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. 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 MONET 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, June 23, 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 ekphrastic marathon, celebrating eight years of The Ekphrastic Review! Click on the image for details. It's going to be epic!
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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/. The Ekphrastic Review is thrilled to have longtime TER contributor Kate Copeland join us again as a guest judge and curator for the current challenge. Thank you so much to Kate for sharing her time and talent with us, and for choosing this intriguing art to inspire us! ** Dear Ekphrastic Challengees, Here is your new Ekphrastic challenge…and I do expect (and hope and dream!) it to be an exciting and original one for you! Jennifer Angus creates diverse and innovative artwork and the piece you will write to, is one from her exhibition named The Grasshopper and the Ant…and Other Stories. Note that the insects she is working with, are real and showing their natural colour, although they are dead and dried. Check Jennifer’s webpage to read more about her ethics re working with insects, and if you are as taken with her art as I am, do have a look at the earlier work (for example the Fragile Earth-exhibition at the Florence Griswold Museum a.o.) : https://www.jenniferangus.com/index.html). Thank you all for sending in your ekphrastic pieces! Thank you Lorette for the opportunity to be a challenge-editor for the TER, I feel very honoured, again. Enjoy, Kate Copeland ** 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 an installation from The Grasshopper and the Ant, and Other Stories, by Jennifer Angus. Deadline is June 9, 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 ANGUS 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. Do not send it after acceptance or later; it will not be added to your piece. Guest editors may not be familiar with your bio or have access to archives. We are sorry about these technicalities, but have found that following up, requesting, adding, and changing later takes too much time and is very confusing. 7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 8. Deadline is midnight EST, June 9, 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. 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 Ekphrastic Writers and Readers; It was a great honour to receive and read all of the poems and fiction written for the Courbet Challenge. I have been enamoured of ekphrastic writing for several years and love the prompts presented from paintings and sculpture. Such a rich pool of poetic fodder! I find it fascinating how different the interpretations can be on a single specimen of art. Such talented writers! I have narrowed the entries down to this collection, for their special qualities and unique approaches. I would like to thank Lorette C. Luzajic, editor of The Ekphrastic Review for the opportunity to be a guest editor, and for her continuing efforts in curating such an interesting and exciting poetry journal. Warm Regards, Julie A. Dickson ** Cave Painting I was not accustomed to dark I made my eye into a pencil piercing into the lead I saw bent figures among the stalagmites their voices calling through evolution my brothers and sisters I reached into the hole to pick them out but my fingers were not enough paint they said paint the past our imaginations are wild horses on empty plains paint the future I told them we are waiting for you. Marc Brimble Marc Brimble lives in Spain and teaches English. When he's not doing this, he likes drinking tea and looking at the sky. ** La Grotte de la Loue What do you see, Gustave, as you peer into the depths? Do you perceive a flicker the glimmer of light moving there a hint of rippling reflected on walls or do you stare farther down and in looking beyond what is visible into the dark abyss, not just here but the inner world of yourself, contemplating deeper within mining your personal hinterland busy with white noise and black light allowing your own mind's colours to flood your soul and the canvas? Emily Tee Emily Tee writes poetry and flash fiction. She's had pieces published in The 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. ** The Roar of the Waterfall A cascade, leaping from rock to rock, a waterfall broken by a thousand imponderables, a spectacle stirring emotions, touching all the senses. The Loue springs from a dark cave dug into the rocks during millions of years by its relentless intent. Courbet painted it 14 times, investigating the secrets of its terrible beauty. Perhaps he was in thrall to the Vouivre, the dragon that resides in the cave. Half woman, half snake, her forehead is adorned with an enormous precious stone which she hides on the shore, in the moss, or under a stone, before drinking or bathing. Thief, try your luck, but don’t get caught. Her revenge will be terrible... Beauty’s mystery Source of nature’s power Woman 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. https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/ ** The Stream That Is You I draw down into the cave of my heart into the dark welcoming world of water and rock of soft memories hard knowledge of knowing this long hallowed channel of want regret and quiet repose I find my reflection where riffles toss to the edge travel slow currents of yearning slip into sorrow murmur of love you are a moment long in its lingering you are forever flow silent within me meander arrive in each corner each crevice you…. Ursula Shepherd Ursula Shepherd has spent a lifetime exploring the world, celebrating all those alien life forms (plants, animals, even algae and bacteria) found right here on planet Earth, and finding joy in the beauty and power of words. She has written a book Nature Notes: A Companion to the Seasons, published by Fulcrum, occasional essays, and has poems in Unbroken, Grim and Gilded, Minnow and upcoming in Writing in a Woman’s Voice. ** Dark Dreaming She’d always loved to watch the birds as they swooped and swerved in the sky above her. She could see them now from the mouth of the cave, black birds, rooks or ravens, corvids as dark as the cave. They were invisible as she went deeper so she could only see them when she dreamt. And she wondered if dreams would be enough to sustain her in the dark. She wondered if they would be enough for her when the black water rose. and the river flowed in. 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/ ** boatman I harken to the lapping of the water against the rocks the boat the pole where I hear in the voice of the cliff all the whispered echoes of bygone lemures lamenting weeping pleading as if I’m some Orpheus come to bring them out back into the world above instead of the boatman completing a journey allotted to other days and nights erased and faded like fingerprints in the clay of our lives shaped fired glazed then broken then cast out onto the sand lining the beaches where the young are still standing -- waiting Mark A. Fisher Mark A. Fisher is a writer, poet, and playwright living in Tehachapi, CA. His poetry has appeared in: Reliquiae, Silver Blade, Eccentric Orbits, and many other places. He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for his poem “papyrus” in 2016. His first chapbook, drifter, is available from Amazon. His poem “there are fossils” (originally published in Silver Blade) came in second in the 2020 Dwarf Stars Speculative Poetry Competition. His plays have appeared on California stages in Pine Mountain Club, Tehachapi, Bakersfield, and Hayward. He has also won cooking ribbons at the Kern County Fair. ** Trapped by a Nervous Dawn Trapped by a nervous dawn the dead stone of the night knocks at the buried sky gone underground, retreated dramatically. Shadows applaud its growing momentum and awkward passage. The rocks add burden while generously avoiding breaking: think of a long, inflexible, rough rope - and pull. It hangs in the center like a dark arm and a scream, blocking the view, tilting the water, and I lean upward to answer that weary moan of poison. I try to take two huge steps back and forth, and extend my elbows in front of the creature to avoid it: what a beautiful awakening I am. Angelo 'NGE' Colella Angelo 'NGE' Colella lives in Italy, where he writes poetry and prose in Italian and English, makes analog collages, asemic writings and DADA objects. ** Perspective cavernous limestone I feel insignificant among the massive Elaine Sorrentino Elaine Sorrentino, communications director by day, poet by night, has been published in Minerva Rising, Willawaw Journal, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, The Ekphrastic Review, Writing in a Women’s Voice, Global Poemic, ONE ART: a journal of poetry, Agape Review, Haiku Universe, Sparks of Calliope, Muddy River Poetry Review, Panoply, Etched Onyx Magazine, and at wildamorris.blogspot.com. She was featured on a poetry podcast at Onyx Publications. ** Reflections on the Grotto of Loue, My Home away from home. Whatever I give it, ripples back to me in echoes. These pink-grey limestone rocks overhead are the roof over my days. I cannot but hug the darkness, within, its chiaroscuro-depths, its everyday-familiarity. The soft chant of the white waters, without, are the whispers of hope and clarity. Standing on the banks of movement, this brown glassy calm is what I observe, when I try to read the waters of life at the margins. It is here that I fish not just for food and survival. It is here that I fish for the meaning of that survival with the sharp spear of stillness. Preeth Ganapathy Preeth Ganapathy is a software engineer turned civil servant from Bengaluru, India. Her works have been published in several magazines such as The Ekphrastic Review, Soul-Lit, The Sunlight Press, Atlas+Alice, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Mothers Always Write, Tiger Moth Review and elsewhere. Her microchaps A Single Moment and Purple have been published by Origami Poems Project. She is also a two-time winner of Wilda Morris's Poetry Challenge. ** La Grotte de la Loue, 1864, Gustave Courbet The artist with his pallet of gunmetal and sorrel and his cavern-sized vision of the bateau as it slides among grey-brown boulders, of a white shirt and the position of an arm upward toward whatever light reflects, could he be thinking of entreaty or surrender or simply of painting the Loue, a man in a skiff. The peasant in the river, with his culottes rolled, gripping his pole could he have his attention on more than his skiff, more than the dark grotto ahead, the trout and greyling in the spume where the river is born again and again. The painter with his pallet, and his grey and brown notion, the fisherman with his flat skiff and his empty belly, neither of them have a promise of fish or inspiration, although they both have desire. The painter waits on the bank with his inventions and oils. The fisherman gazes into the gloom toward a stir in the water. Never mind beseeching the cavern for a fish dinner, a finished painting. Never mind praying to the cave. Never mind worshiping the river. Never mind paying homage to the darkness. There are no answered prayers in stones of the Loue. Wendy Taylor Carlisle Wendy Taylor Carlisle is the author of four books and five chapbooks and is the 2020 winner of the Phillip H. McMath Poetry Prize. A chapbook-length selection of her work appears in Wild Muse: Ozarks Nature Poetry, (Cornerpost Press, 2022) and a new edition of her book, Reading Berryman to the Dog, (Belle Point Press. 