World Womb In the museum, I turn the corner from Vincent’s Irises, And gasping, Georgia’s World Womb facing me Shockingly- God’s hands embracing the universe, while an open womb waits. Creation of the infinite; and the infinitesimal. Oh! How I shriek and shake. Lisa Molina This poem was first published in Eris & Eros Journal. Lisa Molina holds a BFA from The University of Texas at Austin, and has taught high school English and Theatre. She also served as Associate Publisher of Austin Family magazine. Her life changed forever when her son battled leukemia at ages 3, 11, and 13. Since 2000, Molina has worked with students with special needs. When not reading and writing, she can be found singing, playing piano, attending art exhibits, or hiking in nature. She finds peace being near any body of water, and firmly believes that art and nature are essential to the life of the soul. She lives in Austin, Texas with her family, books, and cat. Her poetry can be read in Beyond Words Magazine, Trouvaille Review, Ancient Paths, Down in the Dirt, Indolent Books, Sad Girls Club Literary Magazine, Eris & Eros Review with poems soon to be featured in Amethyst Review.
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The First Eucharist They gather round Him, Jesus breaks the bread, They kneel, they close their eyes, they bow their heads In reverent silence. Do they understand The meaning of this meal? Does His command Do this in memory of me make sense To these imperfect men whose innocence, The lack of knowledge is profound? The one Who’s hiding in the shadows, almost gone, Clutching a bag of coins that burns his hand -- Perhaps he is the one who understands, Who feels it most. The others, old and young-- When Jesus quietly says, “Extend your tongue,”-- What do they know, but deep unwavering trust, A firmly held conviction that they must Obey His will? They ponder not, instead Like little children one by one they’re fed With simple food that purges souls of strife -- The bread that tastes like rain, like snow, like life. Sasha A. Palmer Sasha A. Palmer is a Russian-born award-winning poet and translator, who currently lives in Baltimore, MD. Sasha’s poetry, translations and essays appeared in Writer’s Digest, Slovo/Word, Cardinal Points and elsewhere. Sasha has a thing for the word “amateur” and tries to follow the motto she has created: Live for the Love of it. Visit Sasha at www.sashaapalmer.com Rhapsody in Gray to Tamara de Lempicka … I mark On the horizon walking like the trees The wordy shapes of women Dylan Thomas Beverly Hills, California, 1939 Lightly the paintbrush slips on the canvas caressing elongated sinuous bodies women behind steering wheels an enigma inside melancholy and distracted eyes. Soaring skyscrapers take form in bold vertical lines. Reflections of alabaster flood a road in the night interlocking games and new geometries. The modulated sounds of a saxophone come from afar while in the light of street lamps shadows descend in long variegated spirals of iridescent gray. Lidia Chiarelli
This poem and the accompanying image were previously published in Lidia Chiarelli's Slants of Light, Cross-Cultural Communications, New York, 2019. Lidia Chiarelli (Torino, Italy). Artist and poet, co-founder, with Aeronwy Thomas, of the art-literary Movement Imagine & Poesia (2007). Her writing has been translated into several languages. Award-winning poet since 2011. Six Pushcart Prize Nominations. Persistence of Memory I am swallowed by your dream, in the belly of your subliminal mind, time has dilated. It is midsummer sun, languishing late on the sand, June solstice with its endless days. People have all fled and I wake up desolate, even in dreams I choose to be alone. Only clocks are bathing in the briny air, orangey, surreal. They are battened and gelatinous. Their tick-tock is a lazy sound of a yawning plonk. It is an evocation of a golden vacation, that turned dour, wind arrested, trees shed twigs are pegs where hours melt into soft metal. Some decay into grinning pumpkins fattening the ants. In a parallel universe, it is real, in ours, it’s a persistent memory of a Catalonian dream recreated, Daliesque. Still and solid as a paperweight. Hard to tell one from another. Akshaya Pawaskar Akshaya Pawaskar is a doctor practicing in India and poetry is her passion. Her poems have been published in Tipton Poetry journal, the Punch Magazine, Shards, The Blue Nib, North of Oxford, Indian Rumination, Rock and Sling among many others. She had been chosen as the winner of ekphrastic poetry competition 2020 by Craven Arts Council , third place winner of Poetry Matters project contest 2020 and second place winner of Blue Nib chapbook contest 2018. The new challenge is up! Click on image above for details and instructions.
