Gastromancer Feeds & Feeds The mechanism is squeezed, births animation-- balloon mouth floats upon a checkerboard moor, says one thing & thinks another. Rolling yelps pass for words, tweeted grunts carbonate & swell. You are gut diviner, fill empty planets of heads, temper other bellies with the politicking of voiceover. You periscope from host body, craft the other side of hollow, wrap slippery eels around punchlines & master the push of lever/ pull of cord to make others do what you want-- brute of your colourful ways. Rikki Santer This poem is from upcoming collection, Drop Jaw. Rikki Santer's work has appeared in various publications including Ms. Magazine, Poetry East, Margie, Hotel Amerika, The American Journal of Poetry, Slab, Crab Orchard Review, RHINO, Grimm, Slipstream, Midwest Review and The Main Street Rag. This poem is from her upcoming 8th collection, Drop Jaw, inspired by ventriloquism. Please contact her through her website: www.rikkisanter.com
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Doorways Stand the passage of time between open doors, green painted floorboards distract, painted avenue as upon manicured lawn, among stately white birch in a virgin forest seen through door upon door to outdoors, where sunlight shadows dance on floor, dun walls against stark white doors, inviting. Doors not equal in proportion or destination, left open as if portal gained will yield escape, yet one handle-less, ready to entrap if closed. Second door through which is seen identical green floor and still another door, seemingly a myriad, undefined maze through mindfulness. Offered illusive escape, wandering the birch in futile search, endless green path with no frame of reference, only framed doorways. Julie A. Dickson Julie A. Dickson is a New Hampshire poet and writer of young adult fiction. Her writing explore teen issues including bullying, loneliness, abuse and alcoholism, as well as nature and environment. Her work can be seen in Blue Heron Review, The Harvard Press, Folded Word Press, The Avocet Nature Poetry Journal, among others. Dickson advocates for the release of zoo and circus elephants to sanctuary. Her chapbook, A World without Ivory [2018] is available on Amazon. Rodin's Adam He is not molded and formed from the clay. He is wrenched out of it. He is heaved up by the nape of the neck. He is turned and twisted, a rusted screw. He is standing but not fully. He is conscious but only barely. He is standing enough to know it is not for him. He is conscious enough to know it is not for him. The index finger of his right hand points downward. It is the tongue of his body. It says: Let me fall, let me sleep again. It says: Return me to the earth before it is too late. J.R. Solonche J.R. Solonche is the author of Beautiful Day (Deerbrook Editions), Won’t Be Long (Deerbrook Editions), Heart’s Content (Five Oaks Press), Invisible (nominated for the Pulitzer Prize by Five Oaks Press), The Black Birch (Kelsay Books), I, Emily Dickinson & Other Found Poems (Deerbrook Editions), In Short Order (Kelsay Books), Tomorrow, Today and Yesterday (Deerbrook Editions), True Enough (Dos Madres Press), The Jewish Dancing Master (Ravenna Press), If You Should See Me Walking on the Road (Kelsay Books), In a Public Place (Dos Madres Press), To Say the Least (Dos Madres Press), For All I Know (forthcoming 2020 from Kelsay Books), The Time of Your Life (forthcoming April 2020 from Adelaide Books), The Porch Poems (forthcoming 2020 from Deerbrook Editions), Enjoy Yourself (forthcoming 2020 from Serving House Books), and coauthor of Peach Girl: Poems for a Chinese Daughter (Grayson Books). He lives in the Hudson Valley. Penumbra: an Ekphrastic Collaboration Last summer, artist Linda Fantuzzo and I embarked on an interesting ekphrastic process. I’ve known Linda since the late 1970s, when I worked at the Gibbes art museum in Charleston, SC. Her work was peerless then, and now she’s got the skills of a lifetime. I spent twenty years in Los Angeles, and returned to Charleston with my husband, poet Richard Garcia. Soon thereafter, Linda and I reconnected over art, film, and literature, and often wondered if we should try an ekphrastic collaboration. Linda has contemplated the South Carolina Lowcountry's physical, social, and emotional landscape for a long time, and her images are at once accessible and poetic. When she was preparing landscapes for a three-city exhibition, she asked if I’d like to respond to the paintings in poetry, and perhaps include broadsides in the show. There were already a number of completed works, and the work was so intriguing that I thought it would be good to invite others to join in. I know many fine poets practicing in Charleston who write ekphrastic work, and