2023) is out now. Find her work at www.wendytaylorcarlisle.com, ** Fisherman no stars… his blunt spear jabs at the river’s flow a lone fish… today’s rush of brightness swallowed night’s barrier… his yawn of emptiness hollow… the source of his world murmuring dankness… in his ears echoes of lost voices his lament… moss-draped shadows only he can see a ghostly stream… giant limestone rocks trickling hard tears his slight figure… a twisted stalagmite about to break Dorothy Burrows Based in the UK, Dorothy Burrows enjoys writing poems, short plays and flash fiction. Her poems have been published by various journals including The Ekphrastic Review. She is still enthralled by the sight of stalactites and stalagmites. ** Almost too small to notice the fisherman stands at the lip of the cavern’s stony mouth casting his line into the swallowing dark. The river rises from the throat of the abyss to sluice around his ankles cold and blind as the eye of God. Unlike night with its salted stars and moon that wanes and returns regular as a slow pulse, this is no innocent darkness he stands against but one so absolute its creatures live like fallen angels without hope or memory of light 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. ** Let Me Show You the grandeur beyond this domed dark grotto, says, Courbet by The Loue. Your vision is the protector and the predator, says, Courbet. Imagine–– the little man at its gate is me stirring and spearing the light of the dark, my fish. Leave the rest to my paints and brushes to enliven the boulders’ might bestowed on us by the maker. Look at the hues of jade and ivory worn by water sculpted by storms. Remember–– the bouncy foam only performs for the rocks wearing lacey skirts and wind stoles. They were there long before we got here. I am simply offering you a peek in the cavern’s womb, the way each day and night do when you and I drift into dreams of the intangible our sun brings to life, nonstop, with its circadian strokes. Varsha Saraiya-Shah Author of VOICES, a poetry chapbook by Finishing Line Press, Varsha’s work appears in journals such as Borderlands, Cha, Convergence, Echoes of the Cordillera, The Ekphrastic Review, Mutabilis Press, Penguin Random House-A Global Anthology, Pippa Ran UK book-Converse: Contemporary English Poetry by Indians, Skylark Publications- UK, Soundings East, UT Press, etc. and has featured on Public Radio and a multi-language/century dance program: “Poetry in Motion.” Poetry lets her practice the art of living. ** Cavern Somewhere, the earth yawned. Cracked a smile a little too deep. A mouth watering for an anticipated meal, it opened slowly, dripping with the slow indulgence of sustained appetite. The hunger grew, whole rooms blossomed with calcite. Stalactite fangs pronged from above, stalagmite cavities shone in the hollow. The maw was a wide swallow in the ground of Earth-face, eyes closed to the sunlight, the inside seeping in unhurried time. Diane Funston Diane Funston lives in Marysville, California, in the Sacramento Valley. Diane has been published in various journals including California Quarterly, Synkronicity, San Diego Poetry Annual, Whirlwind, F(r)iction, Tule Review, and Lake Effect Magazine, among others. She has been the Poet-in-Residence for Yuba-Sutter Arts and Culture for two years and ran a monthly Zoom event called “Poetry Square” featuring poets from all over. Diane has a brand-new chapbook, her first, entitled Over The Falls from Foothills Publishing. ** Natural History Time goes slower in the sea and faster in the mountains. Physics has taken over where poetry left off. Lynn Davidson, “Pearls” Gaze into the mouth of the cave. Beneath that yawning chasm, there is no doubt that time folds. No doubt that time bends deep, waves and curls like an echo, rippling under earth and ancient water. The history of the world is not set in stone, but it can be found there – if you know how to look. Think cartography, in four dimensions. Coordinate, distance, direction, and limestone. A colossus of karst and strata, bone included like salt grains in a Jurassic river, currents deep and crystalized. These horizons run rugged, all pink and blue and gray, overflowing with coral, mollusk and ammonoid, sponge and algae. A tapestry of deposition. Little pearls show the seasoned observer where hunger is formed – little fossils where the world begins to grow teeth. Tide meets pulse, and teaches blood to beat its vital rhythm. Forget Plato and his shadows. Outside of the cave, people cleave themselves from the past headfirst, carving away the years until all that’s left are skeletons. Hollow husks. One can play with them like marionettes, a caricature in historical dress – but the truth remains buried under six feet of earth, dust, and decay. Inside the cave, though, the limestone colossus breathes. Benthic silence thrums with energy. Everything that has ever lived and will ever live swims through the stone – the walls, the bedrock, coming closer and closer to the surface until the distance between your hand and the depths of Hades is weathered down to less than a millimeter of skin. 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 an upcoming anthology from Mutabilis Press. She still gets the idiomatic butterflies whenever anyone mentions these things where she can hear them. ** Crab Eaters Our wandering mind slinks off until your words layer thoughts and feelings beneath our limestone skin: therapy with a palette knife. Today we summon night terrors in a sunbeam---go spearfishing for secrets---watch them scrape and squirm going down the wet- over-dry shadows of your throat. Mariel Herbert Mariel Herbert likes to write short ekphrastic poems, including haiku and senryu. Her most recent two were published in Failed Haiku. She can sometimes be found walking near the Pacific Ocean or online at marielherbert.wordpress.com. 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 a collage from The Blood Collages, by John Bingley Garland. Deadline is May 26, 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 GARLAND 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. Do not send it after acceptance or later; it will not be added to your piece. Guest editors may not be familiar with your bio or have access to archives. We are sorry about these technicalities, but have found that following up, requesting, adding, and changing later takes too much time and is very confusing. 7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 8. Deadline is midnight EST, May 26, 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. 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 Writers, What do the eyes see? How can their vision be expressed in words? What do we do when the artwork is “untitled,” and we have no indication of the artist’s intent? These are challenges of ekphrastic poetry. And yet, that is the magic, the miracle of what can be created. Enjoy meandering through the labyrinth of in-depth reflections on
As always, it was a true pleasure to read all the submissions and difficult to make choices. I’m sorry not to have been able to include everyone. But each response opened up yet another way of seeing the art. Donna and I thank you for your wonderful responses. Happy writing! Sandi Stromberg *** Wonder When I see a piece of abstract art titled ‘untitled’ I wonder. Could she not find the words to describe her thoughts, or could she not be further bothered after all the effort of putting paint to paper. Or does she seek to communicate something more profound and wondrous. and thus insists, that the viewer has full freedom of interpretation with no clues given as guidance to sort out the shapes and colours, the lines and blotches falling on the surface of the paper like leaves in fall, or the decaying detritus of modern life falling like art. So I put myself in the picture and take a wander in wonderland. 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/ *** Untitled A rhubarb travels At warp speed. NASA captures. Q: God, or garden? Jenna K Funkhouser Jenna K Funkhouser is an artist and writer living in Portland, Oregon. Her poetry has recently been published by Geez Magazine, the Saint Katherine Review, and Vita Poetica, among others. She is currently working on her second volume of poetry, an ekphrastic exploration of fully inhabited lives. *** To donne e perkins Regarding Untitled Is this to eye but disarray or bloom that seeds by its decay the truth that lies in moments framed no matter whether ever named that are embrace of doubt and yet are all that somehow they beget as purpled proof through prism seen of light they bend to make them mean whatever they have left behind that beckons someone else to find the beauty to behold as grace so given, unexplained, its place by force that we can never know except by faith it leaves to sow? 