lips to tell him about the maggots in my throat But this is where my memory refuses to fracture like glass and clear because I do not know why I now stand in my boat looking back at my reflection just as I had done nights previous and still remember nothing about who I was. Who I am? My name is a distant memory, this pond a place of my past and yet when the moon rises every night my ghost- the word they scream as they see my figure following the path to the cattails -wanders back to this boat because this small sapling of a lake was my only familiarity But now I see the moon's reflection sewn together across the water's surface with mine and for some reason, I want the moon to see my face more clearly so I hold back my damp hair and pray that the heavens won’t take my soul just yet because just at this very moment I have a new thought, "It truly is such a lovely night for a swim." Lily Wilson Lily Wilson, is a sophomore at the Alabama School of Fine Arts. She enjoys reading, gardening, hiking, photography and drinking excessive amounts of coffee in her free time. She hopes to work in forensic investigation and become a published poet/author when she is older. ** Solitude Blues I once loved a sweet soul her shadow looked like me I once loved a sweet, sweet soul his shadow looked like me We are lost here tonight, the truth we cannot see Who shall save us, You or me? Who shall save us, You or me? I shiver at what the answer might be. Under a full, full moon I hear the earth’s hum Under this bright, bright moon I hear the earth’s hum My heart she beats, yet my fingers are numb. Who shall save us, You or me? Who shall save us, You or me? We shiver at what the answer might be. We are naked and we are afraid We are buck-naked and we are afraid Lord, Lord, won’t you please come to our aid. Jeffrey G. Moss Jeffrey G. Moss was born and bred in Brooklyn, USA. After 32 years guiding 13/14 year olds in crafting their worlds he has finally started following some of his own writer’s advice. His work has appeared in Cagibi, Hunger Mountain Review, Under the Gum Tree, and Hippocampus. Find him on IG @jeffgm. ** The Full Moon Salon Without fail each month The gathering within the cave The wet echo of excited whispers Darkness and dankness Woollen blankets, candles Soft slurp of corks being pulled Candle flames appear like glow worms Tonight the ritual has run too long The wine has run too freely Pale flesh upon wool slumbering In the stillness before dawn I take the boat, find the air Clear, still, silent, deep Moonglow on my skin But you call my name A glow worm bobs at the cave mouth I row back to you Athena Law Athena Law lives in the lush Queensland hinterland (Australia) and her short fiction has been published by the Australian Writers Centre. She likes to tackle baking and gardening projects while she's mulling over the tricky plot points of her first novel. ** After an Afternoon at The World's Columbian Exposition She whistled “The Waltz of the Flowers,” low to weave her way down to the rowboat, as fireflies lit an ease in and out to the rhythm of her steps, her breath, the clear notes of Tchaikovsky. Moonrise, or the last setting sun’s rays catch stillness the moment before movement, the moment a pause before unheralded discovery, the shedding of everything else – the afternoon sun and dust, the latest melodies loud along the midways, the chill of ice cream, the screams of rocking at the top of the Ferris Wheel, the days’ clothes. Light body into flat calm, after this day of celebrating conquest: boats on the water to cross oceans of false discovery, voices recorded like astounding announcements to claim the air, signals of sound alongside her mother’s syllables of punctuated, “My goodness,” and “Well, I never….” Between the stanzas of her steady song, the moon rises above dense trees, the shoreline a dark mouth that will resist swallowing until she makes more of this moment of stasis, clean lines of skin against the cool air at the end of an August day. There’s time because it’s already been awhile since she let the oar drop into the water, balanced herself at the prow until the dark water absorbed her patience, the noise of all the rocking, as the dissipating waves escaped to the definition of wild shoreline. Hear her whistling to ease the waves to stillness. She is not Christopher Columbus, this slant of dusk light on still water no wonder of any new world. Her eyes fill with the ferris wheel, electricity, and the recorded sound of voices, and her mother all a whisper, “Look, honey,” “Listen,” and “Hold this,” sweet vanilla, cold in a waffle wrapped the better to carry and continue so much everything, no solitude, until a day can call it quits, level the earth back to the limited horizon and the bull frogs’ sudden quiet and her whistle lifting. Oh, to release the world of exposition, expectations, and so much wonder, so many wonders to ease out, lose the bank of world event and yammering delights, to stand still, the irony of painted solitude, before the arc of her naked lines that define the body that will break the surface. Michelle Holland Michelle Holland is currently the Poet-in-Residence for the Santa Fe Girls School and the treasurer of NM Literary Arts. She lives in Chimayo, where she gardens, writes poetry and creative non-fiction, and runs the trails from the BLM gate through the barrancas to Truchas. 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. ** Night Music Here is away, and here is home. There are no grasping fingers, no crushing blows-- no crushing blows, only the drumming of wings, the fiddle-plucks of notes in moonlight rills. The moonlight dances, alive-- it embraces me in song, an appoggiatura. An appoggiatura, the shimmer on water, a resolution broken by an owl shriek. The owl shrieks my name in welcome or warning. This is not solitude, only a space without men. I am on my small boat without gods or men, my body is bathed in moonbeams, and I dive. I dive, I dive, I dive, swimming in night music-- here is away, and here is home. Merril D. Smith Merril D. Smith lives in southern New Jersey. Her work has been published in poetry journals and anthologies, including Black Bough Poetry, Acropolis, Anti-Heroin Chic, The Storms, Fevers of the Mind, and Nightingale and Sparrow. Her full-length poetry collection, River Ghosts (Nightingale & Sparrow Press) was Black Bough Poetry’s December 2022 Book of the Month. Twitter: @merril_mds Instagram: mdsmithnj Blog: merrildsmith.org ** Born to Be Wild Believe in the wild before wildness. Speak from a boat. Speak when nudity saw shaded foliage dress the shoreline with a dark hem. Speak for her, elbows raised, hands wedged behind the head. Speak for tranquility, that surface speaks for adventure from a faintly tinted, red face. Believe in wild as a magic carpet ride, flying over sparrows, once a band who sang from a Canadian village buttoned with orchards and cider houses. Believe in gods who say you don’t have to celebrate clothing anymore. You don’t have to celebrate what’s in the closet. How to imagine bare skin is how to touch someone. He is seeking. Or seems lost. Or he is deciding where to land, believing lessons from epic trips that failed. Believe in running with the current, coming whatever way and feeling nature’s coolness as if drinking a truth serum. As if contemplation is a country. As if wind carries time. Believe in the wild before boarding the boat to cast off boring stories from before. Forget the past losses and happy endings, nature is love’s embrace. Whether he will return is hard to know. She likes a delicate wait, a sweet whisper before swallowing. John Milkereit John Milkereit resides in Houston, Texas working as a mechanical engineer and has completed a M.F.A. in Creative Writing at the Rainier Writing Workshop. His work has appeared in various literary journals including Naugatuck River Review, San Pedro River Review, and previous issues of The Ekphrastic Review. He has published two chapbooks (Pudding House Press) and three full-length collections of poems, including most recently from December, A Place Comfortable with Fire (Lamar University Literary Press). ** After All she could think of that moment was that Hemingway story—Nick Adams in that boat with his father, his father rowing away from the Indian camp. She wondered if Nick had heard the same screams, the same croaks of bullfrogs, the plops of startled turtles slipping off rotting logs—the same tremulous bird, its long white wings slapping the shallow water, chopping the air into shimmering ribbons. The sun would not come up over the hills, she was sure of it. But the stars had never been brighter. Late evening, standing at the bow, no one rowing, she felt quite sure no one was coming. Not her father. Not him. She could see the mouth of the river, the river that connected the lake to the ocean—but no signs of life on or under the water, nothing to swallow her. It was there and then she felt free, unpossessed, like that great egret vanishing. Robert E. Ray Robert E. Ray is a retired public servant. His poetry has been published by Rattle, Wild Roof Journal, Beyond Words Literary Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, and in five poetry anthologies. Robert is a graduate of Eastern Kentucky University. He resides in Georgia. ** At the Edge of the World I watch as you rise with wobbling knees and clutch your wrought head–a greasy knotted clump. A landless and barren sea slips into a chasm swallowing existence as your dingy drifts toward a silent, invisible edge. Panic swallows you like smoke suffocating one last breath till nothing remains. Darkness passes into pale off-gray light close your eyes and an insatiable off-white whale finds you. Do you sense the end? The silent end of the world where direction and time cease. But the oar–buoyant, glowing, pointed… Only take it! it is solid, it is real and light as wind. Take it! Please! Space crouches just beyond sight ushering you into some failing star millions of millions of miles from the nearest failing star. Samuel Schaefer Samuel writes poetry as a hobby, but he hopes to one day publish some of his work. He currently runs a poetry Substack called The Pony Express, where he publishes weekly, original poems. He lives in Tallahassee, Florida. ** Darkness Fell The world she knew behind a curtain of night. The silence swallows her pain. An occasional night fish breaks the water. Small waves lap against the thin hull of the boat. She feels the touch of the water through her bare feet. Her body responds like a Stradivarius to the touch of the bow. The shore an unwelcome memory. She tries to see the light breaking through a blackness that opens with reluctance, resists penetration. They said she’d find a way. The depths are willing to receive her. 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. 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 MS is ‘in the oven’. https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/ ** Alone (But Not Lonely) She couldn’t help but relish in the hazy dusk settling over the leafy canopies surrounding the river, the last vestiges of sunlight becoming obscured by a misty, gray overcast. Her naked figure, standing at the bow of her canoe, was clad in nothing but a soft smile. Arching as she threw her unruly auburn hair into a lopsided knot, her balance remained unchanged– which must have been the result of dozens of similar escapades onto the river. The sleek, wooden canoe, painted a faded baby blue, rocked gently back and forth in the placid waters. Its gentle curves and slender shape allowed for it to blend in harmoniously with the tranquil environment, but its oars seemed to glow in stark contrast amongst the depth of the glossy, black waters. Humming along to the creaking of the oars and the lyrical symphony of the buzzing cicadas, the lean figure said aloud, to nobody but herself, “It’s such a shame–the description of ‘alone’ inherently carries a negative burden, does it not?” Nobody answered. “I suppose, this may be because of its cunning daughter, ‘lonely’. But I am alone, and yet–I am not lonely.” She broke the silence again. “Oh, the joys of solitude!” Hannah Guo Hannah Guo, is a 15 year old rising junior in high school. She loves music, art, and literature, especially poetry. Her short story won the Platinum Award for Scholastic's National Art and Writing Contest. ** To Alexander Harrison Regarding Solitude As if entombed in darkened space you have her sense immortal grace -- becoming marble carved and left to world, though from her then bereft, that sees by haunting light of moon in eerie silence her lagoon and visage as a dawn foretold of solace newly taking hold where lull of glow and flickered gleam is fading dance of distant dream and blaze arising more direct commands her soul to resurrect the joy that cannot live in stone and oar that no one wields alone. 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. ** Adrift Green dinghy sits light on the still lake, so still I stand at the bow, inhale the heavy night air, stretch my achy back, flex stiff arms, and squeeze the pain from shoulders grown weary from rowing away, away from the noise and haloed lights of shore. I drift into the peaceful deep of darkest night alone, alone. Ann E. Wallace Ann E. Wallace is Poet Laureate of Jersey City, New Jersey. Her new poetry collection, Days of Grace and Silence: A Chronicle of COVID's Long Haul, is forthcoming from Kelsay Books in February 2024. She is author of Counting by Sevens (Main Street Rag) and has published work in Huffington Post, Wordgathering, Halfway Down the Stairs, Snapdragon and many other journals. You can follow her online at AnnWallacePhD.com and on Instagram @annwallace409. ** Retired Goodbye crowd of need I have stopped, dropped my spirit oar into still water leaving you ripples of words left behind as guides to your hidden places no one can find me now I can stand in my own tallness look into my own dark trails eat stillness hear calling voices on my own delightful channels move my eyes toward shore only when and if I want to see your faces waiting for more of me Susan Shea Susan Shea a retired school psychologist who was raised in New York City and now lives in a forest in Pennsylvania. She had the privilege of working with children and families who struggled with disabilities and mental health concerns. A poet since third grade, Susan now feels like she is coming alive again in the free moments of time. She has been published in Plainsongs, Pudding, Poetry Forum Newsletter, Oxalis, The Orange Review, The Accordion Flyer, The Bluebird Word, and The Agape Review. Recently Susan has had poems accepted for four upcoming anthologies. ** Solitude True solitude is difficult. And yet, it flows freely across vast stillness, reluctant to draw hard and fast borders. I stand against the dark yawn of night, my boat a silver slant, a dim raft between water, shore, and sky. Leaves flung across sheets of glass over my moonlit image: its curvature illusory, variable, unknowable. My solitary posture bows, elusive to rest and towards the restlessness of night’s creatures. Elanur Eroglu Williams Elanur Eroglu Williams holds a B.A. in English Literature and Creative Writing, and a minor in