​Basho's Haiku
 
Someone who does not run / towards the allure of love / walks a road where nothing lives.1
Rumi, "The Allure of Love”
 
1   5, 7, 5 / 7, 8, 12
 
In her ataraxy and equanimity, she was a semblance of the aromatic atoms of the freshly blossomed cherry blossoms and soothing shade of the Sakura tree laid under the Egyptian-blue and cotton candy-like subtle and fluffy sky in the Spring.
 
We had met, out of the blue, at a literary festival in Athens, Greece during the Summer of ’13 CE. … She possessed a Bohemian-Spirit, and she was fond of poetry. She had a knack for free from the shackles of form forms (free verse); knack for controversial forms (prose poetry); knack for the forms from the Orient – where juxtaposition was applied to two distinct images (haiku) – in fact, she was addicted to haiku! … Back in those days, the distance between verse and I was as gargantuan as the distance that one Aristotle had taught one Alexander between Hellas (Greece) and Bharat (India) was; or the distance between the Sun and Pluto; or the distance between our Solar System and the Sagittarius A; or the distance between the Milky Way and Alpha Centauri; or … (never mind). … She would mostly compose couplets; she was particularly fond of Khayyam-esque rubaiyat – would instantly stir one or two up, like an illusionist pulls out a rabbit from the Zatanna hat. She also had a palate for 7, 8, 12 liner short, short vers libres – free like the freely-flowing water/currents in the river; free from the fear of getting drunk/ridden by the fish – with long, long encrypted messages and morals – like the encoded poetic discourses of the epic poems; the likes of Gilgamesh, Mahabharata, Odyssey, Beowulf, Shahnameh, and what have you. And she was rather particular about writing her lines in ink with a fountain pen – she had 7, 8, 12 odd favourite fountain pens; each with its own leather and/or velvet sleeve.
 
During our early days of seeing each other, one evening, after attending an orchestra performance at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, as we were wandering around the Agora and Acropolis on the Ermou Street, she had succumbed to her muse:
 
       each season’s distinct florilegium
       esoteric tongue/s of two lovers
       enormous pot of lilium soup
 
If not as poetically articulate, I was clever enough to read between the lines, and embossed a compliment on the dorsal of her right hand. And so were our lips and hearts – clever enough to decipher the epigram – like one Zeus was clever to approach Europa as a bull; like one Athena was clever to disguise Odysseus as an old beggar; like one Hermes was clever to create the Hellenic alphabet; like one … (never mind).
 
2   BASHO’S HAIKU
 
And every now ‘n then, she would slip many such handwritten poetic jeux d’esprit and apophthegms between the pages of my books and journals – without giving me the slightest clue. Over the course of Summer and Autum, she had rather made it a habit of surprising me with couplets, rubaiyat, and haiku – I would find the poem slips cozying between the lines like a well-fed pet cat on her human-mama’s curule chair; other times, flying out of my books and journals like birds freed from the incarceration of cages. … And I had made her surprises my habit; her serenity and poetic aura had rather turned into my addiction! And I gave her the nickname of “Basho’s Haiku.” And she fell in love with the nickname – wore it proudly like an enamel pin on the lapel of her blue-black corduroy shacket.
 
At the same time, she was a devotee of Wabi-Sabi (Zen Buddhism).2 AND she was in love with one Basho – his humanism, his poetics, his existential ideas, his humility. … BUT I, in love with her > the love of The One who claims to love us > the love of 70 mothers combined; > the vast expanse of 7 heavens combined; > the love of O2 of all bronchioles combined in both human lungs; > … (never mind). … And during our occasional petty arguments, I would be generously sarcastic to her: “like your blue-eyed boy, Basho (and his haiku), your skill to make a mountain out of a molehill is simply extraordinary, simply commendable, simply outsmarts my comprehension, Angeliki!” And she would generously return the sarcasm, too: the day I morph into a petal on a branch of a Sakura tree, you will know all the distinctions there’re to know between a mountain and a molehill!
 