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. *** Not My Mother’s Daughter As I lie spread eagle across the dance floor, surrounded by upright legs and gasps, I can feel my skirt tossed above my waist. I keep my eyes shut tight for a moment, imagine I’m dancing cancan at the Folies Bergère. At least Mama’s not here to see me making a spectacle of myself. Those would be her exact words. Tomorrow she’d tell all the neighbors, I could have died of embarrassment! I just hope she’s looking down from heaven right now and has finally, finally learned to throw her head back and laugh. Alarie Tennille Alarie Tennille graduated from the first coed class at the University of Virginia, where she earned her B.A. in English, Phi Beta Kappa key, and black belt in Feminism. Just so you know, Alarie claims her poem is not autobiographical. Her mother would be the first one on the dance floor. She was known for dancing a solo hula at a few veterans’ conferences shortly after WWII. Since, she didn’t have a shy bone in her body, Alarie did sometimes wonder how Alice could be her mama. *** Big Bang Where once there was nothing, a flower is born, gloved petals waggling in aftershock, black capillaries haggard in the air. Already it’s ragged with knowing: the pink rubbed until red, jagged creases mapping the centre where pistil or cone should be. Look long and this flower deflowers itself, splaying its flesh wide open in contempt of decency, of the hand’s impulse to grope for a stem, to pluck and to prettify. Take me as I am, it says, Don’t box me in with your rules, expanding bigger and bigger, less and less like a flower, more and more like the universe it always intended to be. Janis Geve Janis Geve teaches literature at UMass Amherst, specializing in autobiography, disability studies, and service-learning. She has published previously in such places as Beltway Quarterly Review, Red Eft Review, The Florida Review and New Delta Review, among other places. *** at the heart of it all the average male adult heart is ten ounces of red muscle a woman's a little less though it will beat faster to move the same volume of blood the heartbeat itself the result of mechanical action heart valves in motion open-close-open-close pit-pat-pit-pat it's not the bard's pound of flesh after all not the true seat of emotion yet we'll argue head versus heart a broken heart really does exist intense sadness produces pain with a true physiological basis unlike in the stories it can heal likewise a heart can burst with happiness when the left ventricle swells due to joy and blood is easier for a heart to pump when the blood vessels are relaxed proving laughter really is the best medicine Emily Tee Emily Tee writes poetry and flash fiction. She's had pieces published in The Ekphrastic Review and for its challenges, and elsewhere online,.and in print in some publications by Dreich and in Poetry Scotland among other places. She lives in the UK. *** Aorta from this very blood invigorated you were sustained in the dark mysteries of my womb when we were inseparable you gladly received our shared oxygen and your cells knit together and you became fully boy and now you are fully man tall strong dimple-faced life calls you eagerly and you smile and walk away leave me just as it is meant to be but my heart still pumping nutrients upwards through the arch and down now nourishes grief in the seat of love Melinda Dewsbury Melinda Dewsbury experiences poetry as therapy, a kind of grounding exercise that connects physical embodiment with big ideas and deep truths. During the pandemic, she and her mother wrote Pandemic Poems back and forth to one another. In 2021, their experience was featured in an interview and poetry reading on CBC radio’s On the Coast. Melinda lives in Langley, British Columbia. *** Ode to My Wound O Wound Portal to skin strata living on the river of ancient blood. What demons swim in that stream hunting for new cells to join this gang of invaders? O Wound You were so easy to manage when I was young a kiss a bandage and we were safe. But old age has filled that pool with too many monsters immune to healing potions and poison O Wound Are you the final battlefield between skin and world the ill that will take me down? Margo Stutts Toombs Margo Stutts Toombs enjoys creating and preforming poetry. Her work lives in FreezeRay Poetry, Untameable City - Mutabilis Press, the Texas Poetry Calendar, Love over 60: An Anthology of Women’s Poems, The Ekphrastic Review, the Friendswood Library Ekphrastic Poetry Contest, Equinox, and Synkronicity. She performs spoken-word poetry and monologues at fringe festivals, art galleries and anywhere food and beverages are served. For several years, Margo has been the MC for the poetry/prose readings at Archway Art Gallery in Houston, Texas. *** Spilled Supper Special I love mama’s red beans and rice. When I tracked in slick leaves and slid into my chair too eager to eat; it felt like matricide to be this clumsy, sending a spoonful of such craftwork to the floor, extra flattened by fat cat paws. I tried to make up for this mistake, with hand-folded, colored-pencil cards, maroon carpet for your morning breakfast smeared egg whites look well enough to me. Or is it just another mess? Years later, we each had our own bloody bouts, the worst war of roses and ripped up reams of divisive documents and tear-shot dreams, a perfect picture now torn up and tossed away, every crease a wrinkle, a white hair, a whimper. I should’ve stirred the sauce some more, seen our recipes weren’t so different, or I wouldn’t have let the sun set on a blooming, burgundy love that was chewed up, spit out, found wanting, left lacking-- When I sit at the table now, and look down at the nicely-filled bowl, and say my prayers as a ruddy light illuminates my face against the gloom, I admit that I miss mama. Only she knows how to make it right. Alexander Harber Alexander Harber is sometimes an engineer, a LEGO builder, an illustrator, a poet, or a writer. He was born in New Orleans, but was forced to grow up in deep East Texas until he went to college. Now a permanent Houston resident, he is just starting to dip his toes into sharing his creative works with the wider world. Most recently, he was a contributor to the March/April edition of BrickJournal as well as the online multimedia journal Equinox by Hotpoet. *** This is not a painting of… an ailing oak, its prostrate trunk uprooted, its bark bruised; its split branches bare. a silent snow-child, freed from a folktale, tiptoeing out in the chill of a street-lit night. a dead kite, his foxed wings outstretched, lying in the lane with his roadkill carrion. a pair of neat scissors, cutting and snipping a red and pink linen shirt into ragged strips. a wriggle of well-fed earthworms, writhing through the topsoil in the vegetable patch. a hidden hare, her ears alert, her snout twitching as she becomes her witch-self. my old heart, beating and pumping blood to my brain as it fizzes with weird visions. Dorothy Burrows Based in the U.K, Dorothy Burrows enjoys writing poetry, flash fiction and short plays. Her poems have been published in both print and online journals including The Ekphrastic Review. She has always enjoyed searching for faces and figures in clouds. *** Letting Go This woman held things tightly inside her, so tight that she hugged herself, tied her legs into a knot bit her tongue until it bled. But when she let go, she exploded like a bud, sprawling her petals wide open, calling the eye to feast on her shades of red, emerging from the shadows. Gary S. Rosin Gary S. Rosin’s poetry has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Concho River Review, contemporary haibun, dadakuku, Eastern Structures, Failed Haiku, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Texas Poetry Calendar, The Wild Word, and Visions International. He has two chapbooks, Standing Inside the Web (Bear House Publishing 1990), and Fire and Shadows (Legal Studies Forum 2008). Two of his ekphrastic poems appear in Silent Waters, photographs by George Digalakis (Athens, 2017). He is the author of two chapbooks, Standing Inside the Web (Bear House Publishing, 1990) and Fire and Shadows (Legal Studies Forum, 2008) (offprint). His poems “Viewing the Dead,” and “Black Dogs,” were nominated for Pushcart Prizes. *** When Telekinesis Trumps Precognition All her works were now untitled. He had told her that was to be her task, and she had accepted it once she had come to some level of admittedly begrudged acceptance with the situation. It was not overly difficult to assuage her feelings of having sacrificed her artistic mores; she had no choice, after all. He held all she loved hostage: the Sword of Damocles had nothing on the precarious high-wire act that would be her daughter, balanced on tiptoe from a spider-web-thin catenary barely clearing raging cataracts alive and churning with blood hungry Carcharodon carcharias. All she could do to prevent that catastrophe was to produce a new painting for him each day. He rapped his restless fingers against the table, the teak hard and dark, a stage for his prognostications, his forecasts, his foretelling of victory or doom, of his daily deliveries of the events that were to come to true fruition, the fruits of this delicate yet delectable collaboration. Before he had found her in that out-of-the-way gallery in SoHo, he had worked his way through all the tools of his trade, from chicken entrails (too messy, too smelly, too primeval) to tea leaves (he could no longer stand the taste of it, had to whiten it to an almost purely dairy concoction), Rorschach blots (Freud and his minions be damned) to Tarot (too finite, too many predictable combinations), casting horoscopes (too many phony practitioners) to self-hypnosis (too much aligned and hard-wired to his personality). The paintings at her exhibit had been a transformational experience. With his first glance he saw in each painting the levels of complexity of the world flung aside, the clouds of fog and smoke cleared, some new, unique, exposition of things whose time had arrived, of events that would be set in motion the moment he saw them: births, deaths, wars, cataclysms, all visible there and ripe for him to pluck and set before the world. All he had to do was see them on the page and announce them aloud. “Almost through,” she said, “the ink is drying as I speak.” She manipulated the palette knife along the edge of the painting, shearing the sheet from the block of watercolor paper, handed him the image, curling slightly as it dried, freed now from the constraints of the block. Her eyes downcast, she stepped back. He held the page, aligned it before him on the tabletop, kept his eyes raised to the camera, its red light blinking the countdown. His readings were always more dramatic when he looked down at the image just as the camera came to life, so the audience could see the dawning comprehension on his face: horror, glee, exquisite joy, sly smirk—brief preview of what his stentorian voice would then expound. He lowered his eyes to take in the fresh painting. His mouth opened, his irises expanded, his heartbeat revved up like a street racer, he looked stricken, unbelieving; his eyes strayed from the camera lens, he glanced her way. She was smiling. And then in the next instant he was there, on the wire, precariously balanced, wavering, arms out to his sides, the foaming water and snapping jaws beneath him, and he could see, in his mind’s eye’s final fleeting vision, her beside the desk, stepping into the camera’s view, her arms about her child, announcing to the world what he was only beginning to comprehend. Roy Beckemeyer Roy J. Beckemeyer’s fifth and latest book of poetry is The Currency of His Light, (Turning Plow Press, 2023). Beckemeyer’s work has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards and has appeared in Best Small Fictions 2019. He has designed and built airplanes, discovered and named fossils of Palaeozoic insect species, and has traveled the world. Beckemeyer lives with and for his wife of 61 years, Pat, in Wichita, Kansas. His authors page is at royjbeckemeyer.com. *** That Night Was Like Chaim Soutine hanging a carcass of beef, a ripe explosion again and again. A blossom of red darkness. I did not hear the gunshots. Not even one. The pink pulse of ambulance and police cars slipped through our closed blinds. It was Thanksgiving night. We had just eaten quail. The TV was on—we nursed our island of wounds. It's no metaphor—how the pus drained from your arm as the murders across the street occurred. Daybreak was speckled with flecks of light. Neighbors and reporters shed drops of illumination. I felt the blood in the artery behind my right ear. Christmas decorations were affronted by morning. We took out the trash. Vanessa Zimmer-Powell Vanessa Zimmer-Powell’s poetry has aired on the radio and has been published in numerous journals and anthologies. Recently, she has taken an interest in writing and filming cinepoems and has been a ReelPoetry and Gulf Coast Film Festival juried cinepoet and filmmaker. Awards include first place winner of the 2017 and 2016 Houston Poetry Fest ekphrastic competition, top honors in the 2017, 2019, and 2021 Friendswood Library ekphrastic poetry competitions, and finalist in the 2023 ReelPoetry festival. Her chapbook, Woman Looks into an Eye is published by Dancing Girl Press. *** Tankas Russian ballerina exhales like a red lacewing in a shadowbox, butterfly over the burnt dirt—no one hears her heart’s voice. * Inverted, I write embrace, maroon costumes merge. The graceful dancers never worry past night's flight, never worry past their lips. 