Sustainability Studies from Concordia University Montreal. In addition, she has a M.Phil. in Children's Literature from Trinity College Dublin, and a M.S.Ed. in Reading/Writing/Literacy from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. She has worked as an elementary school teacher and educator, and is currently based in New York City. ** 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 Homage to Nina Simone, by Bob Thompson. Deadline is August 4, 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 THOMPSON 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, August 4, 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. Dear Everyone, This intriguing artwork spoke just as loudly to so many of you, as it did to me. We received so many wonderful interpretations of this piece. Once again, it was a painful process selecting, and I'm so sorry to have left out so many fine submissions. I'm not surprised that this work inspired you. We can't help but enter into the painting immediately because as soon as we look at it, our mesmerising redhead is staring right back at us. Fioretti's sweeping dance of light and shadow shows us the others present, but like the men on both sides of her, we can't look away for long. The Ekphrastic Review turned eight this month. I just wanted to say thank you for making this ekphrastic adventure happen. We have created unimaginable wealth together, an enormous body of work on art of all kinds. We have looked at paintings and other creations from all over the world, contemplated them, and let them speak through us. We have created new worlds inspired by the imagination of artists and of each other. We have taken deep dives into themes in art, and we have gathered by Zoom to talk about amazing artists and to write together. Many of you have created collections of ekphrasis and published them, or sprinkled your books with ekphrastic morsels in between other poems and stories. We have become friends. We have become a family. Thank you all, and welcome to everyone who is stopping by for the first time. love, Lorette Art Deco Party Night When I think of us now I think of Art Deco Party Night. Whose idea was it to celebrate a past that thought it was the future? We dressed for it - like an antique photograph of fun: a flapper and her man in search of a charleston. We dined among the tiered skirts, rhinestones, cloche hats; drank gin from a silver teapot. Your beads swung low when you danced, and the jazz seemed to signify a lost idea of happy: the sort we inherited along with modernity. I still recall your eyes on your return to our table, kohl-lined and beautiful: they grabbed every photon in the room, and knew their own future. By the end of the night I knew it too, and it failed to contain me. Paul McDonald Paul McDonald taught at the University of Wolverhampton for twenty five years, where he ran the Creative Writing Programme before taking early retirement in 2019. He is the author of 20 books to date, which includes fiction, poetry and scholarship. His most recent poetry collection is 60 Poems (Greenwich Exchange Press, 2023) ** Paean to Phalaena You can’t help but see her in the centre flaming red, curve-lit, painted like a cinnabar moth. How she turns faces, but she’s pointing at you. Yes, you. She warns with toxic glow, brazen stance, screen of silk bling wings. Her markings and eyes hypnotise and if you cut her she’d bleed poison. Venom already flows through your veins like a thought stream and you know one kiss would be lethal, yet all you can think of is her magnetic fire. Helen Freeman Helen Freeman has been published on several sites such as Visual Verse, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Red River Review, Barren Magazine, The Drabble, Sukoon and The Ekphrastic Review. Her instagram page is @chemchemi.hf. She lives in Durham, England. ** Sí, Señor Sí, señor. Once again I fly close to your orbit in disgust and hunger. You think I’m captured but I won’t enter your smug vest in which you carry around vain attitudes and vacuous schemes. When I undo your supercilious bowtie later tonight, as always, I’ll imagine it being spun into a scarf that I can use to fasten your mouth. For the short time we’ll be together, I’ll restrain my tremendous urge to slide up to the chest of drawers in the hostal of your choice where a gas lamp pulsates, and I long to douse my translucent shawl until it catches and carries me away from you forever. Sharon Roseman Sharon Roseman writes poetry, non-fiction, and fiction. She’s a professor of anthropology at Memorial University in St. John’s, Canada and a keen admirer of visual art. Her poems and micro-fiction can be found in Poetica Magazine, CuiZine, and Found Polaroids. ** The Eyes of Anazit If you thought her name was Phalaena, you’d be wrong. Phalaena is his name. It’s his nickname, actually. Phalaena is a Greek word. It means whale, and he donned the name for the endearment it was meant to be when she used those eyes to seduce him. But that was several years ago. “Aye! Mi dulce y fuerte ballena,” she whispered in his ear, the first night of their love-making. Phalaena is every bit as prosperous in money and material assets as his girth suggests. Oh yes, he has charm, too, but Anazit was far more attracted to the charm of his bank account, and presently even that fails to engage her interest. Me? I’m a painter. You might say I am to Madrid what Toulouse-Lautrec was to Paris--a fly on the walls of café society, sketching out life in the moment. Tonight though, Phalaena and Anazit are of secondary importance to my eye. Tonight my every brush stroke serves to capture the incandescent glow of the brazier, its metal heated out of check. Do you see how its luminosity spills over the tea pot and tip-toes up Anazit’s arm; how it rests on her cheek then crawls into her red hair? How it softly flows through the folds of her cape draped over the chair? That brazier sheds its brilliance throughout the scene before me and causes me to trace it to the look of longing in the eyes of that gentleman at the table next. His own companion has turned away in delightful reunion with another. Those two women are heedless of the comforting heat being provided from Phalaena and Anazit’s table. Heat, yes—just enough to cause a modest burn to rest on Phalaena’s face, but heat too little to lessen the arch in his eyebrow and the suspicion in his eyes. Anazit has rallied every ounce of her ennui to posture herself for another. She rests her eyes on me. She is posing for me, oblivious to the fact the brazier is the point of my infatuation. I have to ask, would her eyes be as captivating without the play of the brazier’s glow? They would, indeed. They are the eyes of one who seeks, which is how she came to be called Anazit, short for anazititis, the Greek word for seeker. Little did her parents know though, upon the day of her baptism, that Anazit would grow up to be seriously short sighted. Karen FitzGerald Karen FitzGerald is a genre fluid writer whose works have been declined by some of America's most prestigious publishing houses. She is undaunted. ** "Emillie," aka “The Moth” Phalaena wasn’t her name, but rather a description of her body. Her visage, composed of taut muscle, long legs, and thin, wing-like arms had reminded some drunken, forgotten man of the Phylum Phalaena Moth. Now thumbtacked to this horrible moniker, she was forced to carry it. Moths are known to singe themselves to death flying too close to the flames of an open fire, and so the similarities continue: Emille’ has always sidled up close to that which threatened to destroy her, certain she had the upper hand. Her Grandmere’ used to say “Trop jeune pour savoir, trop vieux pour e’couter.” (Too young to know, too old to listen) Her eyes were also Lepidopteran, bulging disks of anxious pools that fairly jumped off of her face, a disturbance of coalescence, protubing like orbs foretelling a destiny which she loathes and yet seems powerless to change. Terrorized, Emillie’s eyes record no casual memories. Each day, she marks her calendar with a number: usually three, sometimes five, and on a lucky day, two. Today, this bloated, boozy homme de famille, (family man) this cochon, (pig) is number four. They were always the worst, those with wives and daughters, those with respectable jobs, pent-up anger pointing at her with half-mast swords. Oh! He was almost as ugly as she felt herself to be, with that despicable nickname, Phalaena, a genus of moth soon to be rendered obsolete. “What next” thought the moth, Flying too close to the flames As pretty fire danced. 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 Review, Poetry Quarterly, Haikuniverse, The Light Ekphrastic and Natural Awakenings, Atlanta, 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. ** Over Cigarettes and Orujo Even if Spain had fought, he would’ve been too fat old and rich to fight. So, he bragged about his bull days, and how he’d been nearly gored twice in Pamplona. She knew it was a lie. He didn’t need to impress her; he’d paid her for the entire evening. This wasn’t the life any mother dreamed of for her daughter. “Anna, you will go to school,” her mother said over cigarettes and orujo. Her mother was dead but not what she’d said. When Anna told the man, he laughed aloud. They were both drunk, and he wanted nothing but her body. She couldn’t do it sober she told the painter; so, he paid the man what he’d paid her, and they left hours after. Rain fell from black clouds, and that caked black paint ran down her face-- moths vanishing in the gas-lit street lamps. “Always look up, Anna,” her mother said, but never directly into the light.” Robert E. Ray Robert E. Ray is a retired public servant. His poetry has been published by Rattle, Beyond Words Literary Magazine, Wild Roof Journal, The Ekphrastic Review and in four poetry anthologies. Robert lives in coastal Georgia. ** You Can’t Always Get What You Want But you could talk to the blue-shadowed tablecloth and its red lamps bathing the evening glow. You could try to touch the woman’s arm, winglike, who is fatally attracted to fire. You could offer to pour her wine left in the bottle-- hopefully, not the troubled, passed-over sips of Spain. The gaze and graceful contours of a coterie. The glaze of look-up smiles and look-back glances. And if I could, I would act as the uninvited guest, which is not exactly acting, but pretending as a mysterious, swirling broth would from cabbage, turnips, and marrow bones while cooking cocido. A stock pot with cured meat ready for your purity. You could enjoy the clever, camouflage of a tuxedo—a suit flush of countershading—to look like a penguin, waterproofing feathers from a secret gland even though I know it’s hair oiled from a hidden bottle. You could forget that cologne face. You could dilate your eyes and not be escorted. You could find love, if not here, then as an embrace, gusts of awareness. Sing and pray. You can see towards heaven past the unfinished cathedral spires. You could try to unfasten her disorder. You can’t choose who sits at the table; her chair was the last available, or maybe you blundered in later. You can’t expect a teapot to pour. You can’t expect the sugar cubes to plop in the cup. The cigarette is a bad chimney. And if it’s troubling that more decades rumble by, you can still remember the dark brown fur of a moose roaming the thin, forest floor on an island in boyhood, and chocolate chips snuck from a crinkly bag when your mother wasn’t looking. That rock and roll song is burned into your skin, like your father’s voice, the semisweet, bluesy advice. You get what you need. The woman stares until she turns to you, her face aglow, she says: You wouldn’t understand. You know. You know before she flies away. John Milkereit John Milkereit resides in Houston, Texas working as a mechanical engineer and has completed a M.F.A. in Creative Writing at the Rainier Writing Workshop. His work has appeared in various literary journals including Naugatuck River Review, San Pedro River Review, and previous issues of The Ekphrastic Review. He has published two chapbooks (Pudding House Press) and three full-length collections of poems, including most recently, A Place Comfortable with Fire(Lamar University Literary Press). ** Hours After a Watermelon Sunrise This afternoon after leaving Hotel Regina, I plan a stop at Murillo Café for a late lunch. Outside under the cloth awning, I will order sesame crusted tuna which the server will deliver to a blue metal table where I am seated. Yesterday when I joined a guided tour at the Museo del Prado, intently studied Fioretti’s Phalasna, I tried to discern the reason for Madame’s annoyed expression, her martini glass almost empty, her cigarette still burning. While I stood mesmerized in front of that masterpiece, the museum guard stared attentively. I was unaffected by the scrutiny he was giving me as my mind played Ain’t Misbehavin’, that jazz hit of the Twenties, before I continued through the museum to observe other famous paintings by Greco, Goya and Rubens. Dr. Jim Brosnan Dr. Jim Brosnan’s first poetry and original photography collection, Nameless Roads, was traditionally published in 2019 (Moon Pie Press). He has had over 600 poems published in the United States, Ireland, Canada, Wales, India, Singapore, and the UK. Jim is a Pushcart nominee, a finalist in the Blue Light Chapbook Contest, and has won several awards in the National Federation of State Poetry Societies’ annual competitions, including a first place in 2021. Jim holds the rank of full professor in the English Department at Johnson & Wales University. drjimbrosnan.com ** I Dare You, Pretty Please I am the Ice Queen immune to the pins and pricks of your whimsical touch let me voodoo you with my torch Beware, would-be lover my fiery, frigid stare my raven eyes all aflicker like Icarus, your lust is my must Count to three, oh so slowly drawing in my finespun scent as I scatter smoke signals like Sirens yet be careful lest you choke Lean in a bit closer, dear and graze my pearly, lilac skin let my blood-orange inferno ignite your thirst from within Inhale deeply my bouquet, my love but not without a fee just try to dodge my silky lair I dare you, pretty please. 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. Although Ann Marie works as a high school English/Special Education teacher, she has a passion for writing poetry. She pens pieces about love and loss, and what she observes and experiences. The loss of her youngest son has deeply impacted her writing, which has been described as resiliently defiant. Having published more than 200 pieces on Medium.com, she was recently published in The Ekphrastic Review with her piece, “Every Lilly Donned with Grief.” When not writing or teaching, Ann Marie is an avid participant of Acro yoga aka Partner Acrobatics, where she can often be seen flying and hand-standing upside down just for kicks. ** False Attribution The lad’s soldier is marched out the door. The canvas is despatched. Prado! A Spanish flee. For, seeing the uninvited guest Concha’s contribution is censorious. And critical. Crucial. Crossroads warrant cross words. Are those fellows careless, carefree? Uncurating - present participle, supposedly unknown. Men canvassed are proved the majority view. Exhibitionism, as they exhibit women’s art. The latter (of course) fulfil their expected clichéd rôles - miniature decorators, seen fillers, scene as most chaps see them. Flighty moths of the night playing with fire? Are we observing how life has been and censuring ourselves? Are we observing how life has been but should censor ourselves? Who is careful? And what is fragile? Heterocera? Lepidoptera without butterfly wings? Or ego mindsets? Who should pull the cloth away and upend the table? To reiterate the past scenes more difficult than we thought, unless the iteration is reconfirmation. Phalaena - left over type, as classified. Collaborator, colluder, victim, survivor, at table with another uninvited guest? Not sharing a table. Who would want ruddy smoke in their eyes? Or see the mirrors already in other’s eyes? Pupils can be fast learners. False attribution is too easy by half. 