 Woman in a Hat, by Pablo Picasso (Spain) 1941 the chair she listens with one eye reflective with the other splitting reverie and re- straint she listens formally it’s on- ly talk a dream entrances redolence her janus face lost and locked tor- so chair-like body planar you can lift her turn her spin her blades pro- pel her surveilled she looks inward hair in braids like loaves of bread disem- bodied purchasable torso black and blue admired for its lines designs her nails red claws her fingers make a heart- shaped ball one hand is free or tries to be Catherine Karnitis Catherine Karnitis: "I am an emerging poet, working on an MFA in Writing at the University of San Francisco. I serve as a Poetry Editor for Invisible City literary journal. I earned an MA in History at the University of California, Berkeley and an MA in Art History at The Ohio State University."
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 Painting from the Akbarnama, book commissioned by the Emperor Akbar, India, 1590-1595. Artist not known, but signed in red. War Elephant Hind legs bound and tied to tree, you stand poised, ears back, trunk coiled. Captive, yet you stand with such fierce dignity, stamping the earth with your tremendous foot. You tower high above the emperor, seated there upon his prancing horse, spear held aloft, as if to fend you off. A horde of captors stands by holding spears. How dare they do this to you, noble beast? You gaze at them with such deep, steady eyes. Do they not know you mean no harm? Two other elephants walk by, subdued, content to let mahouts ride on their backs. Descendant of the ten-tusked Airavata, who sucks up water from the underworld, sprays it into clouds, and rides upon the skies with Thunderous-Indra on his back, you will lead the charge of Akbar’s troops with iron-spiked tusks, ears splayed wide, whip-like trunk adorned with chains and balls. Remember Alexander’s soldiers trembling at the sight of Persian elephants? They saw a war machine like none they’d seen before. They didn’t know how gentle and compassionate you can be. Their solemn sacrifice before the God of Fear the night before the battle may have helped them win, but your outstanding show of force led Alexander to enlist you in his army. Remember when the Nanda Empire deployed six thousand of your kind? That’s why Alexander halted his advance to India, and stationed hundreds of elephants to guard his palace. Remember how you helped King Pyrrhus rout the Romans, then helped the Romans conquer Britain? How many of your kind died crossing the Alps with Hannibal? When he got you drunk and whipped you to a frenzy, remember those iron-clad Roman soldiers, how they fled? When Yemeni Christian soldiers marched on Mecca, is it true the noble elephant, Mahmud, who led the team of elephants, refused to enter the city, thus saving the holy Ka’bah? When you face extinction at the hands of those you died for, will you not fight back? Why not call on Lightning-Wielding Indra to descend on Ten-Tusked Airavata’s back, thunderbolt the poachers’ helicopters and bring them crashing blood-stained to the ground? John W. Steele This poem first appeared in Copperfield Review. John W. Steele is a psychologist, yoga teacher, assistant editor of Think: A Journal of Poetry, Fiction and Essays, and graduate of the MFA Poetry Program at Western Colorado University, where he studied with Julie Kane, David Rothman, and Ernest Hilbert. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Amethyst Review, Autumn Sky, Boulder Weekly, Buddhist Poetry Review, Blue Unicorn, Colorado Sun, Copperfield Review, Eastern Forms, Heron Clan Anthology, IthacaLit, The Lyric, Mountains Talking, New Verse News, The Orchards, Peacock Journal, Road Not Taken, Society of Classical Poets, Urthona Journal of Buddhism, Verse-Virtual, and Westward Quarterly. He was nominated for a Pushcart prize, won The Lyric’s 2017 Fall Quarterly Award, won an award in the 2020 Soul-Making Keats Literary Competition, and was awarded Special Recognition in the 2019 Helen Schaible International Sonnet Contest. His book reviews have appeared in Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, and Raintown Review. John lives in Boulder, Colorado and enjoys hiking in the mountains.  Starry Night Over the Rhone, by Vincent Van Gogh (Netherlands) 1888 Corona* *the rarefied gaseous envelope of the sun and other stars Time and space distance 6 feet waiting like a spider a three toed sloth Waiting apart We are our own constellations Out in the cold midnight The weightlessness of it all Amy Phimister Amy Phimister is a writer who resides in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. She is a member of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets and has been published by WFOP, Yardstick Books and The Ekphrastic Review, and was a finalist for the Hal Prize. She has written a children’s book called A-B-C the Animals which will be released by Sand Beach Press in December.  Edward Gorey's Book Shelves. Cheap PR and Support The Ekphrastic Review! Click on the Book Shelf menu item above to see a selection of books by our contributors, and another shelf with a library of ekphrastic books. We encourage you to support our writers and order one of these books. We also ask you to consider listing YOUR book. If you are a contributor, you can list any books you have. Anyone can list an ekphrastic book. Your listing is just $25 CAD per title. We guarantee a year but it will likely be longer as we aren't intending ongoing anywhere. We post your book and a link to point of purchase. It is a tremendous support of The Ekphrastic Review. The more books we list there, the more attractive the page will be to browse and return to. We hope to build a resource of ekphrastic books available. Listings are alphabetical by author. Check out below, then send your book cover and link for purchase to [email protected]. Use BOOK LISTING in your subject line so we can post it quickly. THANK YOU.  Spinning Flax, by Maria Martinetti (Italy) c. late 1800s, early 1900s The biweekly ekphrastic writing prompts have a new home on site- their very own menu tab.