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 and 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). *** Marked The leaf has the markings of a Paul Klee squiggles dots crosses on terracotta crust crisp beneath her feet it reminds her of the lines drawn on the canvas of her skin a map for the surgeon’s knife to slice through tissue and tumour it is the tattoo she never asked for the image cut in soft-light rouge inked pitied reviled she lifts the leaf fingers the veins soft ridges like scars running on rust subconsciously places hand over womb feels the hollow dryness of parchment like a page erased wordless lets it fall in autumn soil to mulch compost 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 has been accepted for publication in 2023. Find her on Twitter @Kateyoung12poet. *** Menopause: The Graphic Novel Maybe I’m projecting and this is not a vagina maybe its a tarantula, maybe it’s a heart flattened by love, the sinister kind. I see a hint of giant squid: mantle, funnel, frill and not a small amount of flutter. Last summer I stopped shaving my legs in solidarity with my daughter and to protest the performative nature of sex, but now I miss the smooth skin under my own hands and wonder who did I set out to punish? I thought the small hairs would be like eyelashes but they were more recalcitrant than that. Clearly I’ve lost sight of who I once was. By definition I have been divine but also lacking in big-picture capacity thinking. See the foamy waves? This is an ocean-floor noir, a catch-me-if-you-dare type of situation. I initially thought iris, but beardtongue is more sleeper than place-keeper in the garden bed, calling now: come little hummingbird to my wet feeder; this nectar is all yours. Two-lipped and heavy with seed, we’ve reached the tree line first learned about on the topographical map of Maine. A smoking gun, a cigarette you bummed and let turn to ash without once putting it to your mouth. Capricious at the best of times, a warm bed, a place to lay your frozen shoulder. Crystal Karlberg Crystal Karlberg is a Library Assistant at her local public library and a speaker for Greater Boston PFLAG. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in: oddball magazine; Lily Poetry Review; Threepenny Review, Beloit Poetry Journal; Penn Review. *** Dance Shoes Some days you come unexpectedly across altars, temporary tributes to tragedies, pop-up memorials - outpourings of love. Cards and candles and stuffed animals among other tiny remembrances lean against wire fences or lie upon public stairs that lead to loss. My eye is drawn to a black and white Oxford saddle shoe. Upon closer study, I see it's fitted with taps at toe and heel. But there's just one dance shoe, its mate nowhere to be found among the other curiosities. Somewhere beyond this memorial, someone sits alone in a bedroom on the side of a bed sobbing, holding the other shoe pressed against a heaving chest, whose heart continues to tap its syncopated rhythm – heel toe, heel toe, heel toe. Mark Jodon Mark Jodon is the author of a full-length collection of poetry, Day of the Speckled Trout (Transcendent Zero Press) and a limited edition chapbook, What the Raven Wants (Provision Press). He is an Iconoclast Artist. His poetry was recently published in Pensive: A Global Journal of Spirituality and the Arts (Northeastern University. ** Love in the Age of Petticoats "Little Nancy Etticoat In a white petticoat, And a red nose.. The longer she stands, The shorter she grows." Child's Rhyme, Mother Goose "....paint char on the page." Marsden Hartley, Letter To Chagall "As evening came on, the light became more and more bewitching...Things weren't simply lit up, they radiated light from within." Jean-Luc Bannalec, The Granite Coast Murders 1, Day Dreams Windmills bring good luck in Paris turning in the wind at the Moulin Rouge. As the century turned in a farm house outside Austin my grandmother and her sisters were required to lie down in the heat of the day stripped to cotton chemises and petticoats, a light breeze from the open windows catching curls on their damp foreheads as they pretended to sleep in the hot afternoons. Up since 5 doing chores, filling hours of grief until evening after their mother died, they carried lunch to their father building fences in the fields. The 2 oldest knew Latin, trained to be teachers; and my grand- mother sewed, making everyone's clothes and I guess you could say she fell in love with the potential of fabric -- plaids and taffetas, white lawn and black velvet -- one gown I remember, dress-up for a dance in the school cafeteria where she practiced the fine art of dance steps... And when I came along, there was ballet and tap (shuffle, ball, change) in a room with high ceilings, for music and echoes (I was eager to leave, to walk by the ball field) -- Would Satine find Christian under the bleachers? 2. The Petticoats Go To Paris Monsieur Lautrec sits in a chair holding his artist's sketch book as girls come from below running up to their rooms in the Red Mill, stripping off clothes as they go wearing only their petticoats and camisoles. A girl who sings La Vie en Rose will pose for the artist in a bathtub -- La Toilette -- her bare shoulder blades, shadow-blue with cold resemble wings of angels son amies to Jane Avril who does the Can-Can, printed on a poster, Jardin de Paris where the latest gossip is about an elephant in the garden. "How odd that shooting stars have become the sky crying," Satine says to Christian hiding her heartbreaking secret (she will die of consumption) to which Christian replies, Oh, God, that I might kiss you one last time.... So long as there is breath in my body, Satine, my soul shall seek yours wherever it wanders*.... 3. How many petticoats? How many petticoats was my grandfather's game. He'd ask his question with a laugh, knowing it had to be at least 2 or 3 (he made fun of how many) for a well-dressed pre-teen in the late 1950's; and then it was 1963 as black satin (in French, the Satine) slipped over my body all the way down to a rash of red petticoats, ruffles fading to shades of lost pink and mauve "Let me see," my grandmother called from her sewing machine as I pulled on black hose, and long black gloves a graduation gift from a great aunt, one of her sisters. My face looked out at me from a mirror as I pinned the night-black feather on my headband in the spirit of Satine and Christian -- high jinks, romance, fabric in fragments, the petticoat illusion of Can-Can kicks -- Is this how the French lost their innocence? In abstract art, Untitled when time was a chorus line of color -- Laurie Newendorp *Christian's speech is an adaptation of Raphael West's farewell to Jane Austen. Laurie Newendorp lives and writes in Houston. Her book of poetry, When Dreams Were Poems, matches life and its realities to reality's other side, the illusory nature of living to old age; and how women explore the nature of passion, expressed, as it is, in the story of Christian and Satine (the star-crossed lovers of the Moulin Rouge) and in the spirit of art, passed from generation to generation. The Ekphrastic Review is thrilled to have longtime contributor Julie A. Dickson as a guest editor for this challenge. Scroll way down for her bio, and just below for her welcome note. Thank you so much, Julie! Dear Readers, I am very excited both to be a guest editor for The Ekphrastic Review, where I often participate in Lorette’s ekphrastic challenges, and enjoy the vast myriad of responses from poets and writers. I welcome you to the underground rocky grotto, where Gustave Courbet did several paintings of this river, which flows into Ornans, his native village in the Franche- Comte’ region of eastern France. I was particularly drawn to this cavern and greatly look forward to reading all of the submissions to this prompt. Julie ** 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 La Grotte de la Loue, by Gustave Courbet. Deadline is May 12, 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 COURBET 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. Do not send it after acceptance or later; it will not be added to your piece. Guest editors may not be familiar with your bio or have access to archives. We are sorry about these technicalities, but have found that following up, requesting, adding, and changing later takes too much time and is very confusing. 7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 8. Deadline is midnight EST, May 12, 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. 