Shallow Lake “Of all the ways to lose a person, death is the kindest.” Ralph Waldo Emerson 1. The last time I saw Andy, he had his hands out, as usual. This time he was sitting on a milk crate at Bloor and St. George, not on my sofa with the cats. It had been years since I'd seen him, but I couldn't pretend I hadn't and keep on walking. Andy tried to look off in the opposite direction instead of looking up at me from the pavement, but there we were. I'm sorry to see you this way, I said, finally, unable to come up with anything else. It was the truth. I'd never told him anything but. 2. No one really knew who Andy was. He looked ten years older, but came off at least as much more juvenile. He wore a nondescript tan fisherman's hat and grubby khakis. His t-shirts were phone company freebies with wrestlers, and he never changed his socks. He watched more television game shows and B movies than anyone I'd ever met, but was still familiar with the range of poets and philosophers that came up in the conversations in our circles. I found him at a call centre, where I was for about nine weeks miserably employed. Andy smoked a joint and four cigarettes on every break. He cracked jokes all afternoon with the upset clients, who gave his service five stars and made him the top Customer Care Agent of the week, week after week. Andy made my brief imprisonment there immeasurably more pleasurable. You win some, and you use some. Andy, I lost. 3. One thing I always knew about Andy was that he was a lot smarter than he let on. I had no idea why he’d want to hide it. He was among friends, many of formidable wit and intelligence. But there was something calculated about it, and I figured he had his reasons. 4. The last time I saw Andy, the time before the last time, he was coming home after his lies had come to light. It jolted my life into disarray to discover that the landlord hadn't received any rent for three months. Everyone had this roommate, at least once, if they had roommates- the one who orchestrated the strings and made off with everyone else’s money. That I had been so trusting was problematic because my name was on the lease, and ultimately, rectifying the situation fell to me. There were other, smaller catastrophes- bizarre things like how I found dozens of pieces of my mail under Andy's mattress, months worth of bills and letters, unopened. They were carefully bundled with ribbons in pale yellow pillowcases, hidden away. I had been in tears with Canada Post multiple times, thinking I was losing my mind when they said, over and over, that the mailman had delivered my post that morning. The box was always empty. There was no explanation for why anyone would do this- there was nothing of value to Andy, and he hadn't even opened them. When I confronted him with all these things, he just shook his head and said, "I don't really even know, girl." 5. The rent was easier to understand. I gave Andy a generous choice. I told him, "Andy, if you are planning to pay me back, even if it's ten dollars a week, then we'll work that out, and we'll talk about all this later. But if you're not planning to do that, you will leave, and I never want see you again." I couldn’t, any longer, have friends I couldn’t trust. Andy looked at me for a long time with an expression I couldn’t read. Then he picked up his shitty little TV and a box of everyday sundry and walked off without a word. He didn’t even look back. 6. There were signs if I had looked for them, but I didn't. For years, money had gone missing here and there, and there was always some odd and insignificant things that disappeared inexplicably. It usually happened to somebody else, at a potluck or a party, when Andy was there but so were many others. In other ways, he was the most loyal and trustworthy friend. He could be counted on for anything, like babysitting my little brother or taking a cat to the vet or coming running to console a soul during darkness. There were times the target party even accused him, and I was a fool, deflecting or explaining in his defence. There were sketchier people at these gatherings, there were more obvious explanations, but they weren't the guilty parties when it all came crashing down. One time I stashed some money in a book and couldn't find it. Privately, I was convinced it was him, but months later I found the right book and thought I had been wrong about all the times I'd suspected him. To this day I don't know if I had just misplaced those three twenty dollar bills or if he had replaced them later so that I would find them and he would be spared. 7. Way up north was Shallow Lake, where Andy was from. Population 317. I was from a small town too, of twenty thousand. If anyone asked after Andy's family or friends, there didn't seem to be any. Every now and again when I came home, Andy would be talking on the phone. He would motion to me that he was talking with his mother. All I knew of her was that she had married again in late middle age. Andy had never met his step dad but said he was a mean drunk and that he worried about her. He wasn't close to his one brother, who still lived in buttfuck Ontario; his Dad had disappeared into the Northwest Territories for mining work before Andy had gone to auto-mechanic college. I never saw Andy drive or even fix an element on the stove or the toilet when it was running. I