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 published by on-line poetry sites, printed journals and anthologies, including The Ekphrastic Review. His blog is at https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com/ ** Indetermination She needs a plan should she decide to leave this scene no longer fun, this man who brought her here again, who let her long believe she could aspire to more than what she ought. Right now, she cannot even look at him, at anyone. How foolish she has been by acting moth-like on another’s whim, by serving as amusement now and then. He never will be more than what he is, base metal underneath a coat of gild. She holds a cigarette, not one of his; the empty glass beside her goes unfilled. She glowers since she wants to tip her chair, grab all belongings, head for some elsewhere. Jane Blanchard A native Virginian, Jane Blanchard lives and writes in Georgia. Her collections include Never Enough Already (2021) and Sooner or Later (2022). ** Moths at Midnight as jazz sways over decadent tables she holds my gaze, this painted lady wrapped in the drape and fold of wings nectar in glass, beads of possibility nestled in the scoop of her breast and shades of cyan bright in neon a man leans into the club cocoon his suited elbow angled in, eyes fixed on the splendid specimen centre right golden highlights in her hair, a glare transcending the flutter of moths winging the frame of femininity 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. ** Phalaena You think she’s looking at you, but she only sees the light reflected in your eyes; feels the moth’s attraction to the flame, expects it too will be the death of her. Thinks there are worse ways to go. Her protector has made yet another demand and she must decide how much more of herself she can afford to lose. The kohl collected below her lids─ how many times has he caused her to cry tonight? She stares at you as if you know, as if you are her last chance. It’s too intense, that look, and you blink back the image in your pupils of the moth singeing its wings in the fire. She shrugs and turns back to the man. The moth, its beauty seared the moment it swept into the spark, has an answer for her. Cheryl Snell Cheryl Snell's books include several poetry collections and the novels of her Bombay Trilogy. Her latest title is a series called Intricate Things in their Fringed Peripheries. Most recently her writing has appeared in Gone Lawn, Impspired, Necessary Fiction, Pure Slush, and other journals. A classical pianist, she lives in Maryland with her husband, a mathematical engineer. ** Phalena Torture listening to this boor. Boring beyond belief! Captain of all he surveys– or so he thinks. Arrogant ass. His disposition is like his cigar: difficult, smelly, entitled. He may buy champagne, but he will never own me. I am thin to his thick, wrapped in translucent wrap, drawn to the flame of drink, dining, music, dancing. If only he was not the reason I am here. Lynne Kemen Lynne Kemen lives in Upstate New York. Her chapbook, More Than a Handful was published in 2020. Her work is anthologized in Seeing Things (2020) and several others. She is published in Silver Birch Press, The Ravens Perch, Fresh Words Magazine, Spillwords, Topical Poetry, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, and Blue Mountain Review. Lynne stands on the Board of Bright Hill Press. She is an editor for the Blue Mountain Review and a lifetime member of The Southern Collective Experience. Her book of poetry will be published in 2023 by SCE. ** poetic exiles on the voyage out you’re a mean ol lady funned jimmy joyce virgin woolf roosted beside him in the temple bar looking over la seine like swiggers caught in the net your words are lead woolf growled glazed with guilt confused like you they amuse & bore joyce groused i prefer blondes in rooms of their own making tosh woolf howled at a waxing moon knurled fingers caressing cane’s carved phalaena moth obsolete lepidoptera aliens from dublin & london bred & dead same month same year they two flutter over the waves to finnegans lighthouse leaving no room for jesus Donna-Lee Smith Donna-Lee Smith, way back when Earth was blue (not alage green) and TV black and white, had a most-loved prof at Concordia University (Montreal): Michael Brian, a Joycean scholar. While gorging on Joyce, D-LS fattened her studies to include Woolf and Atwood. Answer me this fellow lovers of the smitten word: Why has Atwood not received the Nobel??? ** The Stare Serious, seductive, sensuous. Faux fragility betrayed by a sapphire stare. The evening ambiance no longer infused with swollen indifference. Bathed in a central glow, the architectural arch of your arms is ready to envelop. Voracious vigour, tempting and teasing, clothed in diaphanous distraction. The challenge of your glare declares a delicate passion that solicits satisfaction. Time and again, it is said, the moth flies to the flame. I become another statistic. Enticed then ensnared by nocturnal charm, the hubbub becomes peripheral, and all else is rendered redundant. Henry Bladon Henry is a poet, writer and mental health essayist based in Somerset in the UK. He has appeared previously in The Ekphrastic Review. ** Blue Butterfly Captured and categorized as a trophy to wealth and control netted as a prize along with fancy restaurants and big cigars; her wings are more beautiful when spread released from the blue smoke and lechery she stares with unveiled freedom out of the frame toward the eyes of the artist who lifting an eyebrow nods toward the exit and fragrant valley orchids. Daniel Brown Daniel Brown began writing poetry as a senior and is especially interested in ekphrastic poems and those with musical themes. He's been published in a variety of journals, has hosted a Youtube channel titled Poetry From Shooks Pond and at age 72 published his first collection, Family Portraits In Verse. through Epigraph Books, Rhinebeck NY. He can be contacted at danandlinnea@aol.com. ** Night Phoenix They have a name for girls like her, a name that sounds like some dead and rotting thing in the gutter. The dead and rotting thing in the gutter once had wings, its feathers scattered by the wind. The wind of passing limousines scattered her gaudy feathers, spattered her painted face with mud. She caked the paint thick as mud to hide the dirt she felt the world must see, the dead eyes, because the world sees only dead eyes in girls like her, never the wings torn from magazines to escape a prison. If only wings of strass and gauze could change a world, beat high and bold, carry lost girls somewhere bright. All hearts with beating feather-wings belong in the shining blue. They have a name for girls like her, Phoenix birds. Jane Dougherty Jane Dougherty lives and works in southwest France. A Pushcart Prize nominee, her poems and stories have been published in magazines and journals including Ogham Stone, The Ekphrastic Review, Black Bough Poetry, ink sweat and tears, Gleam, Nightingale & Sparrow, Green Ink and Brilliant Flash Fiction. She blogs at https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/ Her poetry chapbooks, thicker than water and birds and other feathers were published in October and November 2020. 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 Solitude, by Alexander Harrison. Deadline is July 21, 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 HARRISON 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, July 21, 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. Join our second annual ekphrastic marathon! Click here or on image for details. Alternative options available for those who can't make the date.
It Happened on a Monday I was fiddling by the pond when a mosquito hawk (aka dragon fly) appeared on my shirt. Her long body was mostly neon blue and her wingsspangling gossamer. She stayed on my sleeve (white, her favourite) while I slipped into my kayak. I was amused and delighted, but I wondered what the neighbours might think. They smiled, admiring my gaudy bauble. ‘It’s not my mosquito hawk,’ I called out. ‘I’m just taking her for a spin around the pond.’ ‘When will it be my turn?’ asked Sally. (She’s 7 with pig tails.) ‘Soon,’ I said. ‘Be patient,’ I advised. I feathered on with the mosquito hawk,her claws grabbing the weave of my shirt. She tilted her bulbous eyes towards me, and we wondered what we might have for dinner. Donna-Lee Smith With nod, wink, and gratitude to James Tate. Donna-Lee Smith spends halcyon summer days in her kayak exploring pond life in the Laurentian hills north of Montreal. She has long admired the dragon fly for its prodigious eating habits (consumes hundreds of mosquitos, on a good day) and for its flying abilities (zooms up to 30 miles perhour). ** Why I’m Sitting in a French Jail Cell Of course, Giverny was at the top of my list on my first trip to France. Since childhood, Monet has been my favourite artist. But lately I’ve longed to go back, test my new scheme. It all started when museum curators began x-raying Monet paintings to see what was lurking in those first layers of paint. He despised showing a canvas before it was finished, and unfortunately felt many paintings were never complete. Only he knew what hid below the water’s surface. One painting of wisteria disclosed a water lily underneath. Frugal, but was there more to find? I began wondering what was under the real pond, even dreamed about it– crazy, crazy dreams. Surely Atlantis wasn’t there! But could there be sealed vaults, hidden bodies, or something only Monet would think of to enhance the reflection of sky and light? I became obsessed with being the first tourist, maybe first American, to know what was at the bottom of the pond. (Of course, I couldn’t tell my husband my plan.) Every autumn trip to France has an overcast or drizzly day, so I insisted we go to Giverny then, when we could have more of the garden to ourselves. I faked a trip to les toilettes, while my husband was looking through postcards. Rushed back to the pond, didn’t think anyone was watching. I bent over first, taking a photo of a lily, then pretended to trip and fall in. I guess it would have been more convincing if I had splashed about and yelled, but I told the police I was too embarrassed to cry for help. It wasn’t that deep, and I knew I couldn’t drown (well, thought I wouldn’t. Who knows if I’d get caught in roots or hoses or whatever they’ve installed to keep the pond looking so clean). Unfortunately, a drizzly day didn’t give me much light to see underwater. Plus some kid had to announce, “Mom, there’s an old lady in the water. Can I jump in, too?” Now I’m shivering even in a blanket, sitting on a jail cot. I’m not officially under arrest, but they’re bringing in a doctor to check my condition. My husband will probably back up my story that I really am visually impaired and clumsy enough to fall in. At least I hope he buys my story. Alarie Tennille Alarie Tennille was a pioneer coed at the University of Virginia, where she earned her degree in English, Phi Beta Kappa key, and black belt in Feminism. Alarie received the first editor’s choice Fantastic Ekphrastic Award from The Ekphrastic Review, and in 2022, her latest book, Three A.M. at the Museum, was named Director’s Pick for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art gift shop.[alariepoet.com ] ** The Water Lily Pond Light, natural light across his painting. An aliveness, once in a century. Pink Japanese lilies long dead. It's different in France, it's true, my friend France Marie nods. She says twue, stabbing her cigarette in my face. My eyes burn. Everything is better there− the light, the colours. Surely, she exaggerates. I mentally roll my eyes. France Marie was right about France! Monet was right about the colours. Blues and greens match trees and lilies. That balletic Japanese bridge. I'm afraid that I've become a bit obsessed, Lilies ordered. As much time gardening and caring for them as painting. It feels possible to walk into that painting. Something slows the breath, soothes the eye. Soft wind, bobbing lily pads. Grasses hissing. Shadows swaying in a slow waltz. Did it settle Monet's eyes? Cataracts were beginning. There is a hazy glow to his paintings. Images of the same scene a few years later blues gone muddy, reds replace pastels. Lynne Kemen Lynne Kemen lives in Upstate New York. Her chapbook, More Than a Handful, was published in 2020. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in La Presa, Silver Birch Press, The Ravens Perch, Fresh Words Magazine, Topical Poetry, The Ekphrastic Review, and Blue Mountain Review. She is an editor for The Blue Mountain Review and The Southern Collective Experience in Atlanta, Georgia. SCE will publish Shoes for Lucy in the fall. She is the Interim President of Bright Hill Press in Treadwell, New York. ** Bridge I linger at the blue-green rail wondering whether to wander into the weep of willows or remain, as the artist did, studying waterlilies. Buoyant as the green pads then pulled down to the muddy roots. Entanglements. I want to stand mid-way. To pause between life’s question marks, free of the world of complications, the who’s and where’s and why’s. I want to bask in the rainbow of greens at the pond’s edge, to reimagine Monet’s cottage garden wild with sunflowers. Sandi Stromberg Sandi Stromberg has been nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize and twice for Best of the Net. Her full-length poetry collection Frogs Don't Sing Red was released by Kelsay Books in April 2023. Widely published in small literary journals and anthologies, she recently joined the editorial staff of The Ekphrastic Review. Her poetry has also been translated into Dutch and published in Brabant Cultureel in the Netherlands. ** The Water Lily Pond Minnows. Mussels. Snails. Water striders. Dragonflies. Feast fit for a frog. Teri M. Brown Born in Athens, Greece as an Air Force brat, Teri M. Brown now calls the North Carolina coast home. In 2020, she and her husband, Bruce, rode a tandem bicycle across the United States from Astoria, Oregon to Washington DC, successfully raising money for Toys for Tots. Teri’s debut novel, Sunflowers Beneath the Snow, is a historical fiction set in Ukraine, and her second novel, An Enemy Like Me, is set in WWII. Learn more at www.terimbrown.com. ** en plein air I am on my back in the water, arms spread wide, my hair floating around me like a halo. Lily pads cover my breasts and pubis areas. Frogs and turtles climb up the palms of my hands and on to my arms to sun themselves. I feel the sun on my face and I close my eyes. Rushes and cattails act as a barrier between me and the shore; muskrats weave in and out looking to steal loon eggs. An otter chatters nearby. The loons cry, wailing at the muskrats, chasing them until the muskrats disappear among the grasses to their underwater homes. The trees rustle in the wind, the voices of the gods are calling to me. My eyes remain closed but I can feel myself slowly float around the pond. The sun is no longer on my face and it is too early for night so I guess, correctly, I am under the Japanese bridge. I hear lovers laugh as they walk across the Japanese bridge, oohing at the frogs and turtles, and throwing rocks into the river to watch the water ripple. She comments they can see the bottom and laughs when she sees a school of fish dart by. She dares him to jump in. He scoffs and she continues to taunt him. I hear the sound of shoes hitting the bridge and then she calls it off, saying she was only joking. His voice sounds relieved as he puts his shoes back on. They cannot see me. I continue to listen. I hear the creak of the wood as they continue on, their voices getting more distant until finally I cannot hear anything but the croak of the frogs, the wailing from the loons, and the sound of water lapping at my ears. I think about where I have been and where I want to go. Do I enjoy myself at the pond? The water is clear, the flora and fauna protect and entertain me. The Japanese bridge is sturdy across the pond, painted blue and greens to blend in with the wetlands. I wiggle my toes. I feel the lily pads drift across my body, moving from their secret places and exposing me to the elements. I float from under the bridge to the centre of the pond. The sun no longer warms my face. My eyes open and squint up to the sky, looking for the sun but the sun is going down now. In the places between the trees, I can see the reds and oranges as the sun dips away from me. As the sun descends behind the trees, I can hear the wildlife in the woods starting to stir. Soon, does and stags will come to the pond to drink their nightly fill. The muskrats, convinced the loons are gone, will come out of their darkened underwater homes, noses twitching as they swim to the cattails to eat. One eyes a water lily near my head and starts to hesitantly swim towards me but stops, gives a stony glare, and goes back the other way. The moon has risen and moonlight penetrates the waterbody and the world beneath the water comes alive. I can feel a school of fish as they pass the underside of my body. The frogs and turtles have left me, and are camped out on the logs that dot the wetlands. I hear geese honk as they fly south. Soon it will be winter but I am not cold and the water remains warm. I do not know how long I’ve been in the pond. Years maybe? I have no concept of how time passes, I just watch the sun and the moon rise and fall. The seasons come and go but the sun always warms me and the flora and fauna delight me. I breathe. I am alive. Scarlet MacKenzie Scarlet MacKenzie (she/they) is many things and mainly keeps herself together with the internet, dark chocolate, and coffee. Based in Northern Michigan, Scarlet is fond of the gods in the trees and the water that surrounds her. Her favourite Darcy is Matthew Macfadyen. She is @msscarletwrites and https://msscarletwrites.online. ** impulsive thoughts on the lily pond bridge i hear the crash that disturbs the peace. feel my toes squish into the soft. see the whimsy of the lily blossoms while I stand there, those joyful blooms, a pink oasis in the green. they open like my heart. after the water settles, i see small ripples from the movement of me, my breathing & beating blood; & from insects skating on the surface, a turtle swimming to a sunning spot, a frog calling for a mate. i hear the buzzing chirping singing of the critters, cicadas from the treeline, the shushing of willow leaves, & the sighing of the breeze, my body is baptized by the muddied water of my landing & the smell of wet decay. when the peace returns i’ll be part of it, a participant of the present, another joyful bloom. Cara Morgan Cara Morgan (they/them) is a disabled, queer, neurodivergent poet and artist from rural Maine. They host a music and poetry podcast on Spotify called the sunshine lounge and virtual poetry workshops for traditionally marginalized voices to make art. They are passionate about their cats, cool rocks, making playlists, funky earrings, and supporting other creatives. Their debut chapbook collection, Dear Diseased Body, is available now through Bottlecap Press. ** Breaks in the Lilies Because I couldn’t paint or write about it I fished the scattered breaks in the lilies. The pine planks rattled as children ran back & forth to and from two moms, two dads, an old man smoking at a picnic table; pappy a little girl with ginger pigtails called him, his grin like a minute crack in a glass of whiskey, thin & crooked, uncertain how long it might spread or break and free it- self, the crows and bullfrogs carrying on too far and quick for the children to catch the fish, too, for an old man with a worm. Robert E. Ray Robert E. Ray is a retired public servant. His poetry has been published by Rattle, Beyond Words Literary Magazine, Wild Roof Journal, The Ekphrastic Review and in four poetry anthologies. Robert lives in coastal Georgia. ** desolate feelings of azure, sapphire, avocado, jade, and callow mixing in water filling the canvas the brushed leaves of willows, ferns, petals cerulean, flushed, and cherry squint and the colors wash together under the bridge that moves from its two-dimensional space into a three-dimensional contemplation hanging over Monet’s Pond for surely it is his now after so many have seen it the way he did—the arc of the bridge, the glint of light from the sun, the mirror of water between rafts of lilies under the silenced wind, a slight rain, and the soft peeping of birds Anne Graue Anne Graue (she/her) is the author of Full and Plum-Colored Velvet, (Woodley Press) and Fig Tree in Winter (Dancing Girl Press). Her work appears in Gargoyle, Verse Daily, Feral: A Journal of Poetry and Art, SWWIM Every Day, EcoTheo Review, and in The Book of Donuts (Terrapin Books) and Coffee Poems (World Enough Writers). She is a poetry editor for The Westchester Review and for The Nimrod International Journal of Prose and Poetry. ** One of These Days We’ll walk andante this cerulean afternoon pick a spot with panoramic view amid the jazz of birdsong the gentling hum of summer. I may stand a while bare-shouldered on the bridge of sighs wait for you to reach my side. The minutes will melt like honey the hours will roll, as the bliss of earned rest after labours well done. We’ll bring food and wine we’ll bring our good muscles, our time flowing unscripted like stepping-stones across the lilied waters, and we’ll stay until the blueness of dusk is a falling tenderness all about us. 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, Messy Misfits Club, Unlost Journal, 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 ** A Bilingual Tanka in Irish and English dánta scaipthe ina nduilleoga báite bruscar lúcháireach! tá cigirí ón mbardas sa tóir ar an té a chum like water lilies poems are scattered here and there ecstatic litter! municipal inspectors are looking for the culprit Gabriel Rosenstock Gabriel Rosenstock is a bilingual poet, tankaist, haikuist, translator and novelist. Many of his books, for adults and children, are free: gabriel rosenstock | edocr Gabriel Rosenstock - Free Kids Books ** Quietude Moments of silence On gently arched bridge Noonday sun kisses pond; Egrets who fed early morning gone Till dusk when insects bring fish to Water’s surface, cicadas buzz their call All creatures lift heads in unison wonder, Turn heads toward this still water Ever calm, lilies blush pink against dark Reflection, green pads and fronds, Willow Leaves brush the ground, teasingly close I stand perfectly still, taking in the painting Languishing in a moment, frozen in time Years fade away, it’s just the now Poignant, poetic scene written about Over this empty bridge, these lilies Never seem to change, the portrait Does not diminish this quietude Julie A. Dickson Julie A. Dickson loves writing, and when given a prompt, all the better. Her poetry appears in over 65 journals, including Misfit, Masticadores, Open Door and The Ekphrastic Review. Dickson holds a BPS in Behavioral Science, has served on two poetry boards, as a guest editor on several publications and has full length works available on Amazon. Julie advocates for captive elephants and feral cats. ** The Lilies and the Pond The magnificence of the wild world overwhelms and inspires me. The water lilies seem to bathe as an exotic in love. They create a seductive dance in silent beauty. I am overcome and get lost in the mystery of it all. The dance of the foliage and the water. My brush paints without my help. My canvas is my soul and paints by command. These little dots are my heart and I live only to paint. To create is to live. I am amazed that my hand moves without my command. Green is the color of life,of earth, of birth. It transcends the agony of the every day. It justifies my life - it is why I was born. To give birth to a forest of trees and foliage that will live forever. And constantly renew itself. Born again each year. Sandy Rochelle Sandy Rochelle is an award winning poet, actress and filmmaker. She is the recipient of the President's Award for Literature. And appeared on Broadway with the Acting Company of Lincoln Center. Sandy is a Voting Member of the Recording Academy in the Spoken Word Category. ** What I Would Like to Ask Monet We arrived at Giverny, in early April, just after a cleansing rain but long before the pond’s lilies would awaken. The bridge, unlike this most famous of his renditions, was bereft of vines. The brown, brackish pond water was simply a holding place for green lily pads that floated like lonely ships, waiting for their buds, floral cargo to awaken. I should have realized there would be no expanse of lilies, summer flowers, in early spring, yet, Monet had not prepared me for this view. He painted the pond and footbridge eighteen times, several versions even when the lilies slept, in autumn. Yet not this view. And I wondered why. My visit was almost a hundred years too late to ask him, so instead I turned to the hens in the side yard to ask my question. I guessed these were descendants of the original clutch of egg layers and so perhaps, since he loved their eggs for breakfast, their ancestors might have overheard his reasons and passed on their knowledge. Clucking at me angrily, these tawny reds declined to answer. Did they not know the answer? Or did they disdain the question, still annoyed with Monet for relegating them to a side yard, for not painting them, although his breakfast table profited daily from their fresh eggs. I sauntered back to the bridge and back to the viewing spot where Monet set up his canvas. Breathing in deeply, I imagined the scents of the wonderful flowers that were not yet in bloom, Glad for the painting, I mentally imagined it as it was when he painted that scene as I know it best. I had no answers, but then again, answers are not everything. It is in wondering, admiring and in questioning that our spirit grows. Joan Leotta Joan Leotta plays with words on page and stage. She performs and writes tales featuring food, family, and strong women. Internationally published, she’s a 2021, 2022 Pushcart nominee, Best of the Net Nominee, and 2022 runner-up, Robert Frost Competition. Recent publications include MacQueen’s Quinterly, Last Leaves, Verse Virtual, and Gargoyle. Her new chapbook, Feathers on Stone is published by Main Street Rag. ** Crossing the Beautiful Arch What I see when I view the bridge: I see the woman’s face, she who fought the painful Battle against cancer, and is fighting still Her face melding with others’ My child is Purity. She enters the room And renders her grace, her innocence so Sweet it stabs my heart. Resplendent visage-- So serene Looking again, I see no-longer-agile Grandpapa Peering into his future, wanting to know how his eight Grandchildren are faring, inquiring of them If he’s yet alive Again, I consider the arch; there I spy my own Grandmother, walking slowly across, slightly bent, Clutching the railing, and smiling Assured, she’ll see loved ones anon; she’d known Her stay in Hopehill Residence was duly Temporary, its length of days designed by God, But still-- My grandmother settles in; she has work To do. What does the singing have to do With lilies in a pond? How does beauty relieve? It does Carole Mertz Carole Mertz writes in Parma, Ohio. She is Poetry Editor of Ocotillo Review. www.carolemertz.com ** I Met You on a Journey You took my hand on the bridge, fed me morsels of poetry, made me hungry for more-- words filled my empty spaces. Unsure of intentions, searching for inspiration, you nourished my hopes, suggested passages to new places. You read aloud luscious lines, phrases sang and flowed together prompting us to bake fruited muffins filled with sweetness by design. Your art was whimsical-- tempting me to mimic the style of patterns, colours, and circles like a vibrant parade marching by. You shared nuggets of your craft, I need only follow your map. Insecurities at bay, I continue onward knowing I, too, have something to say. Lois Perch Villemaire Lois Perch Villemaire writes poetry, flash memoir and fiction. Her work has appeared in such places as Blue Mountain Review, The Ekphrastic Review, One Art: A Journal of Poetry, Pen In Hand and Topical Poetry. Anthologies, including I Am My Father’s Daughter and Truth Serum Press - Lifespan Series have published her memoir and poetry. Originally from the Philadelphia area, Lois lives in Annapolis, MD, where she enjoys yoga, researching family connections, fun photography, and doting over her African violets. ** Abridged She was supposed to be like everyone else, crossing the bridge at the exact right time, cheerleader hair semi-neatly swept upwards, thick thighs covered in Lululemon. An artist, creator of winsome disarray, time skewed, sometimes too early, and often embarrassed about being late. A huge canvas to muddle through, that lively, feckless brain, shooting messages in multiple directions, all leading away from the bridge and toward heedless abandon, although her intentions were good. Always good, be a good girl, wash your hair, just put it up, you’re young, your face will carry until, finally, that million-dollar smile quit working its charm, the oven was too hot, she baked too close to the heat, the kiln failed the clay and today, the most significant day so far, her friends line the bridge like so many similar frosted cakes, perfectly cool, just waiting to be eaten, waiting to take a bite as well, ravenously hungry like her, but unlike her, they will all ascend the bridge, together. No one says her name. Spotless