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. ** Julie A. Dickson is a poet and author of several books including, Bullied into Silence [Piscataqua Press 2014] and Untumbled Gem [Goldfish Press 2016] Dickson holds a BPS in Behavioral Science, is a Push Cart nominee, has served on two poetry boards, coordinated 100 Thousand Poets for Change and served as guest editor for Jitter Press and Inwood Indiana, co-editor for My Funny Bones are Humor-us [Staples] and as editor/curator of Prey Tell: Poems about Birds of Prey. Her work appears in journals, including Misfit, MasticadoresUSA, Tiger Moth and The Ekphrastic Review. Dickson writes poetry from many prompts such as art, nature, literature and animals. She advocates for captive elephants, and shares her home with two rescued cats. Walk Forward It was an evening of mist, though not dense enough to keep the moon from believing it could lay its likeness across the bay. Night began to settle in, and so, I began to relax- darkness has that effect on me. If I recall we were presided over by a sense that, without coercion, convinced us that as we walked we should keep our gaze straight ahead, allowing that sense to believe that it had misled us into imagining that the answers lie in the direction before us. I held onto your arm a little more firmly, attempting to reassure you that ignoring senses that emerge on misty evenings when the moon is stretched out across the bay and we are most vulnerable, is the only way to travel. I knew, or at least surmised, that we each contained a pile of smoking ash inside us, the image of a life that for all its errors continued – at least for the moment – to smolder. I turned to you to say, My love, do you feel that warmth inside you? Ignore it. It’s just the remains of one of the old yous encroaching on one of the last turns. John L. Stanizzi John L. Stanizzi’s books include Ecstasy Among Ghosts, Sleepwalking, and Feathers and Bones. His new book, Viper Brain, will be out in the fall. Besides The Ekphrastic Review, John’s poetry has appeared in American Life in Poetry, New York Quarterly, Tar River, Paterson Review, The Cortland Review, and others. His work has been translated into Italian and appears widely in Italy. A former Wesleyan University Etherington Scholar, an adjunct Professor of English for 26 years, a former New England Poet of the Year, and in 2021, he received a grant from the State of Connecticut Commission on Arts and Culture. ** Beyond the Beach in Turkey 1913 Lovers swept with youth may forstall the nemesis of armies marching just beyond the bluffs a cresting brutal map of conquest and empire Ottoman versus Balkan independence the slow crawling fuse of WW1 hissing war with Greece will explode in a decade all this history is a vague dawn light a yellow and blue fog small lights in distant towers while they dream together watching the Aegean horizon their lonely fortress of immortal waves will shift like ocean foam a fragile shelter against the combertide of bombs and blood. Daniel Brown Daniel Brown has just published at age 72 his first collection FAMILY PORTRAITS IN VERSE and Other Illustrated Poems published by Epigraph Books. He has most recently been published in Jerry Jazz Musician and Chronogram Magazine and is included in Arts Mid-Hudson gallery presentation Poets Respond To Art in Poughkeepsie, NY. ** Moonlit Look out my love on a moonlit bay reflected to us on tide rippled shore I take your arm as we walk slowly dreaming of a good life, our love carries us along like a wave Julie A. Dickson Julie A. Dickson has been hooked on ekphrastic poems for a few years now, loves using art, music and other mediums as prompts. Dickson holds a BPS in Behavioral Science, has twice served on poetry boards, has been a guest editor for poetry journals and has full length works on Amazon. Her poetry appears in various publications including Medusa's Kitchen, Lothlorien, Blue Heron Review and The Ekphrastic Review. She shares her home with two rescued feral cats. ** We say goodbye under a peach coloured moon It's a cool spring evening, the moon is a peach coloured apparition hanging in the pastel sky, its shimmering moon glow reflecting off the calm lilac sea that breaks in small foamy wavelets near our feet. The sunset prayer call rang out from the minaret a short while ago and now the first evening lights are beginning to appear along the coast lending an enchanted charm to the town in the silhouetted eventide. We stand side by side, looking the same way towards the path from the beach, the one leading to the road out of town that will take you away from me tomorrow. For now, you hold my arm, gently, tenderly, your warm hand comforting through the gauzy sleeve of my light coat. We both knew this evening would arrive, yet tried to pretend it would not. It's 1912 and war is coming. Even now the Balkans are a hotbed of foment. Rumours fly that other countries plan to join the hostilities. Every man of a certain age is expected to play their role, including you, my love, and that is why you must leave. We stand together, contemplating what the future might hold. You seem lost in your thoughts. I am lost in mine, too. I fear the spectre of the dark shadow, as was foretold on my last birthday, the one that will separate us forever. Knowing that we would be forced to part has leant our time together such a bittersweet poignancy, made it a kind of exquisite torture. I've treasured every second of our love affair and the knowledge of this impending end has been almost unbearable. Tonight we have each other, the soft caress of the sea breezes and the poetry whispered by the peach coloured moon, and for now that is enough. Emily Tee Emily Tee writes poetry and flash fiction. She's had pieces published in The Ekphrastic Review and for some of its challenges, and elsewhere online, and in print in some publications by Dreich and in Poetry Scotland among other places. She lives in the UK. ** Land and Sea A city where the sea kisses the land, I wish I kissed you too Along the coast, we ran hand in hand, chasing the morning dew. I dreamed a dream that you were mine, I dreamed it all in blue We lived a lifetime, then I killed it and with it, I killed you too. The city sleeps in dead silence, but the land rumbles by the sea ‘Cause here lays my heart in violence, in loving memory of my beloved, so hear my last plea. The waves will water our graves, we will be together in death, you and me Our love will light this city ablaze, ‘cause you are my land, I am your sea. The flowers will bloom over our grave of love that withered away The soil, the very thing that separated us, will bring us together on the last day. They say young love burns fast, dies young, so be it, we dig our own young graves We choose our land, we choose our fate, we dare to put our hearts on the blade. This city reeks of that daring youth, of that valor that possesses the resilient truth So love may burn and make you cry, but let that spirit never die. Kanishka Zico A writer and an artist, Kanishka has majored in English literature in India. She studied language and culture while conducting research in film studies in Japan. She writes speculative fiction and her works embody elements of dread and dark fantasy. You can find more of her work on zicokanishka.wordpress.com ** Christmas WITHOUT Snow for my ex-wife, Ayesha Ali I. 2 post meridiem – approximately: at the Bondi Beach, the sun is merry as if The Son of Mary Himself at The Gates of Jerusalem. II. With her ring finger, she draws the shape of heart in the sand – out of the league of the impressin’ waves – and embosses it with a signature: Saad + Ayesha – shaped as a Cupid’s arrow – all the while, not lettin’ my hand – with the ring finger – go: You’re BOOKED! I’m HOOKED! FOREVER & EVER! III. [‘Tis] Xtemass, but there’s NO SNOW! As misfortune would have it, it all sounds Greek to her: she hasn’t an iota of idea of the love affair of the pine/tree with the snowflakes! IV. The December of ’09 C.E. marks my virgin Christmas WITHOUT Snow! And I find it rather analogous to: a forest without the coos of the doves in the trees! ~ (It turns the tables (in your head): makes you doubt the credibility of the entire narrative!) V. Only if I had an iota of idea —in the end, I would only be leavin’ The Lands of Sons & Daughters of Rome for the Sands of X-mas without snow/flakes-- I would’ve abandoned the very idea of the (self-)RESURRECTION all together! Saad Ali Saad Ali (b. 1980 C.E. in Okara, Pakistan) has been educated and brought up in the United Kingdom (UK) and Pakistan. He holds a BSc and an MSc in Management from the University of Leicester, UK. He is an (existential) philosopher, poet, and literary translator. Ali has authored six books of poetry. His latest collection of poetry is called Owl Of Pines: Sunyata (AuthorHouse, 2021). His work has been nominated for The Best of the Net Anthology. He is a regular contributor to The Ekphrastic Review. By profession, he is an Educationist, Management Consultant, and Personal & Professional Development Mentor. Some of his influences include: Vyasa, Homer, Ovid, Attar, Rumi, Saadi, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, and Tagore. He is fond of the Persian, Chinese, and Greek cuisines. He likes learning different languages, travelling by train, and exploring cities on foot. To learn more about his work, please visit www.saadalipoetry.com, or his Facebook Author Page at www.facebook.com/owlofpines. ** Haze After dinner, we walked hand in hand along the beach, watching dusky ripples of fish jumping through the surface, to catch water striders. Across the lake, the city lights blinked out as the scholars, librarians and poets went home. The purple fog blended the edges between the water and the sky and our stepping feet, and we were one, serene, interconnected being, moving in unison towards the horizon. Mahaila Smith Mahaila Smith (any pronouns) is a young, femme writer, living and working on the traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg in Ottawa, Ontario. They are one of the co-editors for The Sprawl Mag (thesprawlmag.ca). They like learning theory and writing spec poetry. Their debut chapbook, Claw Machine, was published by Anstruther Press in 2020. ** Liminal Love But love, not lovers, sea translates, Sahil’de Aşk, a wider wake, much broader canvas, miniature. With notes, piano, oud, kemenche, now liminal, as woman’s craft observes herself, in scape with folk. Presenting strong, hand belt, her arm, pure she, white dressed, moonlight and hope, a tonal spread in dreams of young. First teacher, Ottoman female, art, contra-diction sets apart, juxtaposition, empire, she. Against the tide of current flow, she sets a course that followed through, a novel homage, Last Work penned. Such works of forty, twice her years, as sold, support, Society, calligraphy that marks her grave. Like any cocktail, shaken, stirred, Love on the Beach, a heady mix, talent ingredients, short life. 