Today's painting is by Maria Martinetti. Find today's prompt and the instructions by clicking here. Look above to the menu items (if you are on a mobile, there will be a feature icon with a few bars to indicate the menu.) You can see a tab called "Ekphrastic Writing Challenges" and that is where you will be able to easily find the most recent challenge. We hope this clears up the difficulty some of you have had keeping track or find the new challenge. A new challenge goes up every two weeks. In the past year, there have also been bonus challenges from special, themed prompt books to expand your ekphrastic writing practice. We had our first cash prize contest over Christmas and another one is coming soon, so stay tuned to the new tab above. Please read the rules and instructions over again, as some minor things have changed, or to refresh your memory. The most important change for you to be aware of is that we will only be sending notices out to accepted entries during each challenge period. This is not meant to be impersonal or cavalier- we appreciate every single entry. We have simply had to examine where we can save time and better invest the time in maintaining and promoting The Ekphrastic Review. The challenges take a lot of work to set up and mean a regular avalanche of submissions on top of our general submissions. If you do not receive a response, don't despair or take it personally. It is extremely difficult to make a selection. We strive to find a balance between sharing new voices and supporting our regular contributors- some writers participate in nearly every challenge! We also look for a variety of perspectives on a work of art, and a range of ideas and approaches in the writing itself. J The most important thing is the magic between you, your pen, and the artwork. The rest is gravy.  Self-Portrait at the Clavichord with a Servant, by Lavinia Fontana (Italy) 1577 Arrangements Bemoaning me (unwed at twenty-five), my needy father saw my art as a draw, as if a future dowry. He contrived how I’d impress a potential father-in-law: I’d paint myself arrayed in lace and satin at the harpsichord to lay a claim to yet another skill, and scribe some Latin worth a lot–virginem by my name. This art impressed; the two fathers decided I’d wed this man I’d never met. Soon Gian began assisting me at work. His pride survived the gossip, as did his impish grin: “Evirato,” he knew the neighbours said. Eleven babies put that barb to bed. Barbara Lydecker Crane Glossary: virginem (Latin): virgin evirato (Ital.): emasculated Barbara Lydecker Crane, a finalist for the 2017 and the 2019 Rattle Poetry Prize, has won awards from the Maria Faust Sonnet Contest, the Helen Schaible Sonnet Contest, and others. She has published three chapbooks: Zero Gravitas (White Violet Press, 2012), Alphabetricks (Daffydowndilly Press, 2013), and BackWords Logic (Local Gems Press, 2017). Her poems have appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, First Things, Light, Lighten-Up-Online, Measure, Rattle, Think, Writer’s Almanac, and several anthologies. She is also an artist.  Lot and His Daughter, by Albrecht Altdorfer (Germany) 1537 Lineage Lot’s firstborn cups her head. Is the source of her anguish the backdrop? Sodom burns, distant and uncentered, a vermilion inferno. Can she smell hair igniting like torchwood? Hear moaning? Or does she contemplate her mother, a pillar of salt? Or feel her stomach, swollen after only one night, as she witnesses the foreground? Wrinkled Lot lies with her younger sister on a fertile green blanket. Nude and buxom, she floats, buttocks above his groin. Lot gropes her, flask filled with crimson wine, neck protruding. Does a divine end – preservation of the bloodline – justify the means? Then what the moral framework of this world? Daniel Ginsburg Daniel Ginsburg earned a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from American University. His poetry has appeared in The Northern Virginia Review and American Literary Magazine. His poem “Black Snake Coiled In My Black Leather Sofa” is forthcoming in the 2020 issue of Gargoyle Magazine, and his poem “Multiplier” will appear in The American Journal of Poetry. His English translations of Hebrew poetry by Israeli poet Shira Stav were published in Pleiades: Literature in Context.  