Ten Selections From Our Archives ** TERcets Podcast, by Brian A. Salmons The ekphrastic podcast featuring the voice and vision of our longtime contributor Brian A. Salmons is a truly exciting development. Pour yourself a cup of tea and catch up on these amazing episodes. https://www.ekphrastic.net/tercets-podcast.html ** Saints, The Departed, Gods, And Fetishes, by Nicole Henares Poet Nicole Henares contemplates an exhibition of Santos, Difuntos, Dieux et Fétiches, by Rorro Berjano. https://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic-journal/saints-the-departed-gods-and-fetishes-by-nicole-henares ** Alouette, Au Lapin Agile, by Carole Mertz Carole Mertz visits a famous cabaret beloved by artists and writers. https://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic-journal/alouette-au-lapin-agile-by-carole-mertz ** Windblown, by Kat Lewis Kat Lewis wanders into Christina’s world. https://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic-journal/windblown-by-kat-lewis ** Shape Shifters, by Darrell Petska Darrell Petska shows us a painting by Maria Lassnig. https://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic-journal/shape-shifters-by-darrell-petska ** Faces, by John Riley John Riley writes in prose and poetry about a portrait by Andre Derain. https://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic-journal/faces-by-john-riley ** My Mother and Andy Warhol, by Robert Donohue We nominated this Warhol poem by Robert Donohue for the Pushcart Prize. https://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic/my-mother-and-andy-warhol-by-robert-donohue ** Ali Rashid, by Lorette C. Luzajic I’m fascinated by the palimpsest qualities of Dutch-Iraqi artist Ali Rashid’s abstract works, and his incredible life story. I was honoured to work with him in Tunisia several years ago. https://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic-journal/ali-rashid-by-lorette-c-luzajic ** Shepherdess Bringing In Sheep, by Charlie Brice Poet Charlie Brice considers artist Camille Pissarro. https://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic-journal/shepherdess-bringing-in-sheep-by-charlie-brice ** Traveling Circus, by Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino Poet Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino shows us a Klee we may not have seen. https://www.ekphrastic.net/ekphrastic-journal/traveling-circus-by-gregory-vincent-st-thomasino ** Call For Throwback Lists There are almost six years worth of writing at The Ekphrastic Review. With daily or more posts of poetry, fiction, and prose for most of that history, we have a wealth of talent to show off. We encourage readers to explore our archives by month and year in the sidebar. Click on a random selection and read through our history. Our new Throwback Thursday feature will highlight writing from our past, chosen on purpose or chosen randomly. You’ll get the chance to discover past contributors, work you missed, or responses to older ekphrastic challenges. Would you like to be a guest editor for a Throwback Thursday? Pick up to 10 favourite or random posts from the archives of The Ekphrastic Review. Use the format you see below: title, name of author, a sentence or two about your choice, and the link. Include a bio and if you wish, a note to readers about the Review, your relationship to the journal, ekphrastic writing in general, or any other relevant subject. Put THROWBACK THURSDAYS in the subject line and send to [email protected]. Let's have some fun with this- along with your picks, send a vintage photo of yourself too!
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The Artist's Studio: Lady Hazel Lavery with her Daughter Alice and Stepdaughter Eileen The first two fourths are folded browns and blacks, as darkness draws in downward strokes then gowns and gauzy garments glow, alight with sideways streams of sunshine, brightly lighting Lady Lavery in violet collapsing cloth, that casts, to right soft shadows and ensuing browns. White wakes on waxy knee of child gazing gravely, greyed with shadow from mute, milk-white mother Hazel, then, hunched, a hound, holding the eye of the plump painter, posing in a mirror, and the Moroccan maid moving with fruit, bright and bulbous balls of grape. One day in Dublin, depressed in rainstorm - swirling sordid on streets of grit - weary and wet, weak in body, and tight with tension from terse words, I sought silence, the solace of beauty and saw Lavery alight, lush with violet, the brilliant blues, and bronzes, and there between handsome Hazel and the hound, the girl, swaddled in shade, staring at me across the century. Shane Leavy Shane Leavy writes from the rural west of Ireland. He has been published in Popshot, Claim and Poems from the Lockdown. Angelina Of all the men I might have married, the one that stands out for me most clearly at this moment is the Italian tourist who asked me for a kiss as we stood waiting for the light to change on the corner of Madison and I-forget-what-street on the Upper East Side that summer afternoon in 1980. Of course, I kissed him. I was like that then – accustomed to the admiration of men in New York, and accommodating when I was in the mood. This man, a young-and-darkly-handsome Italian, with his broad smile and thickly accented English, put me in the mood for a street-corner kiss. But soon enough the light changed, and I went on my way to wherever I was in a rush to get to, blithely waving to him over my left shoulder and calling out one of the few words I knew in Italian: “Ciao!” I’ve often wondered since: What if I’d lingered, walked with him to wherever he was going, maybe fallen in love and returned with him to Italy? I know this is a leap, but what if this Giuseppe – or whatever his lovely name was – and I had married and had a half-dozen Italian babies who tried their best to teach me, in turn, the