never actually answered the phone when his mother called. But I never connected those dots. No one did. 8. When Marko died, Andy took my hand and didn't let it go. He carried me. He answered the door and the phone, he called in sick so I wouldn't be alone. We spent days, decades really, on the back roof porch. He dutifully emptied the tin tub ashtrays, he made runs to the liquor store or Tim Hortons as needed. When I picked up the phone and asked for an eight ball, he quietly put a stop to the proceedings and suggested Haagen Daas and pink wine instead. At the funeral, when my mother pulled in with a pick-up truck wagon full of tomatoes, he tirelessly carried the crates from her farm garden up to the third floor, and sent everyone home after with bushels worth of the August harvest. My mother was a more masterful manipulator than Andy would ever be, but sometimes her coarse observations were insightful and astute. Andy, she said to him, after we buried my husband. You are a good friend, like a faithful dog. 9. Once when Andy lived upstairs with my then-lover, sleeping behind an Asian style room divider in lacquer black with red poppies, I knocked on his makeshift barrier at two in the morning and handed him a big bag of blow. Andy, I said, take this and don't touch it, but don't give it back to me even if I call and wake you up. I had to work in a few hours. Andy had to work in the morning, too, at the Buy and Sell newspaper, selling classified ads over the telephone. He didn't flinch, didn't scold, stuck the whole affair into his grimy pillowcase and humoured my bad manners. Later, when Bobby was sick and crazy from the meth, Andy would sit awake with me in the dark, talk me through my weeping. When Bobby needed twenty dollars to buy a violin from a crackhead off the street, two strings, no bow, Andy jogged out to Regent Park with a green note and still let Bobby say it was from him. 10. Andy had the occasional girlfriend, and told us about his lesbian friend at work who wanted a donor for a child for her and her girlfriend. Andy said he had tried. I never heard follow up about the outcome, but admired his open generosity. He had a beautiful but annoying redhead for a year, and they would giggle behind closed doors and watch wrestling matches late into the night. I was happy for him. But nothing eclipsed for him the love he held for a mutual friend, a blonde Amazonian woman whose six feet of vavavoom curves could crush a county. Avery was a million miles out his league, but a little detail like that wouldn’t stop his worship. If Andy was always there for me, he was an actual servant of hers, in a religious sense of the word. To bring her Lays Ketchup crisps from across the city when the mood struck at midnight, to wash her dishes and post parcels to her fiance in Edinburgh became his vocation. One morning he came in flushed and misty, eyes elated and grinning wide. It finally happened, he told me and Bobby. He had finally had his darling girl. He was giddy with triumph and disbelief, hardly able to recount the record of events. They’d been cutting rails and watching Twin Peaks, and then she wanted him to take some pictures of her in her wardrobe of ivory peignoirs and satiny nighties. He’d been excited at the darkening of her nipple under the silk, just made a move for it. 11. It had never happened, I found out later, jousting with Avery some years later over crudites at a respectable soiree. We were remembering Andy, juggling the past to fit it into our lives. I was saying that I’d loved him, but still wanted back the few grand he owed me, the pivot of why I trusted no one in that sum. Avery looked pinched and sympathetic, so I leaned in to unruffle those feathers. Of course, I said, I don’t feel what you do. I’m not the one who slept with him. In a flicker of dark blood in her eyes, I knew that this thing I’d always known was not true. He had made it up. Of course he had. He had never had her. 12. The Facebook message informing me of his death at 46 from cancer was from someone I didn’t know. He told me you were his closest family, the stranger wrote. He asked me to be sure you knew he was gone, and that he sent you all his love. 13. There was a part of me that thought this was one of Andy’s strange tricks. I Googled for an obituary. A charity had posted a notice at a remote, basic funeral home. The site’s format encouraged loved ones to leave memories of the deceased. There were no comments. 