was excited to see what others would come up with. Most of the participating poets are from The Long Table, a group meeting continuously at Richard’s and my house since 2004 to study and generate poems. Richard earned an MFA at Warren Wilson College after receiving a supportive letter in mid-life by Octavio Paz, and has so far authored seven volumes of poetry. Several poets in the group are professional writers and teachers, have MFAs and poetic distinctions of their own, and practice other art forms. Some of the earliest members still meet, and we have a Facebook group where those who moved on can share poems and news. We support one another’s efforts and know one another’s work well. We also invited some who are private students of Richard’s, or friends of Linda’s and ours. Twelve of us met at Linda’s studio twice to view and discuss the paintings and draft poems. The works in Penumbra lend themselves especially well to poetry. They concern light and darkness, openings between inside and outside, and ruined or mysterious structures that connote both presence and absence. The particular landscape elements—sky, ladders, water, walls, earth, stairs, doors, gates, windows—are what poets call deep images—especially resonant, fertile, evocative words that start generating lines of poetry almost immediately. Then we have Linda’s marvelous, loose brushwork, vivid colour combinations, and contrasting shadow and light, all setting a dreamlike stage for imaginative play. In several paintings, she leaned imaginary ladders up against ruined walls; Richard thought about how far up or down they could take us, other art he’s seen involving ladders, and the ways ladders and walls have been in the news. Riffing on a long-vacant courtyard, Maria pictured her speaker wandering into enemy territory. Yvette invoked the enslaved builders of a fallen-down mansion. Considering an unfurnished antebellum room, Ed told a story about the family that had to move out. And so on. The most basic level of ekphrasis is simple description, normally not of original objects, but known art, much-reproduced. Beyond that, the use of any artistic image may push poets to operate in foreign-but-familiar territory, giving us an experience like travel—taking us out of our own lives to see into another’s, perhaps even across time. Meeting in Linda's studio together as a group was actual travel to a strange place, since our meetings have been mostly at my home. Immersed in the smells of turpentine and linseed oil, surrounded by large canvases either completed or nearly so, we conceived our poems in the exact same space, as Linda noted, in which she had created her paintings. Her workplace is filled with luscious art and fascinating items of all sorts—the kind of room that makes an artist want to set up random objects in a still life for the millionth time, seeking something fresh to express. Poetry thrives on the juxtaposition of random images in the same way, to find new ways to say the same old things. It was especially interesting to hear wildly different treatments of a single painting, since we all bring our own memories, imaginations, and skills to the work. Linda had worked alone for over two years with little feedback from anyone, and during our meetings she shared in the stillness of our writing-time and then the animated conversation on our drafts, and what she called our “positive critique”. She said, “though their poems did not necessarily alter my own interpretations of these paintings, I loved their new perceptions of the artworks, and I do see the images in a new light.” Our ideas, she says, “were sensitive, deeply considered, and a genuine response to my paintings. Their art made me confident that my own art had spoken to others in a profound way. I could not have anticipated just how rewarding this union would be.” The thing about ekphrastic practice is that, like artists, poets often start with the objects that surround them, looking to reimagine their world. When we poets start with an art image, already made with an artist’s eye and hand to stand for something else, the writing makes us work forward into whatever surprise awaits. Beginning with an object that’s already imaginary, the writing gets spooky pretty fast, so working from art is sort of easy money. The term “ekphrasis” applies to an artistic response, in any genre, to work in a different genre. What’s special about the case of poets and painters is, our respective processes mirror each other. A poet’s usual approach is to juxtapose words to create images in the mind—images that may stand for something else. Conversely, painters make images, often standing for something else, and that something occurs to the mind in words. That mirroring sets