intricacies of their musical language? I have vivid imaginary memories of our summers together at Giuseppe’s family’s ancient farm in Tuscany. One memory in particular is of our daughter Angelina – the child who was most like me – hitching up a little goat to an old cart and announcing she was running away from home. We all stood in the driveway, waved goodbye and sang in a chorus, “Ciao!” pretending to be sad. She waved back. But the goat didn’t take her far. Giuseppe’s mother, forever stooped and dressed in widow’s black, never grew to accept me. And her only son, my charming, errant husband, never stopped kissing beautiful young strangers on city street corners. Yet I’ve never for one moment ever regretted our own street-corner kiss. Without that spark, there would never have been an Angelina. Bonnie Lee Black Bonnie is the author of many published essays, as well as five published books: most recently, Sweet Tarts for My Sweethearts: Stories and Recipes from a Culinary Career (Nighthawk Press 2020); an historical novel, Jamie’s Muse, based on the lives of her Scottish great-grandparents who emigrated to South Africa in the late 19th century; and three memoirs about her own life-changing experiences in various countries in Africa (www.bonnieleeblack.com). Bonnie taught English and Creative Writing at the University of New Mexico’s Taos branch for ten years. Now retired and living in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, she writes an award-winning weekly blog called The WOW Factor: Words of Wisdom from Wise Older Women, which is read by hundreds of (mostly) women all over the world (www.bonnieleeblack.com/blog/). Because the Living May Be Worth Something Too Alberto Giacometti’s L’homme au doigt (Pointing Man) [sold] for $141.3 million (including fees) from an auction at Christie’s last month…The work [is] part of an edition of six, plus an artist’s proof. --New York Times, June 9, 2015 Just before the boys were born, one sold for more than any other sculpture ever. But because we are in Des Moines, no one else is looking as the boys walk up to one of the remaining five, and point themselves, and almost touch. No one to stop them but the lonely woman in Hopper’s Automat and me and the young art student just strolled in with his sketchpad who I can tell wants them to do it, who wants me to let them. The way I want my wife to touch my own imperfect and priceless body. To mark and ruin it. Lay claim to it. Make a secret of it. There is no purity in copies. The younger boy stands just as tall as the older which makes him more different, not less. What, besides Iowa and us, makes any one thing worth any more or less? I look at my boys and I know that one will find more love than the other. One be hurt more. One cause more hurt. This is the nature of the body, which like any grown man pointing, is as rough and human as one long wound. Brendan Todt Brendan Todt is the author of the poetry chapbook The Idea of Leaves within the Dying Tree. His poem "At the Particle Accelerator at Krasnoyarsk" was included in Best American Non-Required Reading 2013. His fiction and poetry can be found elsewhere in print and online. He lives in Sioux City, Iowa and teaches at Morningside College. The Museum of the Mind: The Antiquities of Freud and Tut Ptah Lord of eternity and creativity who holds the symbol of the life force May he accompany all who journey through the museum of the mind Miniature mummy, eyes wide opening to the past, holding history in the eye Impassive smile hides, the mystery inside It sits before him on his desk His musings and associations fill the space, while dreams surface from the couch. Doctor and patient take a ride, through the chambers of the mind, charting the dark underworld through time. From his chair, Dr. Freud approaches the sealed chamber of the unconscious Before his eyes the room dissolves, the figures come forward His thoughts turn to deities and death, of stories told through myths His dreams merge, the old and present melded together As if a channel for the Ancients, He knows that the shabti were "The Answerers" of old. He shifts his focus to a small sphinx. He begins to meditate on the riddle of man. A Torch shines through the dark tunnel The burial chamber reached The dazzling discovery revealed Human size figure entombed, wrapped in layers of cloth Upon his shoulders a brilliant golden mask with bold striped headdress. At its prow, like a great figurehead, the cobra stands ready to strike God-like. And the vulture alongside, the power of Egypt united The mummified boy lies secreted in a nest of masks and linen gauze Beneath lay the finely chiseled features of a young man It is said: at nine he entered the dynasty At eighteen the tomb adorned Amulets accompany him on his journey to the underworld He rests in the presence of a shabti in his image, Left in the dark to dream Until the light of the intruders interrupt the sleep of centuries A tear in the fabric of time Tomb robbers disrupt the laws of his universe Osiris is powerless The Book of the Dead wordless against intruders Who steal the soul living in the art of the unearthed dirt Eyes wide-open as if alive Tut travels between this life and the next Ba, the human headed bird whose wing touches his sarcophagus, Releases his soul into the afterlife While Freud, the dreamer, is accompanied by Ba on his journey to the underworld of the unconscious. Dr. Judith B. Meyerowitz Dr. Judith B. Meyerowitz is a psychologist and museum docent. Her particular interest is in non-western art as an expression of spirituality. Her specialty is in the arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, including Native American. Without Hope On vulnerable evenings the bed brings animals, death, to life Undressing the most instant nails while deepdown the worship begins a passion - a fear, to be of the same volatility as he