 Three Musicians, by Pablo Picasso (Spain) 1921 Blue Music The picture the three musicians make in performing on stage long has engaged us. We like to point out Pierrot fingering his clarinet, Harlequin strumming his guitar, the monk clasping his music sheet. They look attuned to us, their audience, their eyes eager to read our faces. The three make a musical trio if we ever saw one. But lately, we've had some doubts about them. Some of us wonder about the monk being there as he doesn't perform any instrument. He may have sung at some time, but the long fabric masking his mouth seems it would give him trouble doing that now. As for Harlequin, our friends point out his guitar lacks a neck with strings; really, he just fingers two brown and black sticks. Sticks! And then Pierrot hasn't an arm for his left hand playing the clarinet. His hands are too small as are Harlequin's and the monk's. When we consider these shortcomings in the men, we have wondered if the musicians aren't playing us for a ruse. It appears they could be putting on the show of performing music rather than actually performing any. Then, one of us points out the blue colour painted on the three. An unbroken swath of the hue masks Harlequin's eyes and streams across Pierrot's left side. We ask if the musicians really could be bound in blue, as the picture makes it appear, and realize that is exactly the case. The three men are performing a piece of music for us together. We hear one performance, after all, not several. The idea of the three in union, suddenly intuitive to us, opens our minds to possibilities about the musicians. The blue could mark the space their music occupies in being performed, we think. Harlequin gives it his cunning eyes, Pierrot, his busy arm and broad torso. Pierrot's cheeks show the colour, blowing into his woodwind. Harlequin jags his elbow, fingering the guitar, and blue surrounds it in plucked melodies. We turn to the monk. The blue colour makes the natural heart of notes and bars on his music sheet. We realize he is holding up the score his companions follow. One of us says they seem to appreciate him for it. We note that the great form of blue sends down an appendage, a leg, on either side of the group. One hangs coyly off the table end on the monk's robe, as if to embrace him there. The other sits under Pierrot's shoe, right by his dog's paw. When Pierrot taps his foot to the music, the blue moves his in sync. The colour has a friendly, social aspect, we admit. The blue spreads over much of the painting, our group notes. We step back to take it all in and discover the colour has a sort of figure. Our interpretation widens. We say the blue is the picture's fourth person, made by the three presenting their music. It is the music itself. We recognize its ephemeral form that embraces all three of its creators as their product. The blue music cannot live without their effort, being at bottom a projection of them, not unlike how the dark shadow in the corner projects Pierrot's dog. But the three musicians have given the music an essence other than the ones they have as separate men; they have allowed that essence to gain cogency and definition--like themselves, complete with colour, borders, a shape. Our group of art lovers agrees then that, while starting with the fragments of themselves, the three musicians have produced music of a greater dimension than any of them have alone. Norbert Kovacs Norbert Kovacs lives and writes in Hartford, Connecticut. He loves visiting art museums, especially the Met in New York. He has published stories recently in The Ekphrastic Review and Timada's Diary. His website: http://www.norbertkovacs.net.
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 The Village of the Mermaids, by Paul Delvaux (Belgium) 1942 Vanishing Point The women are constant. They are consonants. They teach their daughters Posture. Sit at attention In doorsteps. Guard. They good morning a man Who follows the path down To his vanishing point. The women’s eyes are vowels Wide as the shore But stare straight ahead While the man strolls down To where water lips mermaids Back to what softness Shapes mountains. Riv Wren Riv Wren is Canadian musician and poet who lives in Cincinnati, Ohio. His family shares a home with three chickens and a puppy who fears them. He received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and his work appears in Lamination Colony and the Fiction At Work anthology.  