3   THE GREEK TRAGEDY  
 
At the same time, she had her shadows of weaknesses to keep an eye on, too – like the heel of one Achilles; like the fearlessness of one Prometheus; like the bad luck of one Hercules – she did smoke the coffin nails; she loved her whisky/scotch (single malt; on the rocks) – like > one Zeus loved Athena; like > one Aphrodite loved Eros; like > one Hera loved Ares; like > … (never mind). … And by the Spring of ’14 CE, she found herself forced to submit to her B****** of a stalker named ‘Cancer’ – the B******’s fox-like craftiness turned out to be > all the degrees of love I possessed for her; the B****** was in some dire rush to elope with her to the Elysium or Hades, apparently! … But, she had been given a heads-up by her doctors a season earlier about her liver + lungs doing the over-overtime. But, she was overly inspired by the French Ideals of Liberté – like far > the French themselves, apparently – she wasn’t afraid of having a tête-à-tête with one Azrael, at all, or the so-called Prince of Darkness Itself.3 And so, the opportunist named ‘Tragedy’ found in her the perfect excuse to reincarnate itself: LURE OF FREE WILL + COBWEB OF MATERIAL TEMPTATIONS = THE GREEK TRAGEDY.
 
And so, her odyssey with me turned out to be shorter than the shortest season of the Gregorian calendar; as short as the 5, 7, 5 of one haiku, apparently. The manner in which The One, who claims to be the Creator of the Uni/Multiverse (and everything within/without it), is sadist towards me – like > one Zeus is to Prometheus; like > one Athena is to Arachne; like > one Hera is to Heracles; like > … (never mind) – such karma even one Basho himself wouldn’t have been able to poem in the ribcage of 5, 7, 5!
 
4   THE GIFT  
 
The haiku – placed (almost) in the centre of the prologue to this poem – was one of her many such first-ever paronomasias she’d composed for me that I would find placed (almost) in the centre of the gift – Rumi: The Book of Love – Poems of Ecstasy and Longing by C. Barks – I’d received from her on our only ‘Happy New Year’ together prior to her departure to the Aalam-e-Barzakh/Araf.4
 
Saad Ali

1. English translation by Coleman Barks.
2. Wabi-Sabi (School of Buddhism): Based on three Buddhist principles: a) ephemerality, b) discontentment (pain/suffering), and c) sunyata (void/emptiness). Sabi: Material impermanence/imperfections/incompleteness; Wabi: Acceptance (of shortness/flaws/unfinished).
3. Azrael (Abrahamic Religious Traditions): Archangel of Death.
4. Aalam-e-Barzakh/Araf (Islamic Tradition): An ethereal place for the souls of the dead to live until the Day of Judgement.

Saad Ali ​(b. 1980 CE in Okara, Pakistan) has been brought up and educated in the United Kingdom and Pakistan. He is a bilingual poet-philosopher and literary translator. His new collection of poems is titled Owl Of Pines: Sunyata (AuthorHouse, 2021). He has translated Lorette C. Luzajic’s ekphrastic poetry and micro/flash fictions into Urdu: Lorette C. Luzajic: Selected Ekphrases: Translated into Urdu (2023). He is a regular contributor to The Ekphrastic Review. He has had poems published in Synchronized Chaos. His work has been nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology. He has had ekphrases showcased at an Art Exhibition, Bleeding Borders, curated at the Art Gallery of Grande Prairie in Alberta, Canada. Some of his influences include: Vyasa, Homer, Ovid, Attar, Rumi, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Kafka, and Tagore. He enjoys learning different languages, travelling by train, and exploring cities/towns on foot. To learn further about his work, please visit: www.saadalipoetry.com; www.facebook.com/owlofpines.

Walking the Sky
 
Without colour
the volume is texture
our held breath
opens time,
place lets us in
to ourselves
relationships
hurtling like ribbons of water
over motionless stone
emotionless clouds,
the full spectrum
between carved dark and sifted light
Linger in the spray,
rise up, and walk the sky
 

 
Surfacing
 
Voices without sound 
call invisible birds
who land on our fingers
tipping us, horizontal
to vertical
vertigo
our crumbling fragments
surface 
stunning our bodies
weightless bubbles 
volcanic ash
our remembered skin

​Deep 
 
inside the needle scratch of static
ice
a pool of calm turquoise 
balm to
knots of emotions
tangled from our tides
rushing in, then out 
mingling our particles, our ashes 
The brain can never restore 
before, 
just numb us
until we can stand
to thaw
 

Bloodless Diamonds 
 
Jagged and glacial
choked up from the sea,
dissonant chords
of glimmering
displaced bodies
frozen clouds 
scattered on the ash of emergency
black ice drowning
the moon’s hands falling off and off
 

Blues
 
The sky pales
to you, 
favorite
glacial washed
jeans
worn to water,
your body
frozen fog
a sculpted numb 
unmoored
floating
the slow blue path
of light
 
K.L. Barron

K.L. Barron is a writer of place: poetry and prose. Her prize-winning fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction has been published in New Letters, The Bennington Review, terrain.org, ChickenBones (Library of Congress), among others, and in several anthologies.  Her debut novel recently came out from Sea Crow Press. She lives and writes in the Flint Hills.