is, yet to be in such shiny pain became a sort of petty peddling too - an act of doom There was kindness in our moves and his magical glances, right 'fore turning him being my accident again My deseo, the lapis colours my bi-feminismo, the Aztec icons In my defence: I was only 15 looking up - looking at him, mirrors, love, violence bareness, roots, la casa azul In my defence: a heart so full of pain, death, I can hardly descry the beasts at all. Dread for chain reactions, for bad quacks and swallowed spines. Praying for light shoulders, for some sun. I won't use my feet. Please hold me, Diego Kate Copeland Kate Copeland started reading libraries and absorbing her family's stories since she was a little lass. Her love for words led her to teaching and translating some dear languages. Her love for art led her to some ekphrastic poetry, bringing her to write her own poems too. The subsequent writing waves made their ways in publication...leaving a crave for more! She was born in Rotterdam some 51 years ago and adores housesitting in The United Kingdom and Spain. Mural In an alleyway on Ann Siang Hill, palm trees and stone stairways spiral back to colonial roofs, white-washed backdrop to chickens scampering free, a pair of carp circled in yin-yang smiles as old men reminisce below wood cages and women in red-gold cheongsams set themselves loose in soft twirls of jazz, like Bruce Lee’s youtiao nunchucks or teh tarik flourished for Samsui ladies, who laugh at Anglo-Chinese schoolboys blushing at a man bent on one knee, God and the Devil scissors-paper-stoning above a portrait of Rajinikanth as star and savior, sun-glassed dictator of tots in Sheng Shiong shop-carts racing cat astronauts to pyramids tripped in blue acid and acrylic blonde, pink cows biking to work even as their oxen gods chortle from the clouds, a pair of PMD rabbits skirting the ripple roots of painted reality. Ian Goh See the specific mural by Belinda Low that inspired Ian Goh's poem, here. Ian Goh teaches Literary Arts at School of the Arts (SOTA) Singapore. His work has appeared in Quarterly Literary Singapore Review, Eunoia Review, Star*Line and is forthcoming in The Tiger Moth Review. He has read for the Singapore Writer's Festival, Georgetown Literary Festival and Catharsis Poetry Competition. He currently holds an MA in Creative Writing from Goldsmiths University of London. Helen Sears There’s something missing: little Helen Sears, In white dress and white shoes, standing between The room’s red darkness and the green-gold light Exploding through a window on the blue Hydrangeas in their brass urns, glowing up Over her face like revelation, seems Unaware of the flowers her fingers touch. Empty some call her, thinking Sargent viewed Her as a kind of pretty object. But Look close: her right leg’s crossed over the left Completely, as if in ecstatic dance. Her fingers, arched, are playing the petals like Piano keys. Her stern eyes stare outside, At what she’s missing so the man can paint. V. J. Saraf V. J. Saraf lives in Cambridge, Mass., with his wife and daughter. When not writing poetry, he runs a software business in the medical/healthcare space, and enjoys sailing in Boston Harbor and the many wonderful museums of New England. Dear Ekphrasists, Welcome to the third installment of the Ekphrastic Writer’s column. As the author of the first comprehensive guidebook on multi-genre ekphrasis, The Ekphrastic Writer, I’ll be posting monthly musings, fielding your questions on ekphrasis (and beyond), and fostering a conversation on contemporary practices in visual-art-influenced creative writing. Because I didn’t receive any letters in February, I’ll take this opportunity to share with you a profound lesson that I learned during International Women’s Day. Actually, “day” doesn’t describe it. On Club House (a new, audio-only social media app) I participated in a 72-hour Woman’s Day Summit. We had speakers from around the world share their business acumen and offer feedback on entrepreneurial pitches, for example. But, the most powerful moments were when individuals shared their personal stories with great specificity and heart. Here’s my question to you: When’s the last time you shared something personal through your ekphrastic writing? Let your eyes be that portal to your vision. As Helen Keller said, “The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.” In every literary work of fiction and poetry, there’s truth within the space of imagination. However, you cannot hide behind abstraction, this is why ekphrasis is so genius. For, you can find the personal within the specificity of what you see as you look at art. To echo Rainer Maria Rilke’s creative approach, I suggest that you allow yourself to become subordinate to the object d’art and trust that through that space of deep-looking, and with great heart, the stories that you’re meant to tell will erupt. Yes, art contains multitudes, but YOU are also an integral part of that equation. If you wish to join the conversation, send your letters to E.W. at ekphrasticwriter(at)gmail.com. Ekphrastically Yours, E.W. E.W. (Janée J. Baugher) is the author of The Ekphrastic Writer: Creating Art-Influence Poetry, Fiction and Nonfiction, as well as the ekphrastic poetry collections, The Body’s Physics and Coördinates of Yes. Recent work has appeared in Saturday Evening Post, Tin House, The Southern Review, The American Journal of Poetry, The Light Ekphrastic, and Nimrod. Her writing has been adapted for the stage and set to music at venues such as University of Cincinnati, Interlochen Center for the Arts, Dance Now! Ensemble in Florida, University of North Carolina-Pembroke, and Otterbein University, and she’s performed at the Library of Congress. Currently, she’s an assistant editor at Boulevard magazine and the 2021 poet-in-residence at Maryhill Museum of Art. www.JaneeBaugher.com Dear Readers and