Florencia. Palazzo Vecchio. Sala de Cosme el Viejo, frescos de Giorgio Vasari. photo by Miguel Hermoso Cuesta, CC BY-SA 4.0 'Scuse Me While I Retouch the Sky Purple haze, all in my brain Lately things they don't seem the same Actin' funny, but I don't know why "Scuse me while I kiss the sky Jimi Hendrix, "Purple Haze" The first time I went to meet the fresco restoration team in Florence, I looked up at the scaffolding covering the ceiling in the Mayor’s office in Palazzo Vecchio where Vasari’s frescos were being restored. I was studying to be certified as an art restorer, so meeting the team on site to take notes felt like a pivotal moment to push me seriously into writing my thesis on fresco and mural restoration. Giovanni Cabras, the head of the project, looked down from the scaffold’s opening and said, "Come on up if the ladder doesn't scare you”, then disappeared back into the lighted space. I carefully climbed up the wooden ladder and once I got to the top and put my head through the opening — that’s when it hit me. I felt I had entered a sort of secular paradise, where I had glided into an intense light surrounded by enormous figures in gold cornices, gaping at me in strange angles and altered perspectives. I had only seen real frescoes from down below, or images in art books, but from up there, high up in those painted skies, I held a oneness with the artist’s perspective and his creation. My innards gnawed and twisted, pushed my emotions to the base of my throat. With all the energy I could muster, I suppressed a horrible urge to cry and tried to focus on the presence of mortals in white lab jackets. I survived the transition as we walked around the scaffolding while Cabras generously pointed out pieces of fallen paint, cracked cornices, and faded colours. The surface of what had twisted my head a moment ago became a fragile coloured wall that needed care, Cabras being the doctor presenting me to his patients. He introduced me to the older restorers, Amedeo and Angiolino, who seemed to get a kick out of me wanting to know more about their life-time work. I became aware of the efforts I made to keep my feet planted on the noisy wooden planks and strained to view the lights up there as special neons, not as the celestial glow coming from the Vasari figures. When Giovanni finished giving me his tour, I realized the restorers were putting things away and getting ready to leave. As I slowly went down the ladder, I looked back up at the Vasari panels with an overwhelming desire to return; it was an intense yearning inspired by a special kind of love-at-first-sight, as if I had arrived at a destination that had been waiting for me all along. I asked Cabras if I could return to observe their work and take notes, and he graciously said he wouldn’t mind, especially if it meant helping a student with her studies. When I climbed back up the scaffolding the next day, Cabras and the other restorers greeted me with a friendly “Ciao Bella”. I sat down on the planks and began taking notes, asking them what they were doing as they proudly explained their techniques, sometimes arguing with one another as to who knew more, sometimes speaking up for Vasari himself, as if the 16th century artist was up there telling them what he may have preferred. I began feeling more and more at eaze going to Palazzo Vecchio, filling my notebook with their discussions and giving their job the credit they deserved working on Renaissance art. They had gotten used to my presence and I realized I had put a little perk into their monotonous work routine as days became weeks, and weeks became months. I loved chatting with them casually, observing how they could turn their life's work into playful moments with Florentine humor while expertly restoring ancient art. One afternoon, I was sitting next to Giovanni writing in my little hardcover notebook, my legs dangling off the scaffolding with golden putti in front of me. My notebook had accompanied me since my first day up on the scaffolding where I had tenaciously captured every recipe, every theory, every controversy and technique that I could possibly gather during my time as an observer. It was important not to trust my memory or let any of it slip away, all the while considering I would use my notes for the thesis I was working on. Between that morning's jokes and conversation, I was writing about stucco and the solvents they used to clean the gold gilding over the garlands of fruit, flowers, and putti, when suddenly Cabras stood next to me, his hands on his hips. "Are you going to write the whole damn time you're up here?” Giovanni said abruptly, startling me from my writing. “What are you going to do, go home and say you were with us 'observing'. Go get your palette ready, you know how to do it, you've watched us enough... " I looked at him in amazement as he kept saying, "Come on...hurry up...go get it and don't waste any more time — put down that pen, I'm sick of seeing you write — what in the world have you got to write about anyway? You can't learn to be a restorer with a pen! Jesus." I thought I felt the scaffolding shake. I went to