line of girls Caps and gowns sunlight-shimmer Cross over to new life Debbie Walker-Lass Debbie Walker-Lass is a poet, collage artist, and writer living in Decatur, Georgia. Her work has appeared in several journals and magazines, including The Ekphrastic Review, Poetry Quarterly, Haikuniverse, The Light Ekphrastic and Natural Awakenings, Atlanta, among others. She has recently read live for The Poet’s Corner. When not creating, she can be found beachcombing on Tybee Island or hanging out with her husband, Burt, and dog, Maddie. Kind greetings to all ekphrastic poets! ** In the Round I stood on this bridge daily not knowing whether the lilies were themselves or a reflection all their colours blend, mingling with reeds, water and sky, green dominating, flecked with pink my impressions and painterly skill combined to inspire my gift to a nation weary of war of my sanctuary's lasting peace to line Parisian gallery walls and celebrate an armistice that could not hold, but my work "a wave with no horizon, no shore" would survive future conflicts I thought to preserve my vision not knowing the garden itself would be maintained as it was and many more admirers pass across the arched bridge, making images in seconds, that took me years Adrienne Stevenson Adrienne Stevenson lives in Ottawa, Canada. A retired forensic scientist, she writes poetry and prose. Her work has appeared in over sixty print and online journals and anthologies in Canada, USA, UK, Europe, India, and Australia. Adrienne is an avid gardener, voracious reader, and sometime folk musician. ** Surprises within the ordinary day. We wait each morning at the bridge, just to the left ‑ the side where the willow fronds slide across my skin in the early morning light, just barely a tickle, but a wakening call to the morning. Each day starts this way. Coffee in hand and the crumb of croissant an ant’s delight when it fumbles and bounces its way down to the lily pads, their pinkish petals tinged with a shading of pale grey, like an artist had shyly blended his oily palette. A silence above the frogs’ landing ports, below the murkiness hiding the busyness of fish of golden and yellow and orange, hiding and darting amongst the tangle and twists of stalks and decaying, yellowing leaves. When the sun rises just enough to show white the stretched arms of the bridge we walk slowly around the edge of the pond. We don’t speak, we step neatly in unison, our laced shoes matching, our steps and strides a metrical pattern. We like the routine, we like the silence, we like the day revealing the leftovers of the night’s rhythm and thrumming hum. Its secrets sometimes revealed as we watch. A quieter hush occasionally falls as we pass into shadows, the coolness of the draped willows hide our private journey and discoveries, the secret surprises. Those things we didn’t expect or rely upon, but welcome as an arc of change amidst our routine. Perhaps the delights of a new routine would be revealed beside the lily pads and golden fishes. Dankness sometimes sullies the edges of our pink suede shoes, tainting them like the day is not as pure as our shoes expected. Mud squeezes up over the edge, like icing squeezing from between the sweet pastries that we see in dainty shops way beyond the bridge. We sometimes find coins or tossed cigarettes or the trickle within an amber glass bottle. One day we found a blue bottle and the sunlight spun a thousand stories around the bevelled edge of the rim. Today we found the tips of fingers laced around the lily pad, the ones with pinkish petals, blended with grey. The fingers were blue grey much like the lily’s petals, but a cold blue with delicate veins showing through the waxy skin. The nails spoke a contrast with their proud bold scarlet, a jagged statement amongst the greens and grey, and pinkish white. One finger swollen and bloated boasted a sapphire ring gleaming just below the surface of the murky pond, it was tucked slightly beneath a lily pad, barely visible except for the bright blue glint as the goldfishes brushed past, their contrast pretty and pleasant. A welcome highlight in our daily routine, hiding secretly maybe awaiting our glow of appreciation, that bloated hand hidden in the shadows of the day, not quite bold enough to claw into the sunlight beyond the shade of the graceful willow tree. Perhaps that will happen tomorrow when we come by with our coffee and croissants and our cleaned pink suede shoes. Julie Rysdale Julie Rysdale: "For a lifetime, I taught English to secondary school students. I recently reflected that the students had also been teaching me about writing, so I am having another crack at it. I especially enjoy playing with words to paint a poetic picture." ** Studies of The Water Lilies One water lily is not a garden, but a beginning. Yet one can be two: the act, and the reflection of the act. Nor is the lily the pond, though its world is water and its life is the pond, liminals of small water, shore a rim reflected in sky as sky is reflected in water. To study the water lily is to study life itself-- its depths unseen, wavering, yet anchoring all that is above, connect earth to sky through the translucences of light. Two, three, and more, hovering letting sun become roots, roots become pads drifting, yet never leaving their boundaries making of a corner of darkness, opalescent light. Shimmering surfaces touch the edges of each lily until each a mirror of the other, yet each alone a palm gently holding effusive petals, mesmery. Shore fronds may overreach, green small bridges mimicking a bridge above, yet they will never be free from the shore, will envy the lily its lithe existence. The lilies float, catch a fair Dragon Fly that barely makes the lily pad shiver. The kaleidoscope in the eye of this gentle visitor mimics too the coolness: viridescent trees nodding above all. One could study the water lilies a lifetime patterns without repetitions echoes without ceasing. Le Bassin aux Nymphe'as defying boundaries each a foreshadowing of the next. Carol Lee Saffioti-Hughes Carol Lee Saffioti-Hughes is a professor Emerita of the University of Wisconsin System and a former librarian in a log cabin library in the north woods of Wisconsin, USA. A nominee for the Pushcart Prize for her poem, "Plein Air," her work has appeared in journals including The San Antonio Review, Dos Gatos Press, The Greensboro Review, Ekphrastic Review, Poetry Hall, Moss Piglet, The Awakenings Review, among many others. The Root River Voices anthologies contain her poems; she is also found in the anthology, Unsettling America, published by Penguin Books, New York, and is a prize winner in the 2023 Rosebud poetry competition. Also, she is a member of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets, the Root River Poets and the Spectrum School of the Arts and Gallery in Racine. Her most recent chapbook, When Wilding Returns, is available from Cyberwit Press and elsewhere online. ** the bridge of memories I remember the last time you crossed the bridge of memories, all was green and bright and fun, giggling as you ran, the sweetest song My heart skipped a beat by the river’s edge yet you rose like the sun running up the arched back of the water dragon, its skeletal form spanned the silence below Gripping it’s spine like a handrail you climbed onto its ribs such was the dare within you, such was the want of your heroic heart We looked into the broken mirror you saw flowers in your mother’s hair, you said you wanted to stroke the water as the willow with its long, elegant fingers The air hummed with honeybees and dripped with sickly sweet perfume and my hands were poised to catch you, yet you just opened you wings and flew Andy Eycott Andy lives and works south of the Thames in Southeast London. His work has been published in various print and online magazines and anthologies such as, Obsessed with Pipework, Sarasvati, Marble, Ink Drinkers, Green Ink, Spillwords, Oddball, Shot Glass, Southlight, The Dawntreader, Networds and The Ekphrastic Review. ** Odonata Sonata Time swarms just as I do, With my many friends and my many lovers On the pond, reaping spring’s harvest. “What do you know of life’s dolour?” He asks. Time swarms slowly and lazily, A bright and cumbrous shadow of the sun Hangs atop the deep blue, the deeper green. An afternoon stretched out like a silk scarf Painted in colours of blushing cheeks and Dancing girls and soft-soled men with sinewy limbs. It dips it toes in the floating bed of flowers Resting its feet on top of pillows of glassy water. Time is what looks me in the eye -- And asks me to choose myself. I choose to cling to his body, holding on. Lest I drown. Soon at the lake of foliage and insect song. Its waters still yet alive and buzzing Thousand screaming dragonflies Sucking pink nectar. Their wings silver, Their bellies swollen with want for more. They hunger like men, the flowers seduce Like women. I, who is neither, or everything at once, Want for nothing — at the moment. Here is a father, pushing me gentle (into the crushed green silk of the lake), holding me soft (water swims up my nose, it fills my eyes; I let out a sob) It hits you before you know it has. An unseen apricity, a hurrying aggression but Who could blame such rush? He soon gets up from the grasp Of water, all golden-brown and muscled An Apollon shining against the lucent sky. Quiet yet obstreperous, almost too much so. I sense that I have failed him somehow today. Later in the day, the dragonflies feast On my cheeks now flushed from the Vernal sun, the pond is all cornflower Blues sprinkled with splotches of Soft water-lilies. Drops of water cling To the petals. They are afraid to let go, Afraid to drown, holding on For dear life. Upasana Mitter A poet, writer and acrylic/oils/mixed-media artist, Upasana Mitter pursues a degree in Sociology from Calcutta University and resides in West Bengal, India. She occasionally sits down at a keyboard and lets herself go for a little too long. You can find her painting away her graceless inner turmoils on Instagram @rumpelstilskin1693. Her writing has previously appeared or forthcoming in The Ekphrastic Review and The Tiger Moth Review. ** Every Lily Donned with Grief With every deft stroke of the brush, Claude Monet must have felt closer to the God in which he didn’t believe — reinventing his life on canvas — refracting light, channeling reparations, playing hopscotch atop water lilies with oils, composing 250 times, but never quite getting it right the burning aura of cataracts limiting light, altering his perception before banning the browns, dousing the earth tones, and finally annihilating the inky tones in favor of the baby blues and aquamarines — his indigo soul eclipsing the royal hues of sapphire as he hurled himself off a bridge and into the Seine — but life could not be eradicated like the swipe of his hues, so the humble river cast him back — tempting fate in his redo of life — every lily donned with grief — proliferating with each heartbreak — first Camille, then Alice, and finally his firstborn son, Jean, to which the loss of his wives paled blue in comparison — hoping to change fate with every deft stroke of the brush, Monet tried to get closer to God — closer to the God in which he hoped to believe. Ann Marie Steele Ann Marie Steele, who resides in Charlotte, NC, America, is a writer who dabs in poetry, as well as some essays and short stories. She holds a BS in Journalism (News-Editorial), and an MA in Secondary English Education. Although Ann Marie works as a high school English/Special Education teacher, she has a flair for writing poetry. She pens poetry about love and loss, and what she observes and experiences. Her writing has been described as resiliently defiant. Having published more than 200 pieces on Medium.com, she has quite recently reached the sought-after 1K follower milestone. When not writing or teaching, Ann Marie is an avid participant of Acro yoga aka Partner Acrobatics, where she can often be seen flying and hand-standing upside down just for kicks. ** The Book of Miracles (part 1) It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, my mother said. I thought it looked like the Garden of Eden or Heaven, maybe. Then I noticed something glowing. My mother went on to describe a woman. And she wasn’t standing on the bridge but floating just above it, with bare feet, my mother said, emphatically. Imagine that! Shoes were a big deal to my mother who grew up during the Great Depression and had to share a single pair of shoes with one of her sisters. The idea that someone would go barefoot by choice was foreign to her, more foreign, apparently, than a woman hovering in the air, giving off a green light though she was dressed almost entirely in blue. I was rapt in part because my mother was not the storyteller in our family. She continued, describing in detail a weeping willow leaning into a pond, the surface of which was covered in lily pads. A bridge she had never seen, later identified as Japanese in style, arching over the water, looking as if it had all always been there, smack in the middle of Norwood Avenue. It was late afternoon, she explained, I was walking home late from school and suddenly the sky was dark and nothing looked familiar. I thought it was a tornado maybe, but when I looked around me, everything was still and green. In other reported and/or verified Marian sightings, the Virgin Mary appeared near a grotto, a cave, a fountain, etc., but never a bridge. This would have happened at the end of the Golden Age of Marian Sightings (1830-1933). In my mother’s case no promises were made and Mary had no political message like the ones she delivered to Mary Ann Van Hoof of Nacedah, Wisconsin in 1949(1). There were no directives, no medals ordered to be worn by the devoted. In fact, when my mother saw the Virgin Mary, neither of them spoke at all. Were you lost? I asked. No, not really, my mother said, but yes, I guess I was. If you know what I mean? I did not know what she meant, but I nodded. This was how our relationship worked. I knew she needed someone to understand, deeply. And I had always been convincing with thoughtful facial expressions that suggested an intelligence I didn’t possess. It is almost 6:00 when the hospital calls and the sky is beginning to darken. We can get you in to see your mother, the nurse says. You’ll have to sign in at reception and someone will meet you to help you get ready. You’ll have one hour. I thank her and grab my coat and the one thing I think my mother would want: her icon of the Virgin Mary. While my father prayed nightly to God standing in his boxers and t-shirt, my mother was a bit of a religious rebel in that she prayed directly to Mary. In terms of Mary, according to the church: venerate, okay, but worship, no. It sounds like semantics to me, but pray was my mother’s word, not mine. I don’t know exactly what she was praying for. I never asked. My mother’s life was not what anyone would call blessed, which made me wonder: What if the important part of my mother’s vision was not the Virgin Mary, but the bridge? It occurred to me that I had seen this bridge, or one very much like it, similar in style if not colour. I was not in any state of ecstasy or in a