Writers, Thank you to everyone who participated in this ekphrastic writing challenge, and any of our challenges. Every artwork selected is intended as an invitation into art appreciation and a richer writing practice. I am grateful for the opportunity to share my passion for art history and inspire fiction and poetry. Choosing a few works to post from so many is always an excruciating task! In both the main pages of the journal and our bimonthly challenge response posts, I aim to post as many works as possible. I love to share your work and showcase your creativity! But for every great piece I can post, many are left out. It is my intention to build a community and family, and that is one reason why we encourage and share work by regular contributors, when many journals refuse submissions by authors they have published for varying time frames. We also want to invite new friends to the ekphrastic table and share their voices. It is also important to me to feature a range of perspectives on an artwork and a diverse selection of ideas, opinions, and backgrounds. In other words, we want the impossible. We want it all. If you share my objective of spreading the wealth of stories, insights, and enchantment in art and literature, please share this or any of our posts on behalf of the writers and artists we feature. Thank you so very much. Finally, just a heads up, we now have an archive feature for past challenge responses. It is long overdue! You can browse that archive by clicking here. As our challenges went through various incarnations, we are unable, unfortunately, to list all of them. We are working to collect, in order, those in this format- one artwork, with your responses. Do browse the archives by month in the sidebar as well. We have nearly six years worth of incredible writing inspired by art. love, Lorette ** Jim Crow Sun Set In the long shadows of a Jim Crow sunset, the long work-a-day lives of a Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina cotton field, they stand or crouch or kneel with determined exhaustion. Bare foot and muscular shoulders, they look to the future, the young girl’s American Dream resting on the horizon line of all tomorrow’s cotton bales. Will she leave the fields and migrate north? Will she find the streets of Harlem, Cleveland, Detroit as welcoming as the warm embrace of her mother and father? When Earle Wilton Richardson flew from his fourth story window, when his love and Negro Achievement crumbled to red-dust fields and red-dust yesterdays, did she understand his pain? Did the daughter of those who drove the mules and dammed the Saluda see into tomorrow’s deadly distance? Andre F. Peltier Andre F. Peltier is a Lecturer III at Eastern Michigan University where he has taught African American Literature, Afrofuturism, Science Fiction, Poetry, and Freshman Composition since 1998. He lives in Ypsilanti, MI with his wife, children, turtles, dog and cat. In his free time he obsesses about soccer and comic books. His poetry is forthcoming in The Great Lakes Review, Big Whoopie Deal, La Piccioletta Barca, and an anthology about mental illness from Quillkeepers. ** The Cotton Pickers A tangle of legs Endless lines of cotton A bowl of cotton picked A Queen from far away What a jumble of a family The artist has spoken of Work Demeaning work hard work Old work and young work As the Queen oversees blesses The bounty of rough hands Calloused soles misplaced souls Her family portrait portrayed A unit complex as life Endless as life as well Mark Wholey Mark Wholey is an artist and sculptor at www.markwholeyart.com. ** Standing Tall They will not bend for a nation without mercy. They are human in a land lacking humanity. They will not break. They will stand tall. From dusk to dawn, six days a week, in sun-scorched fields, they will seed and weed, plant and plow, pick, sack and haul cotton bolls in ten-pound sacks, ten acres per day. For less, they will be beaten, branded, lashed, hanged, raped. They must obey. No shoes to shield their feet from heat as they labor. Ten minutes to dine on dried rice and beans, but they have each other. They are family. And they stand tall. They carry names given by their owners, but will be buried in unmarked graves on the edge of property they tended. Whites will never know them. They remain the nameless force behind a thriving nation, while their wealthy, wigged captors become legend of film, plays, songs, and history books. But they stand tall. Shelly Blankman Shelly Blankman lives in Columbia, Maryland with her husband, Jon, three cats and a dog. They are quarantined from their two sons: Richard of New York, NY, and Joshua of San Antonio, TX. Shelly is author of Pumpkinhead, a collection of her poetry, published by Richard and Joshua as a surprise to her. Her work has also appeared in various publications, including Verse-Virtual, Silver Birch Press, and Halfway Down the Stairs. Her hobbies include making greeting cards and memory books as well as refereeing animals. ** Fantasy It’s arduous planting corn seeds for hours. My arms ache, my legs are stiff, and my skin burns from the beaming sun. My bare feet bake in the heat, yet I continue to till because my family depends on this field. We live poorly, in a small hut, with one room, and insects crawling all over our bodies, but we manage. I work so my children can go to school and have better lives. It hasn’t been easy since my wife passed, but I work every day. I long for an easier life for my son and daughter and will work until I know they are able to live on their own. At that time, they will be educated and living in America, with a house and yard full of flowers and vegetable plants. Fantasizing about my children’s future, I continue tilling. Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher has been writing since 2010 and has had many micro-flash fiction stories published. In 2018 her book Shorts for the Short Story Enthusiasts, was published and The Importance of Being Short, in 2019. She currently resides on Long Island, New York with her husband Richard and dogs Lucy and Breanna. ** Two Tanka in Ode to African Americans I. They built this country With cotton and tobacco Just row after row Stooped and bending and aching So unappreciated II. So, this is an ode To the great perseverance To the fortitude To the tremendous patience They still use in modern day Rose Menyon Heflin Rose Menyon Heflin is an emerging poet and artist from Wisconsin who loves nature and travel. Among other venues, her work has recently been published or is forthcoming in Ariel Chart, Asahi Haikuist Network, Bramble, The Closed Eye Open, The Daily Drunk, Deep South Magazine, Dreich Magazine, Eastern Structures, The Ekphrastic Review, Haikuniverse, The Light Ekphrastic, Littoral Magazine, Please See Me, Plum Tree Tavern, Red Alder Review, Red Eft Review, Sparked Literary Magazine, Three Line Poetry, Trouvaille Review, Visual Verse, and The Writers Club. ** Harvest Season Every year the beginning of harvest season is the saddest day of the year for me. It is a day of nothing but pain. It is the one time I allow myself to remember my home from so long ago, and remember my father and brothers harvesting our own cotton from our family’s field, the bushes planted in the red soil of my country. Then, when there was enough, my mother and sisters would card and dye the thread many colors made from the different berries growing in the wild areas. We had several looms, and all of us would take turns weaving the threads into beautiful patterns that we sold in the village. Everyone knew us for miles around, as my family had been weavers for generations. But then I also remember the Arab traders who came and took away my brothers and sisters and other young people from the village, in exchange for many foreign presents for the local headman. My parents wept but could do nothing as these strangers had guns. It is the day I remember the terrible voyage, the terrible smells, and the terrible deaths. We arrived at a strange city where a strange white man inspected me like I was a goat and then took me home to work for him, alongside others from my country and elsewhere, who were all strangers. It is the day when I remember arriving at his farm and understanding that I was now an orphan, and would never see any of my family again. All of us on this farm grieve silently like me, and all of us work to forget our pain, but on this one day a year it comes back into my heart like a hungry panther emerging from the jungle, and I am devoured. Karen Petersen Karen Petersen has traveled the world extensively, publishing poetry, short stories, and flash in national and international publications. She has been nominated for numerous prizes and more information can be found here: https://karenpetersenwriter.com ** Cottonseed Bloom Beneath a hot prairie sun knelt a dying man, sowing and picking seeds - chains of liberty. When he closes his eyes, he hears one of the seeds speaking. Asking do you rest in sleep like me? Does your heart wake in fatigue? Are your roots too—wormy? Yes, it's the source of all life? Ah-old-man lay here beside me. Tell me about all those flowers in the world. Tell me of all that glorifies. Ah-old-man, when will you water me? Cut all that binds and carry my harvest home. Dear little-seed your green blade it cuts to me the core; it cuts a hole in me. For me, it is already midnights-hour. But soon you'll stretch to the full moon, and bloom my little disburse flower seed. And find your solace and freedom, like my own, a little cottonseed bloom. Mark Andrew Heathcote Mark Andrew Heathcote is adult learning difficulties support worker, his poetry has been published in many journals, magazines and anthologies, he resides in the UK, from Manchester, he is the author of In Perpetuity and Back on Earth two books of poems published by a CTU publishing group ~ Creative Talents Unleashed. https://www.facebook.com/mark.heathcote.18 ** Receivers/Givers ______________ for All African-Americans & Their Histories after Employment of African-Americans in Agriculture by Earle Richardson (USA), 1934 C.E. Well, it may be the devil or it may be the lord But you’re gonna have to serve somebody Bob Dylan, “Gotta Serve Somebody” bearers of sweet cocoa skin — as soft as cotton — sparkled in sweat — as precious as diamonds — bare-footed yet brave-hearted; movers & shakers of skies & fields; clothed in dust of toils and turmoils; crafts-wo/men of traditions; Receivers/Givers of grand legacies! Saad Ali Saad Ali (b. 1980 C.E. in Okara, Pakistan) has been brought up in the UK and Pakistan. He holds a BSc and an MSc in Management from the University of Leicester, UK. He is an existential philosopher-poet. Ali has authored four books of poetry i.e. Ephemeral Echoes (AuthorHouse, 2018), Metamorphoses: Poetic Discourses (AuthorHouse, 2019), Ekphrases: Book One (AuthorHouse, 2020), and Prose Poems: Βιβλίο Άλφα (AuthorHouse, 2020). He is a regular contributor to The Ekphrastic Review. By profession, he is a Lecturer, Consultant and Trainer/Mentor. Some of his influences include: Vyasa, Homer, Ovid, Attar, Rumi, Nietzsche, 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. ** Our Day Will Come Our day will come, if only years from now: United, we are destined to prevail—-- Released from toil behind the mule-drawn plough, Discharged from bondage to the cotton bale. A day will come when we are truly free. Yet till that long-awaited day arrives, We labor in de facto slavery—-- Imagining our liberated lives ... Long years of subjugation nullified Lincolnian pronouncements made in vain: Crow's Law saw all our freedom brushed aside, Our loss in dignity made landlords' gain ... May we yet see oppression swept away? Emancipation will arrive that day! Mike