14. In those old days, when I was trying to cough up everybody’s rent, the landlord came by with a bunch of files from Shallow Lake. It was before he was stabbed to death on the Danforth, jumped at a café on the way home by a rabid jihadi scoring another random infidel. It was before the papers showed his round face moist under a fishing hat, before anyone knew he would be dead, too. I did some digging, he said, pushing a heap of records my way. From Shallow Lake. There was this kid when I was growing up, younger than us, he disappeared. Dom couldn’t have been sure, he wasn’t sure now, but this thing had happened in that small town. And he’d had to call ask some buddies about it. A boy named Andy, in that town of Shallow Lake, population 300, so many years ago. That boy had gone home from school, found the place empty. The mother and her boyfriend and the baby, absconded. No one was home. They said that little boy had stood under the stars on that porch for nearly a week before he disappeared. Child services eventually came around for him, but he was gone, and no one ever heard from any of them again. I don’t know for sure that this was the same Andy, Dom told me again. But we knew it couldn’t be anyone else. We stood in the backyard, solemn, blowing smoke at the bowing tulips. Wondering about a woman’s cruelty. Wondering about how a boy who would be a man could just fall like that through the cracks. 15. Everyone else from the little white house is gone. Bobby, from suicide or overdose, we aren’t sure. Zoe, slumped against the winter coats in the closet. Dom, of hate. Andy, cancer. We moved there to be clean from death, but it kept finding us. 16. The story is open ended. I don’t know how to close it. It is part of my fabric, one layer of love and loss in the roots of me. I found an old photo in an old book this morning. Andy in purple, Andy in a tie. He’s all cleaned up and his arms are around me. We are comfortable, we are old friends already but the photo is just a few months into our small story. I search around in my mind for a reason Andy would be wearing a tie, and realize it was the day of my wedding. Andy is one of my bridesmaids. Another lifetime. 17. On New Years Day, 2020, almost twenty years after the photo, a few years after his death, the day after ringing in the year with Avery and her baby daughter, I see Andy at the cinema. He is in a Mexican wrestler t-shirt and his Raptors sweats. It’s not him, but maybe it is. He is a prototype, a ghost, an ordinary guy. He is there but not there. For the first time in the long enigma of Andy, I can see right through him. Lorette C. Luzajic "Shallow Lake," a creative nonfiction piece/prose poem/story, first appeared in Pretty Time Machine, by Lorette C. Luzajic (Mixed Up Media Books, 2020). Read a review by TER contributor Bill Arnott at League of Canadian Poets, here. O galo de Chagall O dia amanheceu enevoado e os cantos dos pássaros eram luzes coloridas que se acendiam e apagavam no ar cinzento. Um pintassilgo pousado numa árvore próxima iluminou-lhe o quarto com os tons do arco-íris. Chagall despertou. Era um homem baixo, com cabelos pretos ondulados, olhos escuros e um nariz imponente. Depois de se vestir e comer algo, saiu de casa e foi ter com o seu melhor amigo. Era um galo gigante com penas azuis, verdes, amarelas e vermelhas. O seu corpo era macio como a seda; a crista parecia uma estrela flamejante; os olhos eram celestiais. Mal o viu, o galo adivinhou que iriam fazer uma viagem. - Onde vamos hoje? - Vamos dar umas voltas sobre a aldeia para me inspirar para o próximo quadro. - Então, monta. Chagall subiu para o dorso do galo e este começou a correr e a bater as asas até levantarem voo. À medida que se afastavam da casa e ganhavam altitude, o nevoeiro começava a dissipar-se. Por entre fiapos de vapor de água apareciam campos, árvores, casas e um rio onde um par de namorados passeava de barco. Um mosaico de cores e formas. Agarrado ao pescoço do galo, Chagall observava atentamente a realidade vista daquela perspectiva. - Gostei muito do teu último quadro, aquele onde transporto uma mulher que me abraça – diz o galo. - É um arlequim… - Pouco interessa quem é, o importante é teres conseguido mostrar a essência do amor. - É tudo o que me interessa na pintura… - Um amor que envolve os homens, os animais e a natureza. É o amor pela vida, por tudo o que existe. - E o símbolo desse amor supremo és tu, galo, não os seres humanos. - És diferente dos outros homens, consegues perceber que nós, os animais, somos criaturas espirituais. - Infelizmente, a religião tem uma opinião diferente. Deus… - Deus…, há muito que desejo falar com ele… - Eu falo com ele todos os dias. - E ele responde-te? - Bom, envia-me sinais e eu pinto-os… - Sinais? Isso para mim não seria suficiente. - Então por que não tentas falar com ele? Talvez ele te responda. - E como faço isso? Nunca me ensinaste a rezar… - Concentra-se e pensa nele, é uma oração universal. O galo fecha os olhos e chama por Deus. Pouco depois, ouve melodias e cantos de anjos, luzes coloridas cintilam à sua volta. Então, do nada, Deus aparece. O sol brilha mais forte e expulsa a réstia de nevoeiro. Chagall e o galo não parecem surpreendidos. Lado a lado, os três sobrevoam a aldeia. A voz de Deus é doce como a de uma criança. - Galo, queres saber porque os animais não têm alma? Os olhos azuis do galo dilatam-se. - É injusto. Se os homens, que tantas barbaridades já cometeram, a tem, por que razão os animais, que apenas tentam sobreviver, foram privados dela? Deus sorri. - Criei os homens à minha imagem e semelhança, logo foram os únicos seres a quem pude conceder a imortalidade. O galo eriça a