trance; I was simply out walking and I wasn’t lost. I was in the woods behind my house. I had gone so far as to cross the railroad tracks and there was a small opening in the brush and I followed the thin, but unmistakable path to a pocket in the forest. When I looked across the small clearing I saw a bridge. It never occurred to me to cross it. It was just beautiful. Breath-taking, really. The bright-white simplicity of it and the surprise of finding it where I did was enough. It never glowed or changed color and I never saw any kind of apparition hovering around it. No words of advice or messages popped into my head upon seeing it. Could it be that it just was? And I just was? Could that be explanation enough? My mother isn’t awake when I arrive which is okay because I’m not at the hospital for a visit. I’m here to help her cross over. She has been lingering for days. You and me, we’re good. I know you did the best you could. I say. And now you can rest. I place the small icon next to her. I brought Mary. Can you see her? Can you take her hand? When I leave the hospital it is nightfall. I go home and cook dinner for my kids. My husband and I watch some t.v. and get ready for bed. The whole time, I’m waiting for the phone to ring. At 12:01 a.m.the hospital calls again and I hear the now familiar voice of the nurse: I’m sorry to tell you… In the years since my mother’s death what I have come to realize is that the important thing was not the green bridge from my mother’s sighting or the white bridge seen on my walk, it was not even the appearance of the Virgin Mary. It was the story she told me. The story was an invitation, clumsily delivered and something I never felt called to respond to. But more and more I find myself wondering, what if I hadn’t been blind, but instead courageous enough to admit I didn’t understand and ask the difficult questions: What kind of lost were you? Why didn’t anyone help? Were you tempted to dip your toes in the green pond water even for a moment? Crystal Karlberg 1 Hogan, Susan. “‘Pray and pray hard’: When 100,000 waited to see the Virgin Mary on a Wisconsin farm.” The Washington Post (August 28, 2018). Crystal Karlberg is a Library Assistant at her local public library and a speaker for Greater Boston PFLAG. ** To Claude Monet Regarding The Water Lily Pond Your brush it seems can bridge the sensed and seen, the heavy humid air not quite a haze, the sun, though distant, present as the sheen that mirrors and electrifies your gaze at patience and precision of your hand that's wrought -- with love -- maturely bloomed design in colors you had studied to command soft harmonies that nature could enshrine as solitude begetting only sound of symphony an enclave would admit as industry befitting sacred ground consoling those, who weary of their wit, would contemplate the wisdom of your pond as witness here and now to their beyond. 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. ** I've Never Been to Giverny Susan Barry-Schulz
Susan Barry-Schulz grew up just outside of Buffalo, New York. She is a physical therapist living with chronic illness. Her poetry has appeared in SWWIM, Barrelhouse online, Bending Genre, Iron Horse Literary Review, West Trestle Review and in other print and online journals and anthologies. 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 Phalaena, by Carlos Verger Fioretti. Deadline is July 7, 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 FIORETTI 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, July 7, 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. 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. Join our second annual ekphrastic marathon! Click here or on image for details. Alternative options available for those who can't make the date.
Dear Ekphrastic Challengees, Thank you all so much for submitting your top-tier pieces to The Ekphrastic Review; as in: to the art of Jennifer Angus this time. I have read and re-read your words with great joy and admiration. This was a fascinating challenge, and selecting pieces for publication was a tough task indeed. I hope you will enjoy reading the compilation. Hurrah for each and every writer, for The Ekphrastic Review and for The Wonderful Lorette! Congratulations to all, go well, Kate Copeland ** Fine Dining Fellow Woodlanders be seated! The hard work is done, the best china set out, the heads have rolled and now we are ready to eat the rest giving thanks and gratitude for what we are about to receive. So fear not let us enjoy our feast no one is there to watch us eat. All the rest are just dead meat. 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/ ** Feast of the Masses commences this fine evening humans long departed, we dine! we the hunted starving – will partake a feast of the masses table laden unfamiliar plates, dishes lain, we dine! like never before no foraging tonight while men sleep, well into cups – fox joins buck, lynx with peacock none prey tonight. Julie A. Dickson Julie A. Dickson loves writing to art prompts and has contributed to The Ekphrastic Review for several years, having recently been a guest editor. Her poems appear in full length of Amazon and in journals including Misfit, Medusa's Kitchen, Lothlorien Review and The Ekphrastic Review, among others. Dickson holds a BPS in Behavioral Science and served on two poetry boards. She advocates for captive elephants and shares her home with two rescued feral cats. ** Maddening Guests Delicate dinner, of sizzling ant eaters, for maddening guests. Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher has been writing since 2010 and has had many micro-flash fiction stories published. In 2018 her book Shorts for the Short Story Enthusiasts, was published and The Importance of Being Short, in 2019. Her most recent book In A Flash, was published in the spring of 2022. She currently resides on Long Island, New York with her husband Richard and dogs Lucy and Breanna. ** The deer hunter has been maimed by a grizzly up north (yeah, the same smarmy hunter who wore pants with the scene of a tropical forest and kept his parakeet caged) and the traffickers' trucks have been reported missing. There are flying rumours that all of them were taken at the pass, on the steepest road to Beelzebub's kingdom. Our surviving friends have made their escape and are on their way here. Prithvijeet Sinha The writer's name is Prithvijeet Sinha from Lucknow, India. He is a post graduate in MPhil from the University of Lucknow, having launched his prolific writing career by self publishing on the worldwide community Wattpad since 2015 and on his WordPress blog An Awadh Boy's Panorama (https://anawadhboyspanorama.wordpress.com/) Besides that, his works have been published in several varied publications as FemAsia Magazine, Hudson Valley Writers Guild, Inklette Magazine and others. ** A Darwinian Dinner This supper isn't on Circe’s isle, or else the guests who’ve come to dine would’ve all been turned into swine instead of a menagerie of creatures. Prêt à manger or to be eaten: it’s the survival of the most able to survive. The menu served at this table caters for a spectrum of selected species. Is this stuffed animal court Orwellian in hierarchy? Who hosts this taxidermy feast? Are some beasts more equal than others in this kingdom of claws, furs, fangs, and beaks? Which alpha male Henry beheaded those four heads adorning that bright red wall? What un-wifely treachery was committed by that bodiless, cornigerous quartet? When tea is finally served, will Mr and Mrs Wildcat have stopped arguing? Do Lord Fox and Lady Deer regret having invited them to their soirée? Danny de Oliveira Danny de Oliveira lives on the Sussex coast of the UK. He has been writing amateur ekphrastic poetry for many years, becoming one of his favourite poetic forms. He self-published a book of poems called SURGINGS in 2015. It contains his very first ekphrastic poem entitled "Drowning Hylas," inspired by John William Waterhouse's painting Hylas and the Nymphs. ** memento mori - a scene carrying the seeds of its own destruction a three course dinner served in vignettes i starter I dream I'm in a dining room walls stained carmine with cochineal extract neo classical symbols flow across the walls rams' skulls replaced by ebony deer heads with gilded horns delicate porcelain adorns the table patterned with a tree's lacy tracery spidery branches spreading like ink slowly seeping across paper capillaries drawing it from a brush bristle, water dripping through silty sand a cornucopia of riches spills from the table top there's a banquet for all the senses it's everywhere, including on the floor ii main course stags to the right of me stag beetles to the left I'm stuck here in the middle - what kind of febrile world is this? the foxes seem to smile holding their own court delighted by the cunning ploys as they watch the drama unfold this space is familiar yet not not just my hackles rise it's a scene of tooth and claw fangs are bared the hunters sit among the hunted nothing is quite at it seems life, death - both part of a dream all around a subtle scuttling is sounding many tiny insect feet move antennae, pincers waving tasting the air, sampling the food I hear insidious burrowing noises munch and crunch of chitinous jaws decay's rife amongst all this life iii dessert the tiny creatures are bringing it they know much more about community their special roles in the ant's nest the cohesion of the hive mind what place in all this for beauty? why do the butterflies shimmer so much? there's an iridescent gleam of the beetle shell a light glinting off a deep brown eye the soft velvet of a furry body mirrored in a peach's skin nature has its own chaos Mandelbrot recurrence of complexity patterns emerge, form, reform instincts driving behaviours cycles run on an endless mobius loop creation, nurture, destruction new growth will arise from decomposition and in this room-scene-dream every item curated perfectly placed to remind us humans of our vanitas memento mori Emily Tee Emily Tee writes poetry and flash fiction. She has had pieces published inThe Ekphrastic Review and for its challenges, and elsewhere online, and in print in some publications by Dreich, in Poetry Scotland and in several poetry anthologies. She lives in the UK. ** To Jennifer Angus Regarding View from The Grasshopper and the Ant, and Other Stories. Wall bizarre but apropos stands behind your strange tableau -- creatures, as they were, preserved gathered as if being served -- all, perhaps, to celebrate triumph over lesser fate -- here immortal as the art yielding wisdom they impart, stilled to ably represent life surviving by descent chained as both the beast and feast, links that live by links deceased using instinct to sustain birth and nurture to remain overcoming all but that striking down the habitat giving them the time and place reproducing lets them chase role fulfilled in living course man and nature steer by force planned and random leaving trail those unable to prevail mark behind, as fear evolved, truth of future unresolved. 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. ** Reflections Nature is a setting that fits equally well a comic or a mourning piece. —Ralph Waldo Emerson, from the essay, Nature. And the fugitive hunter had the last laugh, gangly rangers in white trucks charging in, clouds of white dust rising like white-rhino ghosts behind them. The old one with white hair and a pistol picked grapes off the platter, his troops cradling, carrying out the stiff game, like new fathers hold their first babies. Brown and white fur stuck to their green tunics and the oriental rugs, and mud off their black boots made a trail through the house as they searched for the poacher, rifles up, black barrels poking into the empty rooms. A left-behind cat under the table hissed, and one man pissed himself, his green trousers darker on one leg. The old one with the white hair, pistol on the table, laughed and spit grape seeds on the rug. When they were done, all the heads and bodies gone, sparrows flew through the left-open door, ate the grape seeds and nested in the holes in the walls, and when the house burned to the ground only the rats that had chewed the wires got out. The old ranger read it in a paper later and thought of Hemingway, how the writer always shot more than he could eat, and how the game was too heavy for a gangly, barefoot boy to hump alone. Robert E. Ray Robert E. Ray is a retired public servant. His poetry has been published by Rattle, Beyond Words International Literary Magazine, Wild Roof Journal, The Ekphrastic Review and in four poetry anthologies. Robert lives in coastal Georgia. ** In Pursuit of Patterns Hosting a Christmas feast for forest animals As the high priestess of the Mother of Beauty, The Insect Lady pours more heart and art Into designing walls than what’s on the table. She serves her Goddess by telling the stories That she insists must be told at whatever price. She knows each insect pays a horrendous price Of no less than life. She would cause no animals To die for an unworthy cause. There are stories, However, of their own species’ unknown beauty Some must be sacrificed to put on the table. Thus vulnerably she defends her ethics of art. From afar we adore the Victorian decorative art But frown at the artist coming near, At what price Have you come by those? She knuckles the table, Scarcely disturbing equanimity of the animals, None of them are endangered, then adds, beauty Is endangered. We neglect to value its stories. We teach children to learn from the ants in the story, Never the grasshopper. We dismiss his idling art. We deny some some species their right to beauty. For these farmed specimens I pay no higher price Than do these hapless ambassadors of animals. And indigenous collectors put bread on the table Because I buy from them. Pastries on the table Are plastic, the insects all real. The stories May be made up, allegorical, but the animals are losing habitats in the actual world. Art Awakens great awareness for a small price, Reveals from hideous things hidden beauty. In jungle nymphs and giant titans dwells beauty; A magpie shows that in the meticulous table Of contents of its baubled nest. Life’s price Is a difficult topic. Lives with no magic stories are swept up and thrown away as beneath art, As poor things without a culture, dumb animals. Cochineal blood is the price of the peach beauty Of this wall. Under it, animals round the table have a symposium on their own stories of art. 