up a jazzy counterpoint that seldom fails to augment the themes in question. In the case of Penumbra, we found ourselves extending the metaphors in Linda’s paintings, and our lines resonating with one another’s in new and unexpected ways. Katherine Williams Note: Some of the paintings from Penumbra are here: https://lindafantuzzo.com/greenville_2019.html Penumbra poems throughout The Ekphrastic Review: http://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic/trees-by-richard-garcia http://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic/dark-is-the-night-by-katherine-williams http://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic/the-next-people-by-ed-gold http://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic/at-the-gate-by-ed-gold http://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic/outside-the-walls-by-ed-gold http://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic/interior-access-by-maria-martin Other poems by group members: http://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic/firefly-by-kit-loney http://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic/la-tortillera-by-richard-garcia http://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic/sister-gertrude-by-richard-garcia http://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic/portrait-of-helen-by-helen-brandenburg Katherine Williams has published four chap books and read at venues from the L.A. Poetry Festival to the College of Charleston. A Pushcart and Best of the Web nominee, she has poems in Spillway, Projector, South Carolina Review, Measure, and elsewhere. She is a retired biomedical research technician living on James Island, SC. www.katherinewilliams.infowww.katherinewilliams.info Alligator Pear in White Dish If Alice were to do it, she would have to do it tonight. Sitting at her desk, sifting through emails and paperwork, Alice let the clock run out on her workday. She walked silently through the art museum offices until the gray industrial carpet gave way to the marble floors of the modest entry hall. No school children waited to be taken through the exhibitions, no staff whizzed by, their photo I.D.’s swinging from blue lanyards. The two guards had finished their shifts. Only the sound of her footsteps filled the atrium lobby. The museum’s trustees were safely locked inside their big houses with their big art. Their names were cut into the burnished stone of the donor wall where Alice stood in her Cole Haan flats, her reflection broken by lines of Helvetica Bold typeface. She smoothed her graying bob, then brushed away the white flecks that fell to the shoulders of her shapeless, black Jersey dress. She looked to herself more like an aging nun than an art museum director. Alice traced the carved names with her fingertips, the sharp edges of each letter digging into her skin. In an effort to reduce expenses, the trustees had forced her to fire half of her fifteen staff members. Now, when she passed their empty offices, her chest ached, tightened. She had nurtured them, growing the interns to professionals, trusting the eyes and knowledge of her curators. She thought of them as her little family. Although the recent economy had been bad, she blamed herself. On a conference room bulletin board, secured by clear plastic pushpins, hung a discoloured rendering for a new collections gallery that was to be Alice’s legacy, the promise of her ambitions for the museum realized in steel and glass. Fundraising for the project stalled and the plan was abandoned, but she could not bring herself to take the drawing down. The bright lines of the schematic faded and disappeared as day followed day. The nights offered her no escape. In sleep, her jaw clenched automatically, her teeth grinding so violently that she had cracked a molar. Her dentist recommended that she wear a plastic mouth-guard to bed. The device was thick and rubbery. She couldn’t help but bite into it, hard and ceaselessly, through the long nights. She had to do something, or she would implode. At this hour, the museum galleries were lit only by the acid green of electric Exit signs, but Alice could have walked the spaces blindfolded. She made her way through the exhibitions, sensing each work of art—the thickly applied reds, washes of blue, dappled yellows—as a person can feel, without seeing, an open window. Her body filled the empty spaces between ceramic vessels encased in Plexiglas, a massive stoneware “X,” and constructions of reclaimed wood. Alice arrived at the modest theatre toward the rear of the building, where rows of folding chairs had been placed in hopeful anticipation of people who would come to see this experimental film or hear that artist talk. She walked up the centre