​Shawnee Barron has loved photography since she developed her first photograph in the darkroom at the age of seven.  Not wanting to ever lose the love for the art, she completely stepped away from her business of portrait photography. She has always had a special place in her heart for landscapes, street, and fine art photography.  This project re-ignited that flame.

In Conversation with Hedy Habra About Or Did You Ever See the Other Side?

Or Did You Ever See the Other Side?
Hedy Habra
​Press 53, 2023

Tell us about the style choice to start every title with the word “Or.” What is the significance of this to you?

When I first started using "Or" in the titles, I didn't envision replicating the same pattern in an entire collection. After having published numerous poems with such titles I felt confident in pursuing this style. Since this book was eight years in the making, I did question my choice at one point and wondered what this approach meant to me. I felt that the inclusion of "Or" invited the reader to participate in unraveling the questions raised within the poems and opened the door to interpretations. Since writing is both an exploration of the self and of the world, the word "Or" suggests both the duality within oneself and a poem's underlying meanings. The title of the book, "Or Did You Ever See The Other Side?" hints at uncovering the hidden, unseen side of things, and the title poem sets the tone with a similar question.

Most of your work is written in some kind of relationship with art. How did this happen for you? Tell us more about your connection to visual art and why your words depend on it so intimately.

I am a very visual person with a passion for art. I love spending time in museums and exploring artists' work in books or online. My mother's paintings covered the walls of the house where I grew up. At a very young age, I used to engage in a dialogue with the characters in the paintings and imagined stories inspired by the scenes depicted that kept evolving with time in a sort of organic way. Delving into the imaginary world of an artwork as well as into an artist's creative process became a habit, which led me to write art-inspired poetry. I feel that brushstrokes, shapes, colours, and compositions are languages that speak to me and impulse me to transcribe them or transmute visual images into verbal images. 

I usually don't aim at depicting an artwork but rather respond to certain elements of the work that trigger an emotion or memory associations. Most of my poems are persona poems, at times addressing the artist, the characters, or imagining the relationship between the artists and their models. Sometimes verbal images coincide in synchrony with the artwork, but I feel that words should stand on their own, creating a new world. Oftentimes the verbal images provide a sequel to the scene portrayed or another version of the original, adding a new dynamic life to the artwork. As a result, after having written or read an ekphrastic poem, we can't look back at the source of inspiration in the same way because the artwork will retain traces of the verbal images projected onto it in an inter-artistic dialogue. 

Many of your poems are inspired by or connected to the work of women surrealist painters. Can you tell us more about how and why surrealism speaks to you? 

I love surrealism because of its connection with the world of dreams and the deeper realm of the subconscious. There is an inherent symbolism in surreal artists' recurrent motifs, which express emotions in an underlying visual language awaiting to be deciphered by the spectator. I feel that by observing such artworks, our memories and imagination are triggered, and involuntary memories arise from the depth of our psyche. I have always had an allegiance to the imagination and find the unusual settings or juxtapositions of surrealism a great source of inspiration. Among the surrealists whose work I admire are Remedios Varo, Leonora Carrington, Leonor Fini, Dorothea Tanning, and Juanita Guccione. I am drawn in particular to Varo's art to whom I dedicated a great number of poems. Varo was an admirer of Carl G. Jung and one can retrace in her art an alchemical and archetypal quality alongside the exploration of the unconscious through dream interpretation, all of which fascinates me. I had written poems inspired by surrealist artists, including Varo in my previous ekphrastic collection titled Under Brushstrokes (Press 53, 2015). But while this book was inspired by a variety of artists regardless of gender, styles, and periods, my latest book, Or Did You Ever See The Other Side? is for the most part inspired by women artists of diverse ethnicities and nationalities, either contemporary or surrealists. 
 
When you visit an art gallery or museum, what other artists or styles do you seek out immediately? 

I love all styles of painting. I have a great admiration for Renaissance artists and 19th-century Romantics. For a very long time, I was mostly drawn towards impressionists and surrealists but I have been gradually developing an interest in cubism and abstract art as I am learning to appreciate and understand modern art. 
 
Are there any artists or art forms you hope to write about that you haven’t yet?