The Yellow Kite, by Sergei Sudeikin (Russia) mid 1910s. The Yellow Kite (Russian)  The Yellow Kite Straight lines, loops, and coils ... A yellow kite in the summer sky Fiercely fighting for its life, Flying now left, now right, Now straight, like a window In a train car, with a lamp; Its yellow light is out, but From the outside it seems on. There a passenger is alone With himself amid shadows: He watches - in a dream - a yellow kite Hover in the summer sky. Gennady Katsov, translated by Nina Kossman Gennady Katsov (born 1956, Evpatoria, Crimea) is an editor-in-chief of the Russian-American Internet news portal RUNYweb.com, which includes the Encyclopedia of Russian America. His book Slovosfera, published in 2013, is a collection of poems about art. After Slovosfera, three more of his books were published: Between the Ceiling and the Floor (New York), 365 Days around the Sun (New York) and 25 years with the right to correspondence (Moscow); all of these are poetry collections in Russian. He lives in New York. Moscow born, Nina Kossman is an artist, bilingual writer, poet, translator of Russian poetry, painter, and playwright. Her paintings and sculptures have been exhibited in Moscow, Philadelphia, and New York. Her English short stories and poems have been published in US, Canadian and British journals. Her Russian poems and short stories have been published in major Russian literary journals. Among her published works are two books of poems in Russian and English, two volumes of translations of Marina Tsvetaeva’s poems, two collections of short stories, an anthology (Gods and Mortals: Modern Poems on Classical Myths) published by Oxford University Press, and a novel. Her new book, Other Shepherds, was published in July 2020. Her work has been translated into Greek, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish. She received a UNESCO/PEN Short Story Award, an NEA translation fellowship, and grants from Foundation for Hellenic Culture, the Onassis Public Benefit Foundation, and Fundacion Valparaiso. She lives in New York.  Guernica, by Pablo Picasso (Spain) 1937 Distractions viewing Picasso’s Guernica in Museo Reina Sofia, 2018 A long white room where we cluster, hunker, stare overly long yet not long enough. Few look up to gaze in space. A compact crowd of tourists not shouting out in mother tongues. No vacant-eyed tour groups body-blocking the painting with elbows as a guide drones on. Fluorescent lighting glints a toast, to your fate. I am drawn to those few who blink. Distress signal, or does this seep in? How could it not? Disembodied sounds stone-skip across lips from around distant corners. Accents misunderstood, barely heard. Expressions I can’t recognize. To walk now would be shallow or abandonment. Worry lines dig into blank faces. What is this chaos I find myself witnessing? Horses’ mouths exercise their right to yawn or grimace. Then one by one each spell is broken. The mind sieves. One then more wander off. I have freedom too, staring intently around a shoulder, through a portal provided by hand on hip. From a doorway, the departed drop what couldn’t be contained. My shoulders sag, eyes widen as each whispers, smiles, or complains- it would appear- then pushes off. I suspect each mind moves on as well. Or am I the one who can’t focus here? Perhaps this is too painful. Do they simply seek the bano? Why must I study instead their evaporation? Surely any viewer is cut to the bone, too. We move forward, all of us, into the past. Margo Davis Houston retiree Margo Davis is grateful that art and literature are readily available online during this pandemic. Twice nominated for a Pushcart, Margo’s poems have recently appeared in Mockingheart Review, Cordella, Snapdragon, Odes and Elegies: Eco-Poetry from the Texas Gulf Coast; International Contemporary Art Exhibition 2020 in Art Gallery Le Logge, Assisi; and TransCultural Exchange’s Hello World Project. And several times in The Ekphrastic Review, which makes her smile.  The Wounded Amazon, artist unknown (Rome) 100-200 A.D. The Wounded Amazon at the Metropolitan Museum of Art There are dozens of us, my stone sisters and I. Most lack some anatomy: a broken-off arm, legs. A head. But a small marble breast usually lies exposed, salvaged. I don’t need to see my sisters to know their right arms, always lifted in warning. Though we stand unhorsed we are always taller than you who spring from flesh. Look up, and you’ll see the splitting wound in our armpits, yet no pain cut onto our faces. We consort with your monsters—like hounds we nose out your underbelly, your soft secret unease: it’s you who are the meat. M. Cynthia Cheung M. Cynthia Cheung is a practicing physician in Texas. |
The Ekphrastic Review
COOKIES/PRIVACY
June 2026
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