crista. - E quem te criou a ti? Deus solta uma gargalhada. - Ninguém. Eu sempre existi. O galo volta o pescoço e lança um olhar trocista a Deus. - E se estiveres enganado? E se alguém te criou à sua imagem e semelhança? Deus acelera e ultrapassa o galo. Responde-lhe com uma voz grossa, sem olhar para ele. - És um galo muito atrevido. Nem sei como deixaram os teus antepassados entrar na arca. O galo acelera também, a crista dobrada pelo ar, e coloca-se ao lado dele. - E tu és um Deus muito susceptível e pouco convincente. De repente, surge um anjo vermelho com cauda e chifres. Faz piruetas e acrobacias aéreas, esticando e encolhendo o corpo como um fole. Usa uma voz feminina sedutora. - Galo, eu posso conceder-te uma alma. Deus foi realmente injusto contigo, mas se vieres comigo serás imortal. Deus sopra e o diabo é projectado alguns metros. - Não lhe dês ouvidos, galo. Já foste imortalizado através da arte. Serás recordado para sempre nos museus e nos livros pelas pessoas cultas. O Diabo dá uma gargalhada. Da sua boca escapa-se uma língua bífida verde semelhante a uma serpente. - Eis um conceito de imortalidade digno dos antigos egípcios. Só falta seres embalsamado. Galo, ele continua a pensar que és uma besta estúpida. Ele é o deus dos homens, os animais precisam de um amigo verdadeiro. Entretanto, juntam-se ao grupo um pequeno homem vestido de preto com um violino e um bode verde com uma flauta. Tocam e dançam músicas tradicionais judaicas como se estivessem numa festa. Flores cor-de-rosa brotam à sua volta parecendo um fogo-de-artifício. O Diabo solta chispas lilases pelos olhos. Ergue duas mãos peludas na direcção do homem do violino. - Ei, parem com isso. Estão a distrair o galo. O bode verde marra contra os chifres do diabo e ouve-se um estalido seco. - Não, estamos a distrair-te a ti. Na verdade, viemos salvar o galo e expulsar-te porque sabemos que odeias música. De repente, Chagall intervém. - Já vi isto nalgum lado... Deus respira fundo. - Um homem, um galo, o diabo e eu próprio a sobrevoarmos uma aldeia, até parece que vai acontecer uma parábola bíblica… O diabo franze a testa e torce o nariz. - Recuso-me a participar, faço sempre figura de tolo nessas parábolas idiotas. Chagall coça o queixo. - É como se estivéssemos num quadro, como se fossemos personagens de uma história narrada por imagens. Deus passa a mão nos cabelos brancos e respira fundo. - Mas se não és tu o pintor, quem poderá ser? O galo inclina as asas num voo oblíquo e as cores das suas penas resplandecem à luz do sol. Depois afasta-se do grupo, executa um looping, olha para um ponto que nem Chagall, nem Deus, nem o diabo conseguem ver e pisca-nos o olho azul. ** Chagall's Rooster The day dawned foggy and the birds' songs were like colourful lights in the gray air. A goldfinch, perched on a nearby tree, lit up his room in rainbow tones. Chagall woke up. He was a short man with wavy black hair, dark eyes and an imposing nose. After getting dressed and taking breakfast, he left the house and went to his best friend. It was a giant rooster with blue, green, yellow and red feathers. Its body was smooth as silk; the crest looked like a flaming star; the eyes were heavenly coloured. As soon as he saw him, the rooster guessed they were going on a trip. - Where are we going today? - Let's take a walk around the village to inspire me for the next painting. - So ride. Chagall climbed onto the rooster's back and it started running and flapping its wings until they took flight. As they moved away from the house and gained altitude, the fog began to lift. Between streams of water vapour appeared fields, trees, houses and a river where a pair of lovers went for a boat. - I really liked your last painting, the one where I carry a woman who hugs me - says the rooster. - It's not a woman. He’s a harlequin ... - It doesn't matter who it is, the important thing is that you've managed to show the essence of love. - It's all that interests me in painting ... - A love that embraces men, animals and nature. It's a love of life, a love for everything that exists. - And the symbol of that supreme love is you, my rooster, not human beings. - You're different from other men, you can see that we animals are spiritual creatures. - Unfortunately, religion has a different opinion. God… - God…, I have wanted to talk to Him for a long time… - I talk to Him every day. - And He answers you? - Well, He sends me signals and I’ll paint them ... - Signals? That wouldn't be enough for me. - Then why don't you try to talk to Him? Maybe He'll answer you. - And how do I do that? You never taught me how to pray ... - Focus and think about Him, it's a universal prayer. The rooster closes its eyes and calls out to God. Soon after, he hears melodies and chants of angels, coloured lights flicker around him. Then, out of nowhere, God appears. The sun shines brighter and expels the streak of fog. Neither Chagall or the rooster seem surprised. Side by side, the three fly over the village. God's voice is sweet as a child's. - Rooster, do you want to know why animals have