I have been broadening my sources of inspiration in recent years, including aside from paintings, sculptures, musical scores, installations, wire sculptures, photographs, collages, TV shows, and movies, but I'm nonetheless open to discovering more artists and new art forms. I have folders filled with collected artworks that piqued my interest without having any predilection for the time being. I am still interested in exploring more artworks by my favourite surrealist artists such as Varo, Fini, Carrington, Tanning, and Abercombie.

You are also a visual artist. Can you share something about your art practice with us? How does your own art practice inform your poetry?

I was interested in portraiture for a while and experienced pastels then with oils and watercolours. I couldn't dedicate myself fully to art because I was teaching, and taking language and literature courses alongside writing poetry, fiction, and criticism. Over the past fifteen years, I have been learning Chinese ink brush painting on rice paper and have fallen in love with this art form despite its challenges. I have come to enjoy the empty spaces of Eastern art that evoke pauses in poetry, or what is left unsaid. I have been using the free style which requires speed and spontaneity and expresses an emotion akin to writing poetry. For the Chinese, poetry and painting are interchangeable, and I'm happy to have used these skills to paint my books' cover art. 

Oftentimes, when I have difficulty writing, painting offers me a way of meditating as over a mandala. As I paint, my desire to write returns because by recreating landscapes, figures, and animals, I get immersed in the language of brushstrokes and colours. I wrote a poem explaining my obsession with painting cranes and toyed with the idea of writing a collection of poems inspired by my paintings, a project that might materialize someday. Painting stimulates my imagination and helps me overcome the struggle with the blank page. 
 
You have a special affinity for the prose poem. What is it about this form that attracts and inspires you? 

I love the fluidity offered by the prose poem and the fact that it leads itself to a stream of consciousness, which is ideal for expressing dreams and daydreaming. Prose poems are also an apt form for writing narrative poems because they flow easily without restraints and offer a dynamic movement, especially if the poem consists of a single sentence. When a prose poem responds to a painting I feel that the poem's geometric shape evokes a canvas and its four sides work like a frame. If the poem's language is visual, using verbal images feels as though one were creating an animated version of the bi-dimensional painting. 
 
You also experiment with a range of other poetry forms. How do you know when a poem should be a pantoum or a prose poem? Do you set out to create a form and wrestle the words into that structure? Or does the muse visit certain themes or ideas in a particular form? 

I think that the poem itself dictates the form in which it will come to life. I have experimented with haikus, anaphoric poems, abecedarian, found sonnets, prose poems, haibuns, dialogue poems, pantoums, and most recently ghazals. Some poems come naturally as prose poems in one single breath and dictate the flow and rhythm of the language while others require pauses and breathing spaces. I revise a lot but when a draft lingers for a long time, sometimes months, perhaps for a lack of connectedness in the thought process, I will then try to put it in a form. The constraints of a form force me to be more selective and approach the poem from a different angle. 

Do you have a favourite poem in this collection? Is there one that was more difficult or challenging to write?

Although this is a difficult proposition, I would have to select "Or How Do You Keep Track Of All The Keys You Once Owned?" inspired by The Locked Room, an installation by the Japanese artist, Chiharu Shiota displaying thousands of keys suspended on a canopy of red yarn alongside a few doors. "Or How Do You Keep Track..." encompasses multiple life experiences and meditations around the different meanings of keys. The poem came to life after many drafts and a long gestation since I had so many memories and associations around the word "key."  I opted for the anaphoric repetition of keys at the beginning of each line, which enabled me to enumerate thoughts and images in the shape of a decreasing pyramid. This triangular shape made me also think visually of certain key' segments. 

In terms of difficulty, I think that the pantoum, "Or Can't You See How We're Weaving Ourselves Tight?" inspired by Three Women and Three Owls, a painting by the American artist Juanita Guccione was one of the most challenging pantoums on account of the many possible ways I could approach the poem. I imagined the three women dancing by the beach either as three friends with different personalities or thought they could represent three facets of the same woman seen at different stages of her life. I debated about writing the poem from the voice of an older woman reminiscing about her former selves but also imagined them as friends with different personalities. I opted to alternate the point of view between the first person, the second, the third, and the first person plural. The form of the pantoum befitted this sort of shifting voices that merged at the end into the first person plural. I felt a great sense of satisfaction when it was completed. The poem is still open to numerous interpretations but its writing involved making several decisions while being restricted by a form.

If you encountered someone in a café line who didn’t know your work, how would you describe it to them? Give us your elevator speech!

I would tell potential readers that I painted the cover art portraying a woman seen from the back, so that we can only imagine her features and expression, and I would invite them to respond to the questions raised by the book title and the poems as they take a closer look at the unseen side of reality.