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/ ** Never Apart Swathed in the sun’s setting rays, we walk, arms entwined, along the water’s edge of our town’s tiny inlet beach. We know this path and lapping sounds by heart. Though senses blurred by time our touch remains untouched. We wade into almost silent, unseen waters garbed in wedding dress, repeating, daily, the vows we most cherish. Sixty years, passion untamed. We will lead each other blind and deaf to our united death. Catherine Perkins Catherine Perkins, 67, has lived in Kentucky since 1984. She has numerous poems published in locally produced anthologies, but as of today still no manuscripts published. ** Nursery Rhymes If your fingers loosened your hand would fall as five pillars of stone fruit from my body, return to milk skin I remember Then I would show myself to the moon held up only by salinity Infuse my veins with lunar myths shake out the stars and wail Shoot midnight shivers down your father's back in time before his voice broke Only then could I relearn how to walk on and under water Mariel Herbert Mariel Herbert enjoys playful, little poems that sometimes take on bigger stories. She writes short fiction occasionally and English-language haiku and senryu quite often. Her work has appeared in Carmina Magazine, Liminality, and Uppagus, among other lovely publications. Mariel lives in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, where she also runs a few niche reading groups. She can be found online at marielherbert.wordpress.com or in a second-hand bookstore near you. ** Questions About a Beach Orange light wavers on a gentle swell. A harvest moon floats heavy over a distant slender minaret. A couple in cool linen pauses along a narrow strip of sand. Lovers on the Beach it’s called, dated 1913. The sigh of the tide, the fresh air, it’s almost tangible: a Monet-like subdued tranquility. An effortless, enduring high romance, but for the date. An oddity, as it’s the year after the artist died. Did she paint a portent? Was it a sickbed gesture of hope? Somehow, the vista’s serenity is unmarred by time passing, but the impress of history is upon it. Is this peace before the storm, an omen, then? The noise of the 20th century crowds the edges of this calm depiction. It can’t be helped. Did these lovers survive an empire’s end? Did they endure war, famine and flu? This beach, was it bloodied by battle? Was it defended from attack? Did the persecuted leave their footprints in the sand as they escaped? How did Müfide Kadri know we’d yearn for these two and their view, given the unintended weight this one canvas carries? Rebecca Dempsey Rebecca Dempsey lives in Melbourne/Naarm, Australia. She writes poetry and short stories across genres and can be found at WritingBec.com. ** Mufide Kadri Overheard Near Her Lovers on the Beach Now each of them must be this sea that rushes to embrace and each the willing, waiting shore the other will replace. And each of them must be that moon in which the other glows and each to one another's night the light as fleeting rose that beckons both to be two worlds that labour with respect, where each of them as seed and womb together must effect the spirits, though but half a soul, that love professed has rendered whole. 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. ** Dream Girl In the fading days of Ottoman glory, a magic child was born. Her life was the stuff that dreams are made of And ancient mythic legends portray. An orphaned baby taken in by the barren wife of An elegant and patrician man, this precious girl grew up In old Constantinople, sheltered by date palms and whitewashed walls. Her doting adoptive father provided her with tutors And teachers of the highest caliber—violin virtuosi and pianists. By the age of ten, she learned to paint professionally, Like Renoir and Monet, beautiful, dreamy, light-filled Visions of happy, respected women and men, Reading, playing music, strolling in the sunlight in the finest European clothing. This was all before everything changed. She won prizes, held her head high as the first Woman art teacher in Turkey. But in all this worldly glory, Still pure and holy, what went on in her secret heart? Her self-portrait shows only a shy girl with lovely dark eyes, Her glossy hair veiled in white lace. Did she dream of true love, like Aphrodite among the nearby Greeks? Did she hope to fly from the palace on demi-goddess wings and find A lover to hold her in his arms? Her final painting, Lovers on the Beach, depicts a man and woman, In creamy white clothing, the lady wearing a French style chapeau, And looking a bit like the self-portrait. The lovers walk near the shallows. An aura of pink and crystal light Permeates this lovely dream, this vision of quiet passion, A girl’s fantasy of being loved by a handsome man, Who holds her arm as they stroll together and looks at nothing but her. All is gauzy and golden, with the sun sparkling across The rosy waves, as they gently lap the sand, almost touching The hem of her ruffled frock. In the distance, the clock tower Chimes its soft sound, speaking only with the waves, Saying nothing about time. In this tableau, his love Will linger forever, and he will be handsome always. Alas, like Keats, England’s Golden Boy before her, she died young, Unmarried, childless, and Turkey fell to ruins, But everything she left behind was exquisite. Rose Anna Higashi Rose Anna Higashi is a retired professor of English Literature, Japanese Literature, Poetry and Creative Writing. Her poems have recently appeared in America Media, The Ekphrastic Review, Poets Online, The Catholic Poetry Room, The Agape Review and The Avocet. Many of her lyric poems and haiku can be viewed on her website, www.myteaplanner.com, which also publishes her monthly blog, “Tea and Travels.” Rose Anna lives in rural Hawaii with her husband of sixty years, Wayne Higashi. ** Kadri’s missing thought bubbles appear as wannabe sonnets that float, unspoken, over their heads I The new bride dreams… A man who holds me so near, who values me so dear! How fortunate am I to be so cherished, so protected—why, he cares even for the moon-blanched gown I wear, which sweeps the rattling shingle; grasps my arm with strong, cool fingers; draws me from salt water’s harm! In no way is my passion now amiss; this is an evening of calm delight. Here, now, we celebrate our wedded bliss under the quilt of sky, so full of tender light. In the blur of dusk through which we move, we stroll the shore in a haze of love. II The new groom schemes… A burning moon has risen on our right, lambent on the oily bay for this night: gold as the goldmine I shall find: all her riches to me bind. Ah, but she steps to the edge: too near! With my heavy soldier’s hand, I’ll steer her closer, ever closer as we promenade; still closer as the daylight fades. Clouds unwelcome overhang the town; the sky looms frowning over us-- claiming night, as I shall claim her for my own when darkness shall discover us. For that is now my solemn right: to have her—always, ever—in my sight. Lizzie Ballagher Last year, Ballagher was chosen as winner in Poetry on the Lake's 2022 formal category with a pantoum entitled ‘Across the Barle’. Her work has appeared in print and online on both sides of the Atlantic. She lives in the UK, writing a blog at https://lizzieballagherpoetry.wordpress.com/. She enjoys experimenting with formal structures as well as free verse. ** Lovers on the Beach A million stars dot the inky night sky each denoting a second of our togetherness The full moon is a glowing silver orb shining bright as our love. It is under this canopy that we walk arm in arm Our footfalls imprinting our history in the sand as we talk of and look at what lies ahead. We walk past the lighthouse till we reach the very end Here, surrounded by the crashing of the waves we gaze at the horizon. No words are needed, a comfortable silence descends soon the sound of silence echoes Slowly our heartbeats sync with the waves the lub-dub of love crescendoes. Nivedita Karthik Note: The non-indented lines (1, 3, 5, and so on) can be read and understood as a complete poem on their own. Further, reading the entire poem (indented and non-indented lines together) gives a slightly different outlook. Nivedita Karthik is a graduate in Immunology from the University of Oxford. She is an accomplished Bharatanatyam dancer and published poet. She also loves writing stories. Her poetry has appeared in Glomag, The Society of Classical Poets, The Epoch Times, The Poet anthologies, The Ekphrastic Review, Visual Verse, The Bamboo Hut, Eskimopie, The Sequoyah Cherokee River Journal, and Trouvaille Review. Her microfiction has been published by The Potato Soup Literary Journal. She also regularly contributes to the open mics organized by Rattle Poetry. She currently resides in Gurgaon, India, and works as a senior associate editor. She has two published books, She: the reality of womanhood and The many moods of water. ** Lovers on the Beach The waves are besotted with the shore, furiously kissing it back and forth with the changing tides with its various moods. Though they recede, they always return. On this lovelorn beach, You walk hand in hand with your lover, thinking you are unnoticed, but the sand rejoices under your feet. The air balmy, hums a ballad, to the the distant moon which shines on the sea, a touch, non tangential yet intimate. One can almost believe that there is nothing wrong with the world in this moment. There is no sadness. There is no war, no apocalypse, approaching. Only endless love stretching to the horizon carried on however flimsy hope. Akshaya Pawaskar Akshaya Pawaskar is a doctor-poet hailing from Goa, India. Her poems have been published in Tipton Poetry Journal, Shards,The Blue Nib, North of Oxford, Indian Rumination, Rock and Sling, among many others. She won the Craven Arts Council ekphrastic poetry competition in 2020 and was placed second in The Blue Nib chapbook contest in 2018. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks, The falling in and the falling out (Alien Buddha Press, 2021) and Cocktail of life (bookLeaf publishing, 2022). ** Split Sequence for Müfide Kadri as she paints anaemic moon… pale brush strokes… her lingering cough spatters stars on her palm spring’s last rites… in fading light on the shore a woman and man her bloodlines afterlife… two lovers stepping out with her spirit. Dorothy Burrows Based in the United Kingdom, Dorothy Burrows enjoys writing poems, flash fiction and short plays. Her work has appeared in various print and online journals including The Ekphrastic Review. She used to live by the sea. ** Sappho's Island they posed as the honeymooners dressed all in white as they stole away from industrial life, away from the secret tryst in a dark alley. handfuls of curly brown locks of womanhood lay undiscovered on the floor of a hidden home although she still owned the rest within. she did as she'd seen her father do - the pants, the shirt, the buttons, the tie, the boots, the hat, the mustache, and finally, the posture. she offered her hand to the lady in white whose hair was worth wars, and they escaped servitude they posed as the honeymooners on a midnight stroll but their boots pointed forever away from the towers of their prison, one pair hidden under silk and cotton. they stole away under the full moon tingling with fear and hope and incredible trust in the future and they followed the moonlit coastline until they saw their sanctuary on the horizon: the island of the witches. Sohei Wu Sohei Wu is a writer and poet, often found hunched over a laptop lost in the world of a new poem. They find inspiration in nature, social justice, and everything in between. ** Sahilde Asiklar "As night came on, the light became more and more bewitching...Things weren't simply lit up: they radiated light from within themselves." Jean-Luc Bannalec, Death in Brittany "Time held me green and dying Though I sang in my chains like the sea." Dylan Thomas, Fern Hill I was in love with the Mediterranean and with you, a guard at the Sultan's Palace. Some days I painted you -- the tall hat, the fine boots and your incorrigible mustache. Standing at attention outside the rooms where I taught "young ladies" the fine arts of drawing and music, I hoped you were enchanted by the oud and kamenche, listening as I played -- an overture to a good day -- and prepared my class for a lesson on Monet, his impressionistic colors like the luminescent petals in a thriving field, redolent with brush strokes; or like the moon-made yards of fabric I ordered for a dress to wear with you for our last promenade; to watch your fingers trace the ancient star maps and configurations of an astronomical twilight. On canvas (when I put us there) the moon left a trail for us to follow by the shoreline yet we could have been together anywhere, on a street in Paris when the sun drifts down, slipping away to evening, the cloud-filled sky lashed with pink and purple over the Seine, an interpretation of the wild and anonymous innocence of my girlhood before the rain and storm; and before we came to this beach, sand beneath my feet though I remember trembling foliage in the Bois de Boulogne (in Brittany, the Bois D'Amour), the trees predicting this breeze that embraces Istanbul: It is across the water, distant as the night in a work of art where there are no boats -- where sky and sea are suddenly seamless in our unavoidable ending. Laurie Newendorp Laurie Newendorp lives and writes in Houston. Her book, When Dreams Were Poems, explores the relationships between poetry, life and art. Mufide Kadri, an orphan, adopted and trained in the arts, was the first female teacher in the Ottoman Empire. Multiply talented, she taught in the Adile Sultan Palace (now a school for girls) until she contracted Consumption (Tuberculosis) and died at 22. The brevity of her life is like a phantom thought in "Sahilde Asiklar" in Turkish; in English, "Lovers On The Beach." Dear Writers, Welcome to the PERKINS CHALLENGE! As guest editor this time, I eagerly anticipate each and every response. My own introduction to The Ekphrastic Review and its biweekly challenges was in January 2019. Over the subsequent 86 weeks, I submitted to all but one. And while not all my responses were selected, enough were posted to feed my growing addiction to ekphrastic expression. In the four years I’ve been a member of this family, nourished by founder Lorette C. Luzajic, these challenges have helped me grow as a poet as well as an art lover. I’m now honoured to be part of the editorial staff. With this painting, I introduce you to my good friend and talented artist, donna e perkins. She is primarily an abstract artist with a passion for experimentation. A native Texan, born in Waco, she earned a master’s degree from the University of Houston at Clear Lake and taught art in public school for 20 years. Now, she’s a full-time artist and a member of Archway Gallery, an artist-owned and operated gallery in Houston. May her art inspire your creativity! Warm regards, Sandi Stromberg ** Join us for biweekly ekphrastic writing challenges. See why so many writers are hooked on ekphrasis! We feature some of the most accomplished, influential writers working today, and we also welcome emerging or first time writers and those who simply want to experience art in a deeper way or try something creative. The prompt this time is Untitled, by donna e Perkins. Deadline is April 28, 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 PERKINS 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. Do not send it after acceptance or later; it will not be added to your piece. Guest editors may not be familiar with your bio or have access to archives. We are sorry about these technicalities, but have found that following up, requesting, adding, and changing later takes too much time and is very confusing. 7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 8. Deadline is midnight EST, April 28, 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. 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. El Lienzo Humano No estamos solos. We are not alone. Our bodies human canvas splashed with sweat, mucus, spit, tears, blood, dirt, dung. Holding in our humanity, protective barrier between the harsh without & softness within. The world is often unkind – screaming, berating, clawing, pounding us down. But we emerge with rainbow hues, emerge and celebrate our emergence. Our refusal to stand down, lay low, lurk in shadow, hide who we are. We emerge with howls, with arms held high, with voices joined in communal joy, in declaration that We are not alone. No estamos solos. Jennifer Hernandez Jennifer Hernandez lives in Minnesota where she teaches immigrant youth and writes poetry, flash, and creative non-fiction. Her work has been published in many online and print journals, most recently in Visual Verse, Talking Stick, and Heron Tree. She especially loves sharing her work – which touches on themes of identity, social justice, and the different lenses through which we view the world -- at readings and public installations because the interaction between word and audience is where the magic happens. ** Lilacs You’ll ask, Where are the lilacs? And the wild roses? And the cats and kids, I‘ll tell you all about it. I lived in a suburb, with the changes of seasons outside, and the apple trees. From there you could look out at rain falling. A walled garden a meadow thick with grasses and raspberry brambles. Then one day, all that stood emptied carton boxes and moving truck. Look at my house repossessed. Look at the boarded windows and doors. Clay roof tiles, the brick chimney. And you’ll ask: Why doesn’t her story speak of lilacs? Come see the blue. Come see the blue. Ilona Martonfi Ilona Martonfi is a mother, an activist, an educator, literary curator, poet and an editor. Born in Budapest, Hungary, she has also lived in Austria and Germany. Martonfi writes in seven chapbooks, journals across North America and abroad. Curator of the Argo Bookshop Reading Series. Recipient of the Quebec Writers’ Federation 2010 Community Award. Martonfi lives in Montreal, Canada. The Tempest, Inanna Publications, 2022, is her fifth poetry book. ** The Baani of Hands Hands tracing hands, upon hands Hands holding fingers, new borns Filtering sunlight from faces. eyes Cutting the ends, of days. daylight Snapping at readings, poet/poems Letting in octaves into birth canals Picking, peeling skins from eyelids Transferring between body, empty Trembling beneath covers, shaping Carrying hiccups wearied with age Writing distress signals, surviving Baking & braiding, wooden wrists Soothing parched wombs, healing Questioning while slithering slow Sniffing into sealed smells, touch Kneading lightly into all stiffness Living as handprints, impressions Cradling the cracks, furrowed sky Swirling desire at edge of wounds Folding together as palm to palm Teaching to touch, even tyrannies Kneeling next to knees, blooming Being needles, totems of dead rain Distilling sand from sand, psalms Seeking flames, dressing our dead Traveling across lengths of spines Skimming over a trembling mouth Forgetting their history of violence Learning to grasp a knuckled quiet Contemplating moments minutely Breathing with tips, such precision Introspecting impotence in hunger Sketching wallpaper with scriptura Partaking baani, strumming a vaani Kashiani Singh *Bani meaning word, or scripture, the guru’s words *Vani meaning voice, the guru’s speech When Kashiana is not writing, she lives to embody her TEDx talk theme of Work as Worship into her every day. She currently serves as Managing Editor for Poets Reading the News. Her chapbook Crushed Anthills by Yavanika Press is a journey through 10 cities. Her newest full-length collection, Woman by the Door was released in Feb 2022 with Apprentice House Press. ** To Manuel Espinoza Regarding Opresion Your images are chaos cast where present is forever past and souls become what they despise, the terror suffered they reprise that deepens spiral by design of humankind in steep decline, its spirit shackled, ball and chain, as heir to will of ruthless reign exerting by dynastic rule the fear benumbing faithless fool who neither sees in image cast the chaos into which he's passed nor future mocked as shadowed bliss cessation brings as calm abyss. 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. ** Craquelure There it is, my life! All reference points as if photo-shopped, road maps and boundaries held and breached, have turned into craquelure. Pain made visible. Orange and red splatters document my ardour and the heat of life. The silencing invader at work on my throat chose lavender as if to mock me and pitch-black to numb the field around my lips for fear that they might voice too much, or whisper words of love. The body, paint-balled, has fallen hostage to time. My right arm a stump without its writing and art-making hand, my left, caught reaching high above my head, yet falling short of touching another’s outstretched hand. Till my last moment, time will multiply those fine fissures and deepen those cracks, until ground, paint and the life lived, submit. 