Mesterton-Gibbons Mike Mesterton-Gibbons is a Professor Emeritus at Florida State University who builds game-theoretic models of animal behavior. His acrostic sonnets have appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, the Creativity Webzine, Current Conservation, the Ekphrastic Review, Grand Little Things, Light, Lighten Up Online, Oddball Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, the Satirist and the Tallahassee Democrat. His limericks have appeared in Britain’s Daily Mail. ** Dawn to Dusk Dawn to dusk, it is cotton for us New year or Christmas In freezing cold we work Evicting us from home Out in open we toil, our family and all of us. The faces covered in mist That hangs around And cuts through the skin Speechless and without an answer To why are we here- The humanity is dragged and numbed Over and over a shame writ Free spirit is with fire lit The dignity awakened and out Opposite the mighty and in power Wailed and shut in quick succession The fields continue to burn And the moon turns crimson May we rise comes the voice On this earth for its lives- As the galaxy of stars speak, dawn to dusk. Abha Das Sarma Abha Das Sarma: "An engineer and management consultant by profession, I enjoy the writing most. Besides having a blog of over 200 poems (http://dassarmafamily.blogspot.com), my poems have appeared in Muddy River Poetry Review, Spillwords, Verse-Virtual, Sparks of Calliope, here and elsewhere. Having spent my growing up years in small towns of northern India, I currently live in Bengaluru." ** Rows Rows in my hair… rows in my clothes… rows on my cheeks and under my eyes. And the rows stretch on….. O Mama.... on to the shadows… red dirt on my toes as I pick the bolls in the rows. Walking those rows toward sunset, not looking back…. tossing my basket… dropping my hoe. Treading those rows swirling red dust “Sweet Mama! I’m coming! I’m coming home!” Pounding those rows just want to go home Lord, just want to go home And the darkness gathers rows fade and dissolve. And I’m tired, Mama Staring at rows. Just want to go home. Away from the rows. Home. Rows. Diana Newquist Parson Diana Newquist Parson is a retired teacher, who enjoys sleeping late, blogging sporadically at https://glorybug.wordpress.com/, and traveling with her husband. She is mother of one, grandmother of three, and has no living pets. She sometimes walks around, talking to herself as she tries out the sound of words, and she has been published a few times. Diana doesn’t know know how to swim, is a mediocre cook, and hates to dust. Otherwise she is fairly normal. ** nobody's innocent it's karma judgment is not truth 1. She was black, and the cotton was white, a contrast so deliberate it was ink-print, but illegible on a 19th century page of family history turned sideways because some said she was a lie; some said truth, a story buried in a field outside New Orleans where slaves picked cotton, some leased, maybe some conscripted, some runaways, and if caught, liable to be convicted like Glenn Ligon, who must have got some money, somehow, or been an artist, showing at the CAMH, shackled by a really cool, big ole' silver Timex on a silver band, way ahead of his time, talkin' out the side of his mouth, described six different ways like my great-grandmother's mother, not bought in town, bidding prices high when it was time to plant, to sow, and time to reap when white-topped cotton crops filled the fields like snow, one shade of white like winter; another, fallen clouds, dirty white, sometimes, with rain; or the moon, already shrinking backward from full, the crop threatened by storm, mold and differences of opinion, prejudice likened to the open-mouth insect hunger of boll weevils. To the man on the horse who owned her -- nobody's innocent -- it's karma -- judgment is not truth -- she must have looked as solid -- yet ethereal -- as the earth on his plantation, ready to sow with future generations, a woman who wouldn't erase her young with the denial of resources; his land chased by phantoms of moonlight, that turned out to be a bridal veil. 2. There is no record of a birth, easy or hard, only a hand- drawn portrait of my great-grandmother, who, reminisced, was the heart of the family. I've imagined her holding my grandfather, newborn, the last of her children born in New Orleans; and her husband, my great-grandfather, reporting the weather in his leather-bound journals; who wrote, in September, that the midwife was late, but he was home early. There are no other details -- sunlight or rain -- or who boiled the water (someone usually boils water) or who delivered the child, was close by the bedside -- only his script, a note in the margin -- An extraordinary day! There's nothing else like it in his journals, that note in the margin -- no notes on the birth dates of my grandfather's siblings (and there were many!) as his pen reported events with Victorian discretion without revealing who delivered the child, when the date didn't lie... It was near the fall equinox, 20 September, when the harvest is blessed with a full, autumn moon; and the moon could have added an air of excitement -- an exclamation -- details blurry as bloodlines in family stories when all that seems real is the girl in a cotton field. Laurie Newendorp Laurie Newendorp lives and writes in Houston, Texas. Her recent book, When Dreams Were Poems, compares the similarities of poetry to art. "The title of the poem, nobody's Innocent it's karma judgment is not truth is a line taken from one of the art works at the CAMH (Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston) where I presented the poem for Words & Art, an evening with poems based on an exhibit centered around African Americans. My poem, dedicated to my great-grandmother, came to mind when I saw the challenge picture, Earle Richardson's Employment of African-Americans in Agriculture. The