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. Her work has appeared in the Entropy magazine, the Black Earth Institute Blog, the Tiny Seed Journal website, The Ekphrastic Review, 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. ** Guests Who need no invitation the first to build and excavate here before we softer things many jointed, spurred and winged armed with jaws and poison stings intricate, opulent stuff of nightmare stuff of dreams alive on leaf and blood and nectar treasure sipped from the flower’s dainty lip–ants and bees in hives and hills beetles jeweled gilt and vermilion blue and green dancing mantids In showgirl finery moths like painted angels crowds of locusts and cicadas singing in the trees engines of decay and resurrection appetites all life depends on trading sweetness for pollen inspiring bloom to fruit and seed there’d be no feast without them 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. ** Banquet of Beasts A Duplex Poem, after Jericho Brown With garish abundance a table is set. Above preside the heads of state who with solemn stares officiate. Eden’s garden is garbed in green when humans begin to officiate. Remembrance banners hang in red, for the blood sacrifice others shed. And while they plot and machinate, gift medals for blood sacrifice, the dam has breached and scours land, and with it women and the men. Children reach up stubby hands, as do the women and the men, soon all are gone, swept to never neverland. Extra limbs and strength to swim keeps beasts from never neverland. A few have found the laden table then spitting cats commence to fight. The serpent twists in sly delight as hissing cats commence to fight. Immobile all the others stand, frozen in their silent fright. Men rule beasts and beasts make men, the rest inactive in their fright. How long will tables burgeon full, watched over by the heads of state? Nancy Sobanik Nancy Sobanik graduated from the University of Connecticut and is a registered nurse who discovered her love of writing in the last three years. Publication includes Verse-Virtual June 2023; Sparks of Calliope, March 17, 2023; Triggerfish Critical Review Issue # 29, Jan. 2023, and upcoming in Sheila-Na-Gig Summer 2023 and One Art Poetry, July 15, 2023. Other selections of her poems can be found on poetcollectives.org. She is active in the Maine Poets Society. ** Closer These kids are not behaving pinned To their seats may we go now A grown-ups dinner table Ever so boring I’m not hungry I don’t like my liver pasties Arranging man and ant How it sparks my belly With a wonderful urge A taste for the immaculate a Craving for captivation And ant and ant and ant In mesmerizing pattern So beautiful, translucent The ephemeral flight Pressed down so softly It’s in a story we come Together we are Man and ant Strangely enstrangled where Nature excites us Closer come closer but Outside of these boxes Off the wall Running, rooting Ever so boring Away from us Closer come closer then Let us delight you Excite your foxes, content your cicadas Paint our bodies as you choose Set us up for dancing in mid air Let us swarm and crawl Stage us in a world unnamed To burst and germinate, To rot and decay, to turn to dust and Sail with the eastern winds Disperse and bind again Turn us real time into butterfly A centerpiece for you to exhibit Anything but one more minute in the bell jar Dying of curiosity, time ticking away Kids and cubs, they need to stir But halfway up life’s sleeve I am Enchanted by this tale Its silenced beauty calls to me Nature transcended, the endgame of man So much life dominated so Head over heels My touch of ankle laid bare Victorian sublime Stien Pijp Stien Pijp lives east of the river IJssel, in Gelderland, The Netherlands. Some years ago she and her family moved there to a house in the woods. As a dreamy urban person she experienced nature to be quite unnatural to her and seeks to connect with it ever since. She works as a language therapist and wrote a dissertation about the search for meaning in conversations with people who lost language due to brain damage. She reads stories and poetry of friends and sometimes writes a poem herself. ** So How Was Your Thanksgiving? asks nearly every neighbour, coworker, or street vendor this time of year. I shrug it off with, Oh, the usual: turkey, pumpkin pie, and waiting to see who will be the first one roasted at the table. They laugh. I don’t. But sarcasm usually buys me another year of privacy. They’d never believe the truth. In college, I went home with my roommate one year. First time I’d ever heard of a children’s table. Five siblings and cousins under age eight were seated there. I almost pulled my chair over to join them. You’ve never eaten at a children’s table? they asked. Only child, I explained. Couldn’t admit I was the only child EVER in the house. No wonder people think me odd. I learned my people skills, from table manners to how to speak, from the psychiatrist next door and his patient wife. They even sent me to school, but told me I could never invite a friend over to play. Obviously, I was just one of their subjects. They were the researchers, hoping to learn what? It was quite unbelievable in its way. How did they get carnivores, foxes, raccoons, otters, snakes, and various wild cats, to live side by side with pheasants, squirrels, and me? Was this an experimental Eden? I never heard or witnessed a single attack. All night long, I laid there unprotected, my five-year-old head on a pillow beside whatever new fur baby was brought in to stay. How was I added to the menagerie? Every year meant one new diner at the table and one new taxidermied head on the wall. I began to fear that my head might be the next trophy. Instead of asking questions, I moved to the opposite coast, changed my name, and use a pseudonym, too. Last week a fan letter arrived from the mad doctor, as I think of him now. He used my pen name, but I was still unnerved when he said, I wish I had half your wild imagination. I think of your stories as a macabre version of Winnie-the-Pooh for adults. Alarie Tennille Alarie Tennille was a pioneer coed at the University of Virginia, where she earned her degree in English, Phi Beta Kappa key, and black belt in Feminism. Alarie received the first editor’s choice Fantastic Ekphrastic Award from The Ekphrastic Review, and in 2022, her latest book, Three A.M. at the Museum, was named Director’s Pick for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art gift shop. [ alariepoet.com ] ** THE TRICK (on The Ant and The Grasshopper, Angus, USA) It was his best trick, pinning the grasshopper with his thumb, and taking my hand to its brittle legs rasped, surprised, against a lack of lines, and in my empty palm it spit, lost a leg. I remember the grasshoppers, my grandfather's shills, the quick loss of moveable parts and my alarm at dismemberment -- wings, lost, legs, lost -- or milagros, little miracles, the charms made by mestizos, arms and fists and eyes conjured, offered for the saving of some lost part or strung in a kind of native rosary, dull silver and wearable, their worn wealth the magic and half-death of damaged disappearance: Summer, my grandfather waiting in the portico, my grandfather emptying his pockets. I thought I'd find what wasn't there, the light in his long fingers. Laurie Newendorp Laurie Newendorp lives and writes in Houston. "The Trick," an early poem, was a part of her Master's Thesis, Crossing Time Lines/ The Grandfather Journey (1992), poems that revealed her fascination with her Grandfather's tricks, many of which had, for her, a magical quality. ** am i the only one weeping over the loss of the beautiful 15000 am i the only one mourning their massacre their capture their dying their mounting am i the only one grieving their stolen lives their exotic habitats their resplendency am i the only one wishing the beautiful 15000 were sipping mating pollinating am i the only one lamenting the terrible sacrifice of the beautiful 15000 the terrible impact on our planet Donna-Lee Smith Donna-Lee Smith loves and respects the insect world. She recognizes the beauty of bugs and that people in cities want to see them. She also recognizes that the Indigenous folk who capture bugs do so because there is a lucrative market for the beautiful 15000. She also recognizes that these folk earn a mere pittance compared to the middleman. ** Post-Production Not until you’re stuffed, does the dinner party really make sense. And what’s more off the wall than an unsettled guest list to make the bright room appear a great room, appear a pair of paws, or as an aside, the fine line between interior design and the imagined interiority only happens after the dessert is served, after the racoon is seated, post joke, but not yet afterhours. The obscene will only be obvious in retrospect. Jeanne Morel and Anthony Warnke Jeanne Morel is the author of three chapbooks, I See My Way to Some Partial Results (Ravenna Press), Jackpot (Bottlecap Press), and That Crossing Is Not Automatic (Tarpaulin Sky Press). She holds an MFA from Pacific University and has been nominated for a Pushcart in both poetry and fiction. Her recent work has appeared in Black Sunflowers, Crab Creek Review, Fugue, and Great Weather for MEDIA. She is a gallery guide at the Frye Art Museum and co-facilitates the Columbia City Writing Circle with Anthony Warnke. Anthony Warnke ’s poetry has appeared in Cimarron Review, North American Review, Salt Hill, Sentence, Sixth Finch, and Sugar House Review, among other journals. He also publishes scholarly work promoting access and equity at two-year colleges. He earned his Master’s degree in English from Western Washington University and his MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Washington, Seattle. He teaches writing at Green River College and lives in Seattle, where he co-facilitates the Columbia City Writing Circle. ** Inside the uterine walls of the dining room time appears to stop except even now clusters of fruit ripen fur rots in thickets like helixes of pine needles swept to the side the rug grows invisible the tablecloth yellows just as teeth do taxidermy is a myth the doe cranes her gentle neck not forever look, what I’m saying is insects are flying off the walls in imperceptible gales the air repopulates the porcelain is turning into a variant of sea glass the animals cycle round and become not quite their wildest breathing selves again not the racoon or crooked-toed pheasant but maybe in a billion years they emerge as you or a dream you had Carolyn Wilsey Nature’s intricacies inspire Carolyn Wilsey to write poems. She holds a BA in American Literature from Middlebury College and an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College. Carolyn's poems appear in Pretty Owl Poetry, Rogue Agent, Stirring, Eclectica, Pigeon Pages, West Marin Review, Quiet Lightning, and other publications. In 2020, one of her poems was nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology. 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 The Water Lily Pond, by Claude Monet. Deadline is June 23, 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. 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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. Join our ekphrastic marathon, celebrating eight years of The Ekphrastic Review! Click on the image for details. It's going to be epic!
To John Bingley Garland Regarding A Blood Collage So much to see is here embraced by skill of eye and hand you've placed together as the love ingrained in being that by art maintained reminds us we by blood entwined may differ yet are of one kind as generations by descent of imperfection we lament and sacrifice preserving dream of soul eternal we redeem by actions of the heart contrite, from Living Water gaining might, to bear what given we entrust as legacy of dust to dust. 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. ** Blood Collage Over Time I am the cross of the paradox philosophers constantly test and, at best, leave it to rest. As for me – paradoxon, in other words - contrary opinion, was the favorite part of my fate. You see, I was a young innocent branch, dreaming of growing tall, bloomy and fruitful, attracting birds to nest on my arms, bees to rest on my petals, sheep to find shade under my leaves, and all to feed on my crops. Instead, I was cut from the top of my dream and was appointed to uphold a dying man, just as my own body was in its last term: so we met – a sapient man and a dumb wood on the same last mile of the same last trip of a character reset, as they said. Versed in one skill only – delivering fruit – I had just one last wish – to fulfill my job and die not before he has given up his ghost. So, I pulled all the fibers into my severed veins opened my arms and welcomed his palms – the nails pierced through both at once; then they pegged his feet to my lower edge – the nails crushed bone and timber alike; finally – they lifted us up as the oldest face-losing insult – his head snapped, his body trembled: when suddenly his mass metamorphosed just like my bloom when turning into fruit, and some sky-scrapping affection converted into parable all plain prose: my fibril ash rhymed with his flash then rushed set in motion by his hush, delivering verve as never before, by none of my feeders – earth, water, sun; and when the surge reached my top, I stopped feeling my body weight, it has become so light, I thought I’m a leaf lost in space, where birds come to nest and bees to rest, until I realized that it was that man – he was holding me up, not I – him; he – paradoxically, has become my cross, as would do a grafted shoot, embedded to change you forever, while both lamenting together: “Ili, Ili, lama sabahtani” Eons passed in a couple of hours, we - glued in that incredible oneness – tissue, cellulose, muscle, lignin, pain – with one silent fervent breathing hushed from him to my last tendril. At the ninth hour he gave up the ghost. At the last minute his blood burst. Down my arms - warm, smooth, fiery red, it entered my dried timberment and the overflow infused the earth; while crumbs of his body filled my holes at the nail points: I was out of myself – couldn’t tell apart who or what was happening – true – a character reset – without any known aliment, just this wine and that bread, sweeter than water, softer than wind, it revamped my failed fruit-making skill into a nebulous veil impressed with his icon, just like the one on the shroud of Turin; a paradox, live: the crucified-turned patron of life, and, I swear, just a crumb and a drop filled me up, while there were so many crumbs and drops gliding over my sur-face, as my last petals, that I stopped counting, realizing at my last second of reset - they were enough for all creatures on earth. He, a whiz, delivered and departed to his dad. I, a dumb, with unversed skill, now veiled, remained to remind of his paradoxical fight to fulfill his delivery right; paradoxically, he keeps grafting me with his blood-red glint – quizzing me why we met… Ekaterina Dukas Ekaterina Dukas has studied and taught linguistics and culture at universities of Sofia, Delhi and London and authored a book on mediaeval art for The British Library. She writes poetry as a pilgrimage to the meaning. Her poems appeared in printed anthologies, on The Ekphrastic Review and its challenge selection several times. Her poetry collection Ekphrasticon is published by Europa Edizioni, 2021. ** Blood-Streaked Beauty The ancient Chinese had a name for flowers such as peonies, camellias and roses with irregular bright red patterns on paler background colours--blood-streaked beauties, or literally, “the beauty has scratched her face bloody.” Imagine the Royal Botanic Gardens hemorrhaging. Blood-red crosses are planted in every flower-bed and wild field on mountainsides, amulets, charms to guard against blight, angels to keep plants safe from thunder strikes. Cardinal ribbons are tied around every neck of phlox, primrose, mallow, jasmine, marguerite. Snowdrops and orange blossoms white as Immaculate Conception bear rubescent runes as pistils. Blood fountains spring from soil, sprouts rooted in fecundity. Fleshly, yes, but simulacra of the spirit are incarnate, incarnadine. Carnality is the flowers on robes of holiness. The firmament is blue as Mary’s robe but long drops of blood descend along walls scratched with faded scriptures. Stabat Mater, dolorosa…a big dollop of warm ruddy sticky liquid falls down on her tear-stained hair. History keeps erasing blood from religious art but it comes back because Sarracenia rubra has an ecological niche in Paradise and sundews will always be secreting red globules of glue from hairtips, setting surefire traps for insects who finds scarlet sugar irresistible, mosquito bellies fat teardrops of ruby, and Persephone still reaching her hand towards the seven pomegranate seeds. 