no souls? The rooster's blue eyes widen. - It's unfair. If men, who have committed so many barbarities, have it, why are animals, which are just trying to survive, deprived of it? God smiles. - I created man in my own image and likeness, so they were the only beings to whom I could grant immortality. The rooster raises its crest. - And who created you? God lets out a laugh. - No one. I have always existed. The rooster turns its neck and gives God a mocking look. - What if you're wrong? What if someone created you in his image and likeness? God accelerates and overtakes the rooster. Without looking at him and lowering his voice, he answers. - You are a very bold rooster. I wonder they let your ancestors enter the ark. The rooster accelerates too, the crest folded through the air, and stands beside God. - And you are a very susceptible and unconvincing God. Suddenly, a red angel with a tail and horns appears. He does pirouettes and aerial acrobatics, stretching and shrinking his body like a bellows. He uses a seductive female voice. - Rooster, I can grant you a soul. God was really unfair to you, but if you come with me you will be immortal. God blows and the devil is projected a few metres. - Don't listen to him, rooster. You have already been immortalized through art. You will be remembered forever in museums and books by educated people. The devil laughs and a green snake-like bifid tongue escapes from his mouth. - The kind of immortality believed in by the ancient Egyptians? And will they embalm you too? Rooster, He still thinks you're a stupid beast. He is the god of men. Animals need a true friend. Meanwhile, a small man dressed in black with a violin and a green goat with a flute join the group. They play and dance to traditional Jewish music as if they were at a party. Pink flowers sprout around them like a firework. The Devil's eyes discharge lilac sparks . He raises two hairy hands towards the man with the violin. - Hey, stop it. You're distracting the rooster. The green goat slams against the devil's horns and a dry crackling sound is heard. - No, we're distracting you. In fact, we came to save the rooster and expel you because we know you hate music. Suddenly, Chagall intervenes. - I've seen this somewhere ... God takes a deep breath. - A man, a rooster, the devil and myself flying over a village, it seems that a biblical parable is about to become a reality… The devil frowns and wrinkles his nose. - I refuse to participate, I always make a fool of myself in these stupid parables. Chagall scratches his chin. - It's as if we were in a painting, as if we were characters in a story told by images. God runs his hand through his white hair and takes a deep breath. - But if you are not the painter, who might you be? The rooster tilts its wings in an oblique flight and the colours of its feathers shine in the sunlight. Then he leaves the group, loops, looks at a point that neither Chagall nor God nor the devil can see, and blinks at us with his blue eye. João Cerqueira, edited by Paul Harris João Cerqueira holds a PhD in Art History. He is the author of eight books and is published in Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, England, United States, Argentina and Brazil. His novel The Tragedy of Fidel Castro won the USA Book Awards, his novel Jesus and Magdalene won the Indie Reader Book Awards. NEW EKPHRASTIC CONTEST!!! Bird Watching, with guest judges Tricia Marcella Cimera and Karen Schauber2/3/2021 Bird Watching: an ekphrastic writing contest in flash fiction and poetry
The Ekphrastic Review is thrilled to announce a very special spring writing contest! Write a poem or flash fiction story based on any of the forty bird-themed artworks in the Bird Watching ebook (shown below.) Submit up to five poems, stories, are combination of both. Selected entries will be published in The Ekphrastic Review in special showcase features. One poem and one flash fiction story will also be selected as winner from the published entries. Entry fee is $10 CAD, to purchase the ebook of prompts. Our guest judge Tricia Marcella Cimera will choose the poetry winner. Our guest judge Karen Schauber will choose the flash fiction winner. The authors of the winning poem and story will each receive $100 CAD, paid via PayPal. The winning fiction will be published again by Karen at Miramichi Review! The winning poem will also appear in Tricia's Fox Poetry Box! deadline: May 1, 2021 email: theekphrasticreview@gmail.com subject line: BIRD WATCHING SUBMISSION number of entries: submit up to five poems, five stories, or a combination (all together in one email) word count: poetry and flash fiction to a maximum 1000 words (yes, we love microfiction under 400 words, too) Submit with your work a third-person bio, no longer than 200 words. No simultaneous submissions for this contest please. Send ONE email with all of your entries. The Ekphrastic Review will accept selected entries for several bird-themed showcases as submissions come in. The winners will be chosen from these and announced in late May 2021. Contest