aisle to the side of the stage and unlocked the doors to three consecutive passageways. The hallway was lined with power tools and stacks of empty wooden crates. Overhead, orange electrical cords dangled, defeated. Faded banners installed near the ceiling announced past exhibitions, the graphic designs sadly out of date. Calmly, she made her way, closing and locking each door behind her until she came upon a final set of heavy double doors. Alice flipped open the white plastic cover of an alarm pad and punched in four numbers. The year of her birth, 1953, appeared immediately in the digital display. A burst of frigid air enveloped her when she unlocked and opened the doors. She flipped a switch, flooding the concrete room with a harsh, clinical light. Metal sculptures flashed and glinted, while oil paintings gave up their luscious surfaces. Hands clasped behind her back as she paced through an array of stretched canvases hung salon-style from steel grids, Alice silently surveyed the stored collection. The very last section held the white elephants—the “X” category—bland florals, sentimental landscapes, and amateurish figure studies. Aesthetic failures were buried in this quadrant of storage, alongside undistinguished works acquired early in the museum’s life and now forgotten. Grabbing the edge of one rack, Alice slid a nine-foot wall of paintings toward her. The casters set in a track on the floor gave a rolling whine, which ricocheted off the hard surfaces. Between an awkwardly painted portrait of the museum’s founder and a mawkish seascape hung a small, unframed canvas the size of an ordinary letter. Alice came upon the work years before, retreating from her office in the wake of a since-forgotten frustration to the solitary consolations of refrigerated art. She spent time in the vault perusing not only the great works but also the neglected ones. Surrounding herself with things that demanded nothing of her was her form of meditation. Something about the painting—an image of a brown-green avocado, resting in a white pedestal bowl, set in an ivory ground—had struck Alice as familiar. She recognized the lack of artifice, the confident hand, and the halo-like glow that emanated from the elemental forms. Georgia O’Keeffe. Alice spent hours at research confirming her intuition. Trained as an art historian, she welcomed the chance to use her skill after years managing budgets and boards. She kept her discovery a secret, hoping to premiere the work as the centrepiece of the aborted collections gallery - a hidden jewel buried in the museum’s holdings. Although the painting was not hers, she owned its discovery. Months passed. Years. The painting had taken root in her mind, burrowed into her subconscious, the last image before sleep, and the first upon waking. Alice pulled a pair of thin, white cotton gloves from a box that dispensed them like Kleenex. Tugging on one, then the other, she flexed her fingers until they filled the flimsy tips. Gently, she steadied one edge of the painting with her left hand while releasing the hanging wire on from a single, S-shaped metal hook with her right. Lying face up on the metal table, the painting looked naked, vulnerable. Alice gazed at the soft circles, one resting in the other. Her heart began to beat faster, and goose flesh rose on her forearms. For a second, she saw the face of a man she once loved, felt his breath, held his hand in hers. Yes, she remembered. Art could still do this to her. Alice found a shallow box under the worktable, lined it with crinkled glassine, and placed the painting in the waxy paper nest. She shot a glance to the corners of the ceiling then remembered there were no security cameras. She told herself that something invisible could never really be missed. Moving quickly, Alice slid the painting rack back in its place, then removed her gloves and threw them in the trash. She locked the doors and traced her steps back through the passageways to a side exit. She waited while the alarm system ran through its paces. Cradling the white box in her arms, she paused for a moment to look at the museum. The building looked flat, lifeless, common. She turned, walked to her car, and drove away. In the safety of her apartment, Alice removed the painting from its container and propped it against the wall atop a chest of drawers. She lay in bed, staring at the round forms within round forms, until she fell asleep on top of the covers. That night she slept soundly. She dreamed about him. In her dream she held their unborn child in her arms, then in her palm. Simple. Complete. Perfect. Georgianna de la Torre Georgianna de la Torre writes fiction and nonfiction, and divides her time between San Francisco and rural Oahu. She has