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. Her work has appeared in the Entropy magazine, the Black Earth Institute Blog, the Tiny Seed Journal website, 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. ** Bleeding Hearts Deep into the philosophical forests, the angels hover, watching over the Thinkers. They have suffered much, traversing vast ages, their blood drawing them to the Thinkers, marking them, and sometimes piercing them, as God watches from above. They have suffered and suffer still. Human errors weigh heavily upon their hearts. And sometimes their hearts are rent. But the Thinkers persist, often deluded by phases of false flowering. They think they have seen through the gardens into the misty beyond but have only arrived at the threshold. Dig, dig, dig deep into the roots. Examine what was known and is yet unknown. Their investigations are ongoing. The angels congregate. They organize a hieratic meeting as if to re-write history. God watches over everything. All-knowing, He sees the needs and establishes order. As the Thinkers recede, the angels let their blood drip on entire collages spread across the earth, hurrying to assemble new believers. Aloft and ascending Angels reach the greater heights Collaged as one fabric Carole Mertz Carole Mertz writes and reviews for Dreamers Creative Writing, Kallisto Gaia Press, and Ars Medica. She is happy to be published in The Ekphrastic Review which inspired her 2021 collection, Color and Line. Her recent work appeared in Portage Magazine and was showcased in the Ohio Center for the Book, March, 2023 podcast at Page Count. ** Waugh Front Arcana, gauche as bric-a-brac, just whatnots till this Book of Blood clicked histrionics, bored Waugh’s bland, Blake and ilk, his catholic mind - so Garland welcomed with those flowers. These tortured tableaux of the weird, paraphernalia let loose, through cheetah drools and crosses’ seep, slash sashes dangle, angel drapes, plates stacked high by our herald hosts. Platters, splattered India ink, staccato sermons, other plates - with centred bird, fruit margin blooms, snake’s sneak, all blooded pendalogues, chandeliers with little light. Whose title entitled, name blamed? Cryptic reference, Durenstein!, to Lionheart’s castle didn’t stick - vital craft for man’s collage art - that ransom cite, now Ransom held. ‘Amy’s Gift’ safer, orthodox, as marriage present to a child - in zeugma and syllepsis joined, bloody Mary, are less, jumbled? It’s back to cryptic for our clues. But why draw blood to drip throughout, the haemorrhage here fetishized? Cry shoutout from bipolar, drowned, uncovered from some new found land, grounds for fishing, deep stirring trawl? 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 published by on-line poetry sites, printed journals and anthologies, including The Ekphrastic Review. He has, like so many, been a nominee for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. His blog is at https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com/ ** The Scrapbook John, how did you decide to create this masterpiece? One fine businessman, first and foremost, a provider Heir to a fishery fortune, Dorset born and bred, life straight as a ruler Nobility, heir to a fishery fortune, a strategic relocation to the Netherlands Brought different fame, that of a competent leader, a glad population Interred you first as mayor, then subsequently, the first British Parliamentarian Notable and quietly charismatic, what prompted you to turn from commerce? Going inward and away from obligations and spiritual pursuits, you Leaned into a purely feminine pastime, making it your time-tested vision: Etching little scenes and writing quotes into an old book, rendering it fresh Your diligent pursuit of heart-full assemblage pumped art onto the page, Gorging blood, connecting disparate elements with each slash of India-red, A keepsake for your betrothed daughter, conveying a vivid love cut through by Rime of scarlet, frosted over a delicate Victorian tableau, your untethered soul, Long mummified under tightly woven wraps bursting open, was it sudden? A tiny kernel of mind ephemera, expanding as ideas joyfully leapt out: yet Notice that preserved beneath the overstory of sacrifice and angel wings Doth lie the pithy, unsaid things: Illustrations of a heartbreak I too, know: What is meant by “Letting go.” Debbie Walker-Lass Debbie Walker-Lass is a poet, collage artist, and writer living in Decatur, Georgia. Her work has appeared in several journals and magazines, including The Ekphrastic Journal, Poetry Quarterly, Haikuniverse, The Light Ekphrastic and Natural Awakenings, Atlanta, among others. She has recently read live for The Poet’s Corner. When not creating, she can be found beachcombing on Tybee Island or hanging out with her husband, Burt, and dog, Maddie. ** o google god o spirit of my iphone i take you on meditative forest walks in case i have a brain storm break an ankle lose the dog i take you to bed every night stories under my pillow in the morning there you are first thing wordle wordply new yorker & nyt crossword puzzles i can't eat breakfast without you i don't chat with my mate i cogitate believing the puzzles will keep alzheimer's at bay i spend more time with you than with family & friends i never go to the loo without you can't poo without you when asked for a poem poe would be proud of you gave me brought to her royal fold, a royal right i call it the raven maniac dedicated to poe's mama who sat beside him while he wrote to keep the horrors at bay i love your use of the comma if i have a belly ache or lichen on my scalp you bring me the mayo clinic in a nano second no cracking book spines when i could be playing minecraft posting my mug on instagram thank you dear google god for my artificial intelligence as deep as a short read o google god you are all seeing all knowing guiding me daily to make decisions on my iphone Donna-Lee Smith Donna-Lee Smith frets about the eye sight and posture and brains of the wee generations who beg for iphones while still in day care o lord we have no idea what awaits but wait i can google that on my iPhone ** exsanguination blood from every orifice crevasse, cross rain blood tears angels, deities weep for humanity lost daggers, swords abound the only sound heard now death cries reach the cloudless sky witness exsanguination run droplets unholy blood-letting crimson graffiti defaced shrine Julie A. Dickson Julie A. Dickson is constantly writing and submitting poems, Ekphrastic being one of her favourites. Her poems appear in over 60 journals, including Blue Heron Review, Open Door Magazine and The Ekphrastic Review, among others. Dickson holds a BPS in Behavioral Science, advocates for captive elephants, has served on two poetry boards and has been a guest editor for several journals, including The Ekphrastic Review. She shares her home with two rescued feral cats. ** Resurrection Ground They left us, but within these lonely fields the loved ones muster, never more to leave -- but have -- and memory no longer yields pictures in our heads of those we grieve. The ones we tended when they cried, complained, or raged became a test we took to heart to soften us, and when it stormed or rained the skies affirmed their moment to depart. A black redoubt of shining starlings shout a martial call, as aging soldiers hear a volley for the fallen that we shoot, as if the dead will think the Judgment near. These costly limestone letters slowly weep, as rain and acid air the names erase. Wind and grass a vow of silence keep, and even famous dead have left no trace. Owls croon nocturnal songs of blood, and heavy with new music evening air flares with glow worms that become the food for birds, and nature hints it does not care. As children improvise a playground here among the stones, and life accepts their mirth, we think the tender darkness makes it clear that death gives hidden signs of some new birth. Royal Rhodes Royal Rhodes is a retired educator who taught courses on global religions for almost forty years. His poetry has appeared in various journals, including: Foreshadow, Ekstasis, The Ekphrastic Review, Chained Muse, and others. He also has published a collection of sonnets regarding a variety of animals: Animalia, with The Catbird [on the Yadkin] Press. ** Was Red John’s Favourite Colour? “The Victorians were sick,” says a Modern, a Jackson Pollack fan. “It could have been beautiful without all that blood,” Says a Baby Boomer who owns six handguns and three assault rifles. Like teenaged boys judging their fathers, Every generation that followed has judged the Victorians: “Sexually repressed, perverts, self-entitled colonialists, garish, Tasteless, their homes and art filled with fussy details, pinheads, Obsessed with rules, filled with secret fetishes, Religious fanatics, atheists in disguise.” It’s easy to see all that in John Garland’s sweet little Handmade wedding gift to his dear daughter, Amy. John was a scrapbooker who liked Blake. He had plenty of paper on hand and a bottle of red India ink: Forty-three pages exquisitely designed and executed With marbled paper front and back. A busy treasure-trove of collages and decoupages, All the space on every page, with typical Victorian vigor, Filled with clouds, flowers, fruit, snakes, birds And butterflies, swords, crosses, angels and saints, And all that loveliness dripped with a heavy helping Of blood. Apparently, John had spare time, surprising, Considering his twin careers as a business tycoon And a politician. Maybe he made his little masterpiece On all those Atlantic crossings from England to Newfoundland. He didn’t have a phone or a computer To waste his time, and he never created any other Works of art. The generations after him started two world wars And several smaller ones. They helped racism, England’s ugly legacy To the colonists, out of the box and thrived on lies. Maybe we should pause before we judge John. Rose Anna Higashi Rose Anna Higashi is a poet, blogger and novelist who lives in rural Hawaii. She writes a haiku every day. She is a retired professor of English Literature, Japanese Literature, Poetry and Creative Writing. Her poems have appeared recently in The Ekphrastic Review, Poets on Line, America Media, The Avocet, The Agape Review and The Catholic Poetry Room. Many of her lyric poems and haiku can be viewed on her website: www.myteaplanner.com, and on her blog “Tea and Travels,” published monthly on her website. ** Mother Nature Weeps If blood of Jesus brought us to our knees, if resurrection opened eyes, if death had opened hearts and minds, had sold us on the need for healing earth - and us, our mother, Nature, would not bleed from fields of Bluets and Heirloom Pinks, all wilting, scorched. She calls on Sisters Seraphim to guide their host, all busy with their reverent concerns, too much to tourniquet the flow. The Sycamores have poured out blood like sap, as chippers grind the woods. The swamps run red, the peepers drown, the damp evaporates. Our Mother’s tears run scarlet on the grit of reservoirs that once were deepest wet, that mankind drank, engorged itself without a thought of what comes next. And all the blue from rivers’ run reflects above, the sky becoming thirst, the world turned upside down like Peter’s martyrdom. We have no need for Satan here. Our shadow invades all of Mother Earth’s domain. She cries and cries in vain her hematohidrosis tears. droplets hemorrhage Gaia’s earth falls to fragments twenty silver bits MFrostDelaney MFrostDelaney is a bean counter by trade, a tree hugger in heart and a recovering soul, practicing life in New England. A member of the Powow River Poets, her poems appear regularly in Quill & Parchment, and has been nominated for the Push Cart Prize. She has contributed poetry to HerStory 2021, has poems in the Powow River Poets Anthology II and Extreme Sonnets II, and displayed a poem at New Beginnings – Poetry on Canvas, Peabody Art Association 2022. ** Azul May-summer light at my window to mark my disposability and the brisk air is right where beautiful ends, on the edge of error, I look at my handwriting, that marks this distance, my guilt after reading an old love song, neat notes, the lines in black-and-white-like portraits, to distantiate from time and flawless rooms. The violent emptiness took me, hereafter, so yes, I left, I was afraid of the salt that filled up the windows, the sills that showed uncomplicated evenings to last. You glowed like internal death round flowers, the borders, as red bars behind my eyelids closed, and yes, the blue sky struck me down, made me hungry, so, I curled up in the shade, avoided butterflies, unable to move like someone in love, once the wings are clipped, the hands stretch out to fells. I will never cross borders again, even though you said: “trust me, you like this”, even though you laughed at my prayers for sweet strawberries, for perfect altars and cold carmine on my wrists. I saw you as angel, eyes out to blue, up to my shoulders, and my eyes out for you, feeling clean, a free bird from wheeling hedges. Yet, I kept my legs curled up under my dripping skirt, the smell of rain drowned lights of swords and daggers. Trust me, you never liked this. Kate Copeland Kate Copeland started absorbing books ever since a little lass. Her love for words led her to teaching & translating; her love for art & water to poetry…please find her pieces @ The Ekphrastic Review, Poets’ Choice, First Lit.Review-East, Wildfire Words, The Metaworker, The Weekly/Five South, New Feathers a.o. Her recent Insta reads: https://www.instagram.com/kate.copeland.poems/ Over the years, she worked at literary festivals and at workshops for IWWG and Breathe-Read-Write-hours. More workshops are in the making. Kate was born @ a harbour city and adores housesitting @ the world. ** Vital Fluids (after John Bingley Garland) Time breathes its secrets into stone. Ancestry is full of mirrors and ancient riddles. The stilled silhouette of memories is amplified by the blood of silence and lies. The wounds of suffering are surrounded by healers casting spells into a web of stories Everywhere is within seeking distance. Are you our Mother? Who knows why or if? 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/. |
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