entries must be responses to one or more of the forty images in Bird Watching. You must purchase the ebook to enter. Thank you for supporting this journal! The Bird Watching ebook contains forty carefully curated artworks intended to inspire curiosity and discovery in your ekphrastic practice. It is a creative resource for you to enjoy anytime, not just for this contest. We are excited to read what you are going to write! Tricia Marcella Cimera is a Midwestern poet with a worldview. Her work is found in many diverse places online and in print, ranging from the Buddhist Poetry Review to The Ekphrastic Review. Her micro-chapbook entitled GO SLOW, LEONARD COHEN, was recently released through the Origami Poems Project. One of her poems is pleased to have earned a Pushcart Prize nomination and another is happy to have received a recent Best of the Net nomination. Tricia lives with her husband and family of cats in Illinois, in a town called St. Charles, by a river named Fox, with a Poetry Box (also called Fox) in her front yard. Karen Schauber's work appears in sixty international literary magazines, journals and anthologies, including Bending Genres, Cabinet of Heed, Cease Cows, Ekphrastic Review, Fiction Southeast, New World Writing, Spelk; and a 'Best Microfiction' nomination. 'The Group of Seven Reimagined: Contemporary Stories Inspired by Historic Canadian Paintings' (Heritage House, 2019), her first editorial/curatorial flash fiction anthology, achieved 'Silver' in 2020 in The Miramichi Reader's ‘Very Best Book Award" for Short Fiction. Schauber curates Vancouver Flash Fiction, an online resource hub, and Miramichi Flash, a monthly flash fiction column. In her spare time, she is a seasoned family therapist. https://miramichiflash.miramichireader.ca/ https://www.facebook.com/VancouverFlashFicton facebook: @Karen Schauber Color and Line poems by Carole Mertz Kelsay Books (January 2021) Click here or on image to view or purchase at Amazon. Smallwood: When did you begin writing poetry? Do you write fiction, nonfiction? Mertz: I began writing fiction and nonfiction 15 years ago when I wrote the first third of a novel about a Vietnam vet. (My main character stays with me and still intrigues me.) I started on poetry about 10 years ago. Writing and reading poetry is my favourite genre, though I regard essay as a more strenuous and more commendable endeavor. Smallwood: What attracted you to ekphrastic poetry, which can be traced back to the days of Homer? Please include a definition and some advice for others wishing to write it: Mertz: I submitted my first piece to The Ekphrastic Review in the fall of 2018. Drawn to Lorette Luzajic’s wonderful site, I soon began responding to her bi-monthly challenges. She offers a given photo of the artwork, and one must respond within two weeks. For me, these challenges became an exciting new opportunity for self-expression. Somehow this approach freed something in my writing style. Poets, young or old, will be rewarded by visiting this inspiring site. I’m aware of the definition of ekphrasis derived from the Greek as a "writing out” or better, an “out-writing.” For me it means interpreting what I see in the visual art or recording my emotional responses. Luzajic invites the writer to study the painting, to free-associate, to research the era or influences of the artist, or simply to have fun interpreting and inscribing what you see. Some poets write in the person of the painter, some address the painter as if living; such a variety of responses come forth. This, too, is stimulating, to see your piece next to the responses of others, to consider forms they chose, whether essay, rhyme, or prose poems, whether shorter or longer descriptions. If desired, at The Ekphrastic Review one can also submit an artwork of one’s choice, accompanied by your ekphrasis. I did this with my writing on “Lapin Agile,” an extant cabaret in Montmarte with its interesting history. Smallwood: Why is ekphrastic writing important to you? Mertz: I think it strikes a deep chord in me. When I travelled in Europe as a student, I felt my world expanding as I viewed the great artworks we students viewed, visiting museums, cathedrals, galleries, etc. A trip to Italy, at that time, remains a highlight of my life. I can recall the excitement, for example, of discovering a tiny painting by Fra Angelico hung in an alcove in a monastery where we students stayed one night just outside of Siena. These fine arts interests were sparked by my studies, also by the fact that I had three sisters, two of whom were juried artists who inspired me. It’s only now, decades later, that I’ve experienced the joy of valuing their artwork and others’ works through written expression. Reading Barnes’s Keeping an Eye Open, Chevalier’s Girl with the Pearl Earring, and White’s Travels in Vermeer, was also a stimulus. Smallwood: Besides the cinquain, do you use other formal poetry in the 42 poems composing Color and Line? Mertz: The collection includes several other forms: a haibun, several haiku, a meta-poem, a hymn, several