I would also mention that the book offers the option of a double reading experience: to read the poems for the sake of their words and verbal images, then reread them with a renewed perspective after consulting the index referencing the visuals. 

And I would add that if any of these poems would trigger an emotion, I would be utterly satisfied. 

What are your plans for your next project?

I am in the process of compiling a couple of poetry manuscripts about my childhood and personal memories. Most of these poems were written over many years and were already published but have not found room in my other memoirs in verse. We end up playing so many roles that when we try to recover the early facets of our personality it is as though we were getting reacquainted with our old selves. 

Many of these poems are also ekphrastic poems that have triggered recollections. I regularly write ekphrastic poetry stemming from the imagination in a magic realistic vein for a future collection. In addition, I should also revise a bilingual manuscript of my own selected poems that I've translated from Spanish and English. and was relegated in a drawer for over a decade for lack of time. I also would love to dedicate more space to complete some unfinished artwork. 

​Or How Do You Keep Track Of All The Keys You Once Owned?

keys to unlock one’s buried memories
keys to the family cottage you had to sell
keys that once opened different-sized locks
keys that had to be changed after an effraction
keys that yearn for the doors they used to open
keys thrown into a deep well, still oozing blood
keys to the palaces King Farouk owned in Egypt
keys to learning how to deal with oneself and others
keys to the meaning of feelings that you kept losing
keys to the safes holding papers that ruled your lives
keys kept in a jewelry box that must have mattered once
keys, lost, forgotten or treasured as a possible come back
keys to the wrought-iron patio gate half-covered with jasmine
keys that opened the car door that led you straight to the beach
keys to dreams’ horned and ivory gates that keep getting mixed up
keys meant to reach the heart of a man before he’d change the locks
keys you hold in your palm and run your fingers over and over again
keys to an old friend’s house who once relied upon you to water her plants
keys passed on from generation to generation to reclaim the ancestral home
keys that you had to return to the hotel where you wished you’d spend a lifetime
keys to all the cars you’ve ever owned and led you through long-forgotten crossroads
keys to the office you left carrying a cardboard box filled with what seemed important
keys to the wooden-carved secretary your mother handed down to you that held no secret to her
keys to the homes you kept leaving, from country to country, from one neighbourhood to the next

Hedy Habra
​
After Chiharu Shiota, The Locked Room (2016); solo exhibition: The Locked Room KAAT Kanazawa Arts Theatre, Yokohama, Japan.

First published by MockingHeart Review.
From Or Did You Ever See The Other Side? (Press 53 2023).

​Or How Can We Ever Cut Down To The Bare Essentials?

He kept retreating from room to room, feeling the weight of all the
furniture and mementos staring at him like deceased relatives. It was
as though the house wrapped layers of time around him, confining
him inside a pod about to burst open. For a while he’d only use his
bedroom and the kitchen. He eventually retreated to the sunroom. Its
walls lined with bookshelves comforted him as he lay on the wicker
couch opposite the bay window. He soon realized he needed fewer
meals and only one change of clothes.

Feathers seemed to grow out of his bones, filling him with a desire to
embrace the movements of the wind. He tried to get rid of plants, of
his archived papers, of the photos that couldn’t find their place in the
abandoned albums. He sorted out the books he knew he’d never read
or reread. Finally, the day came when unable to break all ties, he
clung to his tabby, the photo of a woman, a purple-lipped cattleya, a
few books, anything he could hide under his strong wings, slammed
the door and left.

Hedy Habra

First published by The Bitter Oleander.
From Or Did You Ever See The Other Side? (Press 53 2023).

​St. Jude in the Common Era
 
Who knows how or where 
they might appear
at a roadside stop on the Mass Turnpike, 
lending a hand with a jack and a spare.
Or as a stranger running to a platform 
beside a train track with a sack of pastries and fruit
for three young travelers to stave off hunger
on their journey. An unknown neighbour who calls 
about the missing cat months after he reappeared, 
or even that shuffling figure I avoid on the street--
the one muttering, the one who stinks from fishing 
in the rotting lake of the dumpster.
Who am I to preach, raised by atheists and Jews, 
and yet I read Of Human Bondage and know, 
there but for grace go I, and so I now seek angels 
anywhere on the ground, though never in the sky.