CAMH exhibit, far more modern than Richardson's 1934 painting, was reality-based and emphasized enslavement, imprisonment and abuse by inequality. Glenn Ligon, an African American artist, mentioned in the poem, was one of the artists included in the exhibit; and my "family story" in the poem is true: my ancestor was the daughter of a French plantation owner by an African American "employee," and my great-grandmother was "mulatto," a "woman of colour" who married my great-grandfather, a German immigrant (also with Jewish blood) in New Orleans." ** Chasing Rhythm & Blues tubular limbs bronzed in sun open bend lift swing mechanical jaws in the tap of time light folds shadows lengthen sound sucked absorbed in cotton sunset swallowed along wih song hollow eyes haunt mid-air lips speechless smeared defeated etched in rutted run of furrow chasing pulse of Rhythm & Blues Kate Young Kate Young lives in England and has been passionate about poetry since childhood. She generally writes free verse and loves responding to Art through Ekphrastic poems. Her poems have appeared in Ninemuses, Ekphrastic Review, Nitrogen House, Words for the Wild, Poetry on the Lake, and a Scottish Writers Centre chapbook. Her work has also featured in the anthologies Places of Poetry and Write Out Loud. Her pamphlet A Spark in the Darkness recently won The Baker’s Dozen competition with Hedgehog Press and is due to be published. Find her on Twitter @Kateyoung12poet. ** Employment of African-Americans in Agriculture, by Earle Richardson It is 1934--the rows of cotton, deceptively beautiful, are endless, the landscape warm and round, the sun relentless. The workers rise up straight with strength and grit, though surely their backs must ache and hands cramp after hours imprisoned by their labour. Perhaps the artist sensed his title was a pleasing lie for the Federal Art Project—"employment“ a fig leaf for the new slavery of sharecropping. Or perhaps, born in the North, the artist borrowed courage from his unbreakable brothers and sisters still toiling in the South.. And now it is 1935. Unseen in this painting, the painter, Earle Richardson, only twenty-three, has been left alone in a hard and angular universe by the death of his lover and collaborator. He opens the window and steps into the frigid New York December. The dirty pavement, four stories below, rises up to meet him. Eileen Ivey Sirota Eileen Ivey Sirota is the author of Out of Order, a chapbook published in 2020 by Finishing Line Press. She is a psychotherapist, poet and potter who has come late—but enthusiastically—to the party which is poetry. Her poems have been published in Calyx, District Lines, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Lighten Up, NewVerseNews and The Ekphrastic Review. ** In The New Deal my tailored lemon shirt brother’s white double-stitched young one’s orange t in pure cotton regal sister’s red/white silk blouse our brushed chinos in pastels skirts floating below knees with head dresses courtesy of our kindly task master who will not provide footwear, he says to avoid blisters and bunions or gloves for our hands to avert hard calluses forming though this is fabrication, pure fiction for our garments are rags for none have been washed for facilities do not exist, and the clothes on our backs cover up welds and deep scars while a voice loud in our ears threatens retribution as he lets us sleep late until church bells ring five but takes us off his land just as day turns to night though this is the New Deal for peasants of the fields standing in front of an endless landscape of cotton and contradiction sharing laughter and bon ami having packed bolls into bales for a pittance and little food and a wooden hut to be shared yet we seek palliation from poverty seek deliverance from this Depression while aspiring the liberties enjoyed by free women and free men Alun Robert Alun Robert is a prolific creator of lyrical free verse. He has achieved success in poetry competitions across the British Isles and North America. His work has been published by many literary magazines, anthologies and webzines in the UK, Ireland, Italy, South Africa, Kenya, USA and Canada. Since 2018, he has been part of The Ekphrastic Review community particularly enjoying the fortnightly challenges. He is a member of the Federation of Writers Scotland for whom he was a Featured Writer in 2019. ** Cotton Picking Curling mists rising from sloughs in a land table flat, only a few thickets where the water stands full of cottonmouths; bull frogs and mosquitoes rest from night serenade and sun climbs to mid-day heat. Folks troop to the fields frothed with white to the horizon-- Mississippi white gold mined with sweat on sticky afternoons-- waiting for the sun to kiss the River. They pull cotton sacks down the rows And pluck the fibre out of the bolls, Sometimes pricking fingers. Late in the afternoon, The weigh in And are paid a dime a pound. The adults who have picked a hundred pounds Make ten dollars While the children Who pick only twenty pounds Make two dollars. It’s the forever land undulating in black beneath your feet that gives it soul, flavors it with tears. And the blue notes still rising from bottle neck slides glide out into a night as rich as black earth waiting for another sun. Emory Jones Dr. Emory D. Jones is a retired English teacher who has taught in high school and in several community colleges. He has four hundred and fifty-five credits including publication in such journals as Writer’s Digest, Smokey Blue Literary and Arts Magazine, The Light Ekphrastic, Big Muddy; a Journal of the Mississippi River, Three Line Poetry, Auroras & Blossoms, Pegasus, Halcyon Days Magazine, Falling Star Magazine, The Cumberland River Review, The Delta Poetry Review, Calliope, Deep South Magazine, Modern Poetry Quarterly Review, and Encore: Journal of the NFSPS. He lives in