surreal poems, and one or two rhymed or written in strict meter. In the short poem “Waiting,” I decided to use litotes as part of the poetic form. Smallwood: How do you select writing a poem in prose, formal style, or another? Mertz: If writing ekphrastic, I try to capture quickly my first impressions. I do very little editing. If I sense rhymes forming, I incorporate them. For better or worse, I value the immediacy of my response. I find if I work too hard trying to make a poem fit a form, I’ll lose the poem. I do work a lot, however, with line breaks and how a poem appears on a page, once completed. I love enjambment when I can get it to work effectively. Overall, I’m a “water colourist,” not an “oil painter.” Smallwood: Do you have favourite paintings you selected in Color and Line? Mertz: I like the formality of Sofanisba Anguissola’s The Chess Game. (I’d die for a name like hers!) Who today would play chess dressed in stiff up-to-the-neck brocades, as her ‘learned ladies’ did? But I love the painting for the way it elevates the mind of females. She painted in a milieu dominated by men. Even with a father who was an artist, she had difficulty establishing support and a following. Yet she persisted and succeeded, for we know her and her works to this day. Many of her self-portraits have also survived the 500 years. Another painting, Franz Kline’s Vawdavitch, returned me to a segment of my own past. In the 60s a lot of injustices were occurring—from civil rights abuses, to the Vietnam War, “flower children”, etc. Remembering the first time I saw a Jackson Pollock up close triggered something that showed me how to relate to Kline in a personal way. His indignation was far different from mine, but his works were created in the era I alluded to. Pippin’s The Domino Players of 1943 pleases me for its beautifully balanced blacks, reds, and whites. Though it depicts deep poverty, it presents to me a scene of deep familial harmony; hence its title, “As a Father Shows Compassion to His Children.” Smallwood: Why are some poems not single spaced such as, “A Dark and Rainy Night”? Mertz: I think there was no conscious reason. But the way “Lethe’s Slim Threads Caught” is laid out echoed some of the geographic space I envisioned. The layout seemed to enlarge the air, as the persona clutched after the taunting creatures. Smallwood: The cover by Nancy Boileau is so fitting. Was it especially created for Color and Line? Mertz: Last July Boileau was in a highly creative phase. She kept sharing photos of works she’d produced. I became interested in them as possible book covers, but I had to call her to see if her “Music of the Spheres II” was done specifically for my book. She said no. But she readily set the piece aside for me. Smallwood: Are you working on another collection? Mertz: Nothing in the works, yet. But I’d like it to be a book of essays. I suspect it will be years in the making. Smallwood: Do you have sites about you to share? Mertz: Viewers can see my writer profile at Poets and Writers: http://www.pw.org/directory/writers/carole_mertz I haven’t set aside time for my website which is still in the design stage. ** Carole Mertz is a graduate of Oberlin College with a concentration in fine arts. The widely respected Midwestern writer is Book Review Editor at Dreamers Creative Writing, a Member of the Prize Nominations Committee at The Ekphrastic Review, and a reader for Women’s National Book Association. Carole judged (in formal verse) the 2020 Poets and Patrons in Illinois International Poetry Contest. Color and Line is a collection of ekphrastic poems inspired by works of art on canvas. Carol Smallwood, MLS, MA, Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, is a literary reader, judge, interviewer; her 13th poetry collection is Thread, Form, and Other Enclosures (Main Street Rag, 2020) Each year, starting in 2020, on Groundhog Day, The Ekphrastic Review announces 10 names for the editor's choice awards. Congratulations to this year's fine writers for this recognition of ekphrastic excellence. Many thanks to our tireless prize nomination consultants who worked with editor Lorette C. Luzajic. They read carefully all year and provide valuable insight and suggestions for The Fantastic Ekphrastic Awards as well as Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. Thank you Laura Cherry, Carole Mertz, and Alarie Tennille. With no further adieu, please join us in congratulating these writers for their outstanding contributions to ekphrastic literature! Please share this post with your social media and writing circles so that these authors may be read far and wide! ** Ruth Bavetta Funeral Mask From Mycenae Rose Mary Boehm See Me Matthew Brennan Winter Landscape Johanna Caton, OSB Five Poems on Art by Miki Lovett Deborah Gorlin Poems About Isabella Blow Jean L. Kreiling Three Nocturnes Kyle Laws Fall from the Horse of War, 1961 Ryan Rowland Oh Cuyahoga Sandi Stromberg A Surrealist Gives the Chimpanzee Pencil and Paper Kate Young Dirt to Dust |
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