also had a career as a museum director and consultant. Poussin Moy qui fais profession de choses muettes … My art is tacit and barely there Where you imagine noise and heft. Yes, on walks I study pebbles, Minerals, wood: solid stuffs; I set words upon my figments, Speak their minds. Art takes form Behind veils of words; a silent Room for speechless looking. Look, The earthy floor, the cool slabs Are just imagination finely spread. That woman who seems half column: Is she cold and hard to touch, Does her mantle rustle, as she gazes Somewhere, nowhere, apparent, mute? Stefan Ferguson Stefan Ferguson is an Englishman who has lived in Germany for 25 years. He teaches English and French at a high school near Lake Constance.
Rare Pain I admire the rare pain, worn as a gaudy gouged ball- gown. When I think none can know, they do. Like beetles eagerly swarm a Broken carcass, Scattered wounds and The scar wide and eternal, mouthful of pain silence, I am drawn to but wary of that blank place. Drawn to but ordered by that place, as a wave is ordered, upwards, over, pull- ing in, retreating, rolling, it tears me in two. Lynn Finger Poet Lynn Finger holds a B.A. in Humanities. One of her poems “Dialogue with Orlando White,” won second place this year in the award-winning college arts publication, Sandscript, and also won 3rd place in the Community College Humanities Association Southwest Division. Lynn spends her time honing her writing craft, participating in open mics, teaching, and working with trauma survivors. She is in a group that mentors writers in prison. Goya’s Fight with Cudgels They meet on an open field, north of the village, on a peaceful morning, with official permission, to bash out each other’s brains. One bleeds from scalp and eyebrow, struck by a lucky backhand. The other raises a weak defensive elbow while both swing wildly from the heels. Or would, if they had heels. Their lower legs have gone missing. No matter. Neither intends to flee. A couple of distant cattle might or might not be paying any attention. Nobody else. Except the invisible painter, sitting nearby for a waist-high view of the backlit pair who, from this perspective, loom heroically large. At home, Goya, old and deaf, pulls up a chair to gaze at his mural, too big for this modest room. The men tower like the mountains and the clouds, colossal. But terrified. Stupid. Doomed. James Swafford James Swafford has recently begun writing poetry after a forty-year career teaching other people’s poems, mostly at Ithaca College in New York. He lives in Toronto. Hecate’s Spiral We don’t feel comforted by the witch in our the path. Her arms Criss-crossed her hunch a judgement. Her multiplicity A signal of deception. False face. But We always imagined there would be someone here, Judging. What is a witch but a concentration of energy?*Or is that magic? We conjure magic the moment we choose. We destroy other options. Why do we look for rewards when we know there are none? Why do we ask for a sign when we only ever follow the path we choose. Someone said we are spiraling out of control but a spiral is predictable—very measured. The witch has the power to move things towards or away from you. She consulted the dead. They already know your fate. Her torch Lights both ways. It only looks like a choice. Reality is a cherry stem. Both directions lead to fruit and pit. Sister Fortuna sighs. Her nipples pointing both east and west. Suzanne Richardson *from the film The Love Witch, 2016, directed by Anna Biller Suzanne Richardson is currently a professor of English at Utica College in Utica, NY. Her work has appeared in New South, New Ohio Review, and Blood Orange Review, among others. Soothsayer in Red Catch up to her, the sweater wearing manifestation of your thoughts, before she enters the convenience store Tell her, “No, no, that’s not where we’re going today, where we’re going, the dark is red-- fold of rose, sharper than pomegranate juice-- In the pitch of night it is not black you see, but red.” Tell her that, and more, to keep her from going into her learned darkness, which is repetitive and no more defines her than a memorized chord defines a virtuoso guitarist. Tell her, “Where we’re going, black and red haven’t swapped-- red are the stop signs, the sirens, red are the threads of mama’s nightgown-- The only thing different is In the absence of colour, there is red.” Nivretta Thatra Nivretta Thatra (thatniv.com): is something of a science writer, nothing of a chilled capitalist achiever, and everything of a small child absorbed in sonic moments of nondual purity / whose work appears/is forthcoming in The Ubyssey, The Journal of Neuroscience, and Shrapnel Magazine. |
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