Iuka, Mississippi. ** Cotton The cotton appears like candy spun in a metal tub where a funnel is upended while the tub whirls next to horses going round and round. It is all a circle. Pondered while the cotton drips down your chin into the cleft just beginning to sprout. A year from now you will not indulge in the pink, sometimes blue, sometimes yellow. How it never burns to red or orange. Anything that brings a tank with hose. Bundled into burlap for market close to water where we dream in bunks of stealing away up the coast north of Mason-Dixon M.D. as we call it and don’t mean any doctor with stethoscope and white coat only the man on the spotted horse. Appaloosa in the bright sun while he calls “How many bags today, Son? “How many bags yesterday?” Kyle Laws Kyle Laws is based out of Steel City Art Works in Pueblo, CO where she directs Line/Circle: Women Poets in Performance. Her collections include Uncorseted (Kung Fu Treachery Press, 2020), Ride the Pink Horse (Stubborn Mule Press, 2019), Faces of Fishing Creek (Middle Creek Publishing, 2018), This Town: Poems of Correspondence coauthored with Jared Smith (Liquid Light Press, 2017), So Bright to Blind (Five Oaks Press, 2015), and Wildwood (Lummox Press, 2014). With eight nominations for a Pushcart Prize and one for Best of the Net, her poems and essays have appeared in magazines and anthologies in the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Germany. She is editor and publisher of Casa de Cinco Hermanas Press. ** Powerful As John Henry driving iron These are the bodies of heroes Bare feet on the earth Limbs straight, backs unbowed Every line speaks strength Power in the broad stance The counterbalance of the body To the load carried Majesty in the calm face Of the tall woman Carrying her burden like a crown- They make the connection Between earth and sky Today and tomorrow Their labor the alchemy That brings seed to harvest Life to life Without the lash, at long last They bend and stretch Gather and lift Bags that only weigh What the scale can measure Without the burden of bondage The scar of force, the bitter twist Of coffle, chain and whip They stand solid in the field No shoes, rough clothes With nothing much more Than their beauty And their everlasting strength Mary McCarthy Mary McCarthy is a retired RN with a life long love of literature and the visual arts. Ekphrastic writing brings both of these wonderfully together. Mary’s work has appeared in many journals and anthologies, most recently The Plague Papers, edited by Robbi Nester, The Ekphrastic World, edited by Lorette C. Luzajic, and Recasting Masculinity, edited by Rudolph, Taylor, and Ussia. Lately she has also been included in The Silver Birch Press series on “How To” and in the latest issues of Earth’s Daughters and Verse-Virtual. ** Bloom of Dreams It was -- for generations -- toil, this cotton picked where sun would boil the sweat by which the soul would learn the cost of what it took to earn respect that might not ever come from labor to which minds were numb, but would by fruit of labor found in destiny of nation bound to free the world from looming chains of despots eyeing evil reigns. Armed service would be sacrifice sufficient to be seen as price for dignity as seed well sown that would by bloom of dreams be known. 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. ** Not What History Tells Us Here we stand together, a straight-backed family of gatherers, as pristine as the snow-white bolls we’ve just picked and coordinated like the rows behind or the stripes on Mama’s dress. The light we live in gleams a candy-floss dream, our bales fill with promise, our future looms in bold. We plant, reap and tote with clockwork symmetry. Quotas balance. Burdens are light. Here we stand as if we own that field, foot-loose, not a scar in sight, wearing comfortable cottons, as if nothing will ever separate us, as if that sun will never scorch us, as if we’ll never know otherwise. Helen Freeman Helen Freeman has been published on several sites such as Ink, Sweat and Tears, Red River Review, Barren Magazine, The Drabble, Sukoon and The Ekphrastic Review. Her instagram page is @chemchemi.hf. She lives in Durham, England. ** African-Americans in Acronyms We knew this Deal didn’t mean Progress for All of us. Painted What they wanted to see: All of us happily Picking cotton still today. For all they promise to Deliver for the people Really did not mean all of us. So I painted them barefoot Showing that progress isn’t for All of us. Could they have Cottoned to my meaning about Castigating all of us? All we see is black and red and beautiful; All they see are white fields ripe for All of us to work. Fear will keep them from Ever granting Restitution to All of us. Benjamin Squires Benjamin Squires (BiCS) is a poet, photographer, and pastor in northern Illinois. His work is published from the pulpit every week, but that isn't what he dreamed about as a kid when he said he wanted to be a writer. So he slips in poetry into his sermons, inviting people to appreciate the power and beauty and imagery of words. His photography can be viewed at: www.bicspics.com Monday, March 15 is our first flash in a flash contest- 24 hours to write a story and win $100. Entry $10. Join us! Click the image above for details. April is poetry month! Get a month-plus worth of ekphrastic poetry exercise for poetry month or any month. $10 CAD. Your ebook purchases are a tremendous support to The Ekphrastic Review, especially in helping us offer occasional cash prizes, manage web expenses, etc. Thank you. Get your copy here. We have recently posted our archive of ekphrastic challenge responses, so you can more easily find and view past challenges. Click on image above to find a menu of images with links.
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February 2025
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