Betsy Mars

Betsy Mars is a prize-winning poet, photographer, and assistant editor at Gyroscope Review. Her poetry has been published in numerous journals and anthologies. Recent poems can be found in Minyan, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Sheila-Na-Gig, and Autumn Sky Poetry Daily. Her photos have appeared online and in print, including one which served as the Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge prompt in 2019. She has two books, Alinea, and her most recent, co-written with Alan Walowitz, In the Muddle of the Night. In addition, she also frequently collaborates with San Diego artist Judith Christensen, most recently on an installation entitled Mapping Our Future Selves.

Terracotta Army

Another clear night sky,
trees stand around the field.
Strong winds beat them down,
ashes fallen on the ground.

Trees stand around the field,
statues attending an emperor.
Ashes fallen on the ground,
a devastation that we fear.

Statues attending an emperor;
everything they knew is gone,
a devastation that we fear.
Only the rocks remain.

Everything they knew is gone.
Cities returned to sand and mud.
Only the rocks remain,
and we won’t know what we’ve done.

Cities returned to sand and mud.
Strong winds beat them down,
and we won’t know what we’ve done.
Another clear night sky.

Katherine Barrett Swett

​​Katherine Barrett Swett has published poems in various journals including, The Lyric, Rattle, Mezzo Cammin, The Raintown Review, The Evergreen Review, and Measure. Her sonnets were twice finalists for the Nemerov Prize. Erica Dawson selected Swett’s collection, Voice Message, (Autumn House Press 2020) for the 2019 Donald Justice Poetry Prize. Her chapbook, Twenty-One, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2016.

Here we go again...our third annual ekphrastic marathon!!!

Join us in July for an unforgettable experience. 

It's going to be intense. And liberating. And fun. Imagine a gruelling day, grinding out draft after draft, looking at different art and not having any idea what will happen on that page.

The goal of the marathon is to complete the process, nothing more. If you participate, just to see what happens and what ideas you generate, and get something down on paper (or Word etc) then you can count the marathon a big success.

If you surprise yourself with a few gems, you can polish those up and submit them. Maybe you'll have fourteen redeemable drafts that turn into published poems or stories in a variety of journals. Maybe one of your pieces will be our winner!

Who knows what will happen.

For sure, you will discover some fascinating artworks. For sure, you break through some chains and blocks. For sure, you will come up with some story idea or lines of poetry you weren't expecting to write. For sure you will participate and connect with others, independently from wherever you are, tuning in with other ekphrastic writers to the great muse.

The editors of The Ekphrastic Review will be cheerleading you throughout the day and participants can connect inside the Facebook group. 

If this is your first one, just dive in and go for the experience. 

Our first year it was an experiment. It was so exhilarating that it is now an annual event.

Spread the word and invite everyone you know who loves to write or just wants to get creative in a new way.

Take the plunge and see what happens!

**

Join us on Sunday, July 14, 2024 for our third annual ekphrastic marathon.

This is an all -day creative writing event that we do independently, together.

Write to fourteen different prompts, poetry or flash fiction, in thirty minute drafts. There will be a wide variety of visual art prompts posted at the start of the marathon. You will choose a new one every 30 minutes and try writing a draft, just to see what you can create when pushed outside of your comfort zone.
 
We will gather in a specially created Facebook page for prompts, to chat with each other, and support each other. 
 
Time zone or date conflicts? No problem. Page will stay open afterwards. Participate when you can, before the deadline for submission. The honour system is in effect- thirty minute drafts per prompt, fourteen prompts. Participants can do the eight hour marathon in one or two sessions at another time and date within the deadline for submissions (July 31, 2024). 
 
Polish and edit your best pieces later, then submit five for possible publication on the Ekphrastic site.
 
One poem and one flash will win $100 CAD each.
 
Last year this event was a smashing success with hundreds of poems and stories written. Let's smash last year out of the park and do it even better this year!
 
Marathon: Sunday July 14, from 10 am to 6 pm EST (including breaks)
(For those who can’t make it during those times, any hours that work for you are fine. For those who can’t join us on July 14, catch up at a better time for you in one or two sessions only, as outlined above.)
 
Story and poetry deadline: July 31, 2024
Up to five works of poetry or flash fiction or a mix, works started during marathon and polished later. 500 words max, per piece. Please include a brief bio, 75 words or less
 
Participation is $20 CAD (approx. 15 USD). Thank you very much for your support of the operations, maintenance, and promotion of The Ekphrastic Review, and the prizes to winning authors.

If you are in hardship and cannot afford the entry, but you want to participate, please drop us a line at [email protected] and we'll sign you up. 
​
Selections for showcase and winning entries announced sometime in September.

​Sign up below!