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 is an occasional painter of abstract acrylics and regularly contributes to the The Ekphrastic Review. ** The Naked Truth My body is a blank canvas I wince at the shock of colour waterfalling my bare skin, I convince myself I’m respectfully shrouded but it’s only an illusion as tinctures fall on acetate, not epidermis; in the Emergency Room the primary hue is anxiety reds, blues, yellows sooth pain but only temporarily. Elaine Sorrentino Elaine Sorrentino, communications director by day, poet by night, has been published in Minerva Rising, Willawaw Journal, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Ekphrastic Review, Writing in a Women’s Voice, Global Poemic, ONE ART: a journal of poetry, Agape Review, Haiku Universe, Sparks of Calliope, Muddy River Poetry Review, Panoply, Etched Onyx Magazine, and at wildamorris.blogspot.com. She was featured on a poetry podcast at Onyx Publications. ** The Colours of Silence Once, I used to spread my blood red wings wide and coast over the village, while below, children pointed and squealed papagayo papagayo. I tapped into mangoes, letting the juice quench my throat. I played hide and seek among the banana leaves. I bobbed to the beats of drums, maracas. Once, I fell in love with a purple passion flower, she was speechless when I introduced myself papagayo papagayo. Trapped in a net as I slumbered, I awoke in darkness, my head hooded: all hues drained. I heard the rattle of a cage around me, felt the swell of the ocean beneath me. I longed for the perfume of the forest, for the warm morning breeze to rouse me, for the children to point and squeal papagayo papagayo. Now, in this cold damp land, in this bleached room, my blood red wings are tied, my claws are clipped, my beak held shut. Firm hands grasp my neck and twist and twist. What I hear is not the clicking of a python about to shed its skin. And after all the roughness, a delicate blade cleaves me open, fingers scoop me out. My heart thumps its last papagayo papagayo. Stuffed, stitched, sprayed, they take my eyes and give me ones of glass. I hear children tapping at my cabinet asking Daddy, daddy, why can’t it talk? and wish my fused beak could shriek: once I was papagayo papagayo. Bayveen O'Connell Bayveen O'Connell is an Irish writer whose flash fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and for Best Microfiction. Her words have appeared or are forthcoming in Brilliant Flash Fiction, Janus Literary, Splonk, MacQueens Quinterly, The Ekphrastic Review, The Forge, Fractured Lit, and others. She's inspired by travel, folklore, history, myth, music, and art. ** That We Too May Dream Time, relentless in the light, slows or stutters to a stop at night. Dreams come, filling gaps in the dreamer’s history. Gaps shapeshift. Dreams hopscotch. An infinity of images gathers, plucked from the time of sleepwalking, which is childhood, a luxury for many. For those children bereft of youth, of dreams, monstrous nightmares day and night and day fill the void. Hunger-enriched lassitude and cold dread hover as they trudge endless rock-strewn trails in the dark or crouch on water-sloshed dinghy floors. Their eyes are ancient and aware. Longing suffuses their faces: Come to us, Angel of Death. Cradle us in your arms, that we too may dream. CJ Muchhala CJ Muchhala’s work can be found in Never Forgotten: 100 Poets Remember 9/11, as well as other anthologies, print and on-line journals including Mobius: the Journal of Social Change, Rise Up Review, a previous Ekphrastic Challenge, and in art/poetry exhibits. Her work has been nominated for the Best of the Net and twice for the Pushcart Prize. ** Defense That fist coming at her isn’t the signal. The first shove, palm against her mouth, that was it or maybe his sparked words stinging, cinders scorching the skin. When the anger overflows like red lava anything that can’t move fast enough is engulfed in the burst of blind heat. The girl pushing him off the other is a phantom, gritty still with sleep, waking to the sound of breaking chair and shoved table. She stays as she woke, unable to move to the kitchen scene though she sees it as if she were there-- her mother on her knees, arms up in defense of her face, as the daughter lunges, pushes at him to no purpose even as she lies in her bed, stiff and still, the covers pulled up over her mouth. Luanne Castle Luanne Castle has published two award-winning full-length poetry collections and two chapbooks. Luanne’s poetry and prose have appeared in Copper Nickel, River Teeth, TAB, Verse Daily, Saranac Review, and other journals. She lives in Arizona with her five cats inside and bobcats and javelina outside. ** Rubberneck An image, a movie, a peopled underpass rises above reality, refuses to be ignored, punctures the surface, cobwebbed and dusty, with its lone claim: chaos unmitigated. The frantic spider weaves in desperation a pat and rational web – ‘How sad’, a lowering of the eyes, a lament too weak to climb out of the throat; safety. Distance brings peace, space to pause – reexamine the box for scratches, dents from a pained grimace, a crime, the dark side of the moon; all is sound, yet a weak voice whispers I am the darkness. I am here. Brett Schaller Brett Schaller currently studies English at Hillsdale College. ** The Promise of Love Was Not Accurate I dreamed that I could attain happiness. The path was straight and defined by green foliage that arched above and planed the way. The promise of love was not accurate. The masters painted romances on couches and pastelled the petals of gentle flowers. You threw acrylic paint into my open mouth while I swore I would not love you again. The pot boils until the lid that seemed to fit will no longer come loose with heat or cold. Red anger boils hot. Love enflames the rest. A bruise fade through purple to yellow bile. I opened myself to the splashes of your grit. Together we rose and wrapped ourselves as if we were only and all at once. Silk is not enough cover for missing skin. I reach for you but you are no longer there to turn away. I contain the rising panic in shades of blue. The shadows darken against this background. The twitches of the empty house sound like you. You will no longer hear me scream or cry. Love haunts in griefs and shades of gray. The stains do not ever come out. Kay Newhouse Other poems by Kay Newhouse can be found in New Verse News, Wildfire Magazine, The Writers Center Magazine, and London Writers Salon Anthologies. She is a new poet who loves the parallels between improvisational partner dancing and creative writing, and the way an urge towards community shows up in all our nooks & crannies if we let it. @KayWCS. ** Oppression/Expression What is the origin Of your oppression Creatively Destroying me Taking me Piece by piece And again Your violence seems delicate Not for anyone to see but me Chosen To explain your movements Explore your rage How you silence me I learn my lesson Your semiotics assignment I rehearse it Alive Sleepless and Awake My body wears The colours of your hate The marks of your mistreat My mind bears The tale of you Torturing me I stare in the dark Your messages Molding me Into the precise expression Of your oppression Stien Pijp Stien Pijp lives east of the 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. ** What Murders Sleep In sleep it seemed like Chuang Tzu's dream: Was I a human or a butterfly? Into dark woods men marched a band mostly of teenage boys stumbling over roots. These were commanded to undress quickly pulling at buttons and unbuckling belts. One had a leather vest a gunman wanted and yanked from arms clasped behind the youth. Another boy as pretty as a girl was held down as they used him and were done. After a summer dance, folks had laughed when a butterfly alighted on his curled hair. The gunmen covered them in a patch in the woods where nothing would grow, seeded like dragon's teeth. Years later, opening the grave, relatives found a boot or shirt and screamed a name. No one found the butterfly. Royal Rhodes Royal Rhodes is a poet and retired educator. His work has appeared in numerous literary journals, including: Last Stanza, DREICH, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, and The Montreal Review. ** our last supper sip my blood tongue my flesh like lovers do inhale the thyme devour the mace ignite the tapers intone your prayers like christians do join your brethren pump your fist but never trust them like I trusted you to not slay kill slaughter strangle shoot execute knife butcher nullify demolish murder me Donna-Lee Smith Donna-Lee Smith sends up a prayer to the sisters who have experienced me too moments or worse. To the angry fearful men, of woman born and raised, what fuels your anger so? ** Brown Skins his mouth screams, almost shatters muscle rage on walls and ceiling crimson boils across an arm, blue hope fades and shrinks like sand behind a window crossed in steel bars love always on cement stained yellow say instead it’s always love, his mother’s face embedded in his chest, eyes burning black hair strangling his neck, hands beg for deliverance from chains and ghosts their bodies sore from rocks and loss, fighting for air and space to sleep slaps are explosions and fear eruptions until brown skins are raw and dying alive in a world with deep cracks hiding what we cannot see: voices silenced Maryann Gremillion Maryann Gremillion is a Houston poet who enjoys ekphrastic writing. The process often leads to wonderful surprises as creative spirit leads the way. Her work has appeared in Glass Mountain, The Sun, The Ekphrastic Review and Teacher's & Writers magazine among others. She appreciates being part of writing communities. ** Good Friday There's nothing Good about this Friday. The scream catches in my throat. I have no words. All I can find is this noise, low, guttural, rising from deep within. It's been brewing for years. Every time I've pushed down on the brutality of life, the violence for no reason, the sting of shame, the fear of the raised fist, the bitter gall of loneliness, the sharp searing scald of abandonment, the heartache of rejection, the unearned feelings of guilt, the self-loathing, the desperation of needs unfulfilled, I've fed this beast, the one that now roars out from my innermost core. And in this moment that sound is enough. It has to be. It's all I've got. Emily Tee Emily Tee writes poetry and flash fiction. She's had pieces published in The Ekphrastic Review and for its challenges, and elsewhere online, and in print in some publications by Dreich and Poetry Scotland among other places. She lives in the UK. ** safe passages not easy to be anything right now, not a feeling or a colour or worthy even of a name and if we name ourselves, what we are feeling-- if we draw lines and colour the spaces they create, what then? will we see beyond the chaos, the patterns that try to gather into some solid thing to understand?-- forming words into images-- can we mend what has been broken, shattered, riven, lost-- rearrange the bones? 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/. ** From Time to Time- The anger is reborn Raising arms served to- Swooping down on, trampling Pride and kindness With falsified strength. Contorting faces, Curling bodies like new foliage- Unable to unfurl over edgy barks Of headless trunks. The sky is streaked in blood, Sun rays mock the needle burns, Rain screams a silent song- Under a square-foot of light, Anguish is laid to rest. No longer afraid I become dead cattle On the cargo bed- No longer afraid I flee In the pickup truck- No longer afraid to be Beyond lands, free Beyond serving roadside tea and buns. 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. |
Challenges
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