prepare a palette with the casein colours, carefully using only a dab of each colour like I had seen the others do so many times before, starting with the lighter pigments, the earth tones, and ending in the thick slate black. Giovanni told me to follow him, he would show me the in-painting technique on a piece of the sky he had been working on but hadn’t finished. It was unevenly speckled with dark patches of oxidized intonaco under the light blue. He briefly showed me how to lighten them, using pointillism and the layering technique I had watched him do on Vasari’s Knight of the Bande Nere. He then handed me his paintbrush and made a gesture to go ahead. Do it. He watched me intently from behind. That second in time seemed infinite between the point of my brush and the moment I touched the sky on Vasari’s fresco. In that instant I was feeling an intense transition, a pull from my mortal being towards the magnetism of an immortal image, as if I was sucked into a timeless sphere. My whole life flashed in front of me and every intention of everything I had ever done until that point turned simple and purposeful and all became clear with no need to look back or forward or think of anything in particular except absorbing the moment in its fleeting entirety. My heart beat like a crazy drummer and I had to get a grip of my emotions. Think technique. Think brush. Palette. Colour. I could feel the sweat in the palm of my hands, the throbbing in my forehead, the intensity of Giovanni's stare on my fingers, the weight of my body on my feet holding everything steady trying not to sway at my light-headedness. I focused on the pigments, the tones, the movement of my brush and connected them to all the exercises I had done at the Institute, my past experiences, my time observing and writing and focusing in on my eye for color. Giovanni said a brief, “Ok, you got it” and left my side as I continued mending the remaining spots on the sky. I continued going to Palazzo Vecchio, working on the Vasari project for hours, days, weeks and months until I passed all my exams, handed in my thesis at the institute, and got my certification to work on state-owned works of art. At that point Cabras hired me to be part of the Pitti fresco team where I became one of the few fortunate ones to restore some of Tuscany’s greatest works of art. It was then that my tiny bonds with Italy began to enlarge and penetrate deeper into the soil of my family’s roots. My life in Florence galloped at a human pace where every step of the way seemed to tell me to stay, to live a life completely different than anything I could ever have imagined when I left the Midwest to study restoration. So many events happened since then, but one thing is certain: my life changed when my tiny brush kissed the sky. Lily Prigioniero This story was originally published on the author's Substack, where you may find other articles of interest: https://lilyprigioniero.substack.com/p/scuse-me-while-i-retouch-the-sky Lily Prigioniero moved to Florence, Italy, to be certified to work as an art conservator on historical masterpieces. Her novel, La Cena del Tacchino, won two literary awards and her poems appear in various literary magazines. Her paintings appear in TER and Rattle for their Ekphrastic Challenge where she was also a judge. She has taught writing in Florence for study abroad programs (NYU, Syracuse, Brandeis) and art conservation/fresco technique at the FUA. Her poem in the Polaris Trilogy is scheduled for a flight to the Moon. She lives with her family in the hills of Montespertoli. Editor's note: Lily was our artist and guest judge for a challenge. Read the responses and view her painting, here: https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-challenges/ekphrastic-challenge-responses-lily-prigioniero Untitled #18 This poem was written after Untitled #18, by Howardena Pindell (USA) 1977: https://rosecollection.brandeis.edu/objects-1/info/11152?sort=0 How tempting it must have been, painting thumbtack after thumbtack white, sticking bit after bit of white paper on the canvas, and smearing the few blank spaces that remained with thick white paint, to let loose with a sudden wild brushstroke of blue cutting in a lusty swoosh across one corner of the canvas, or to spill a pot of carmine red violently in the middle and rub in some yellow and phosphorescent green and splash it around like the visual representation of a scream, but that would have been untrue to the way life is for most of us most of the time: a great whiteness, stretching like a fog of sameness and numbness from yesterday to tomorrow, in which if you look with the eyes of a ruthless owl or a prehistoric gatherer you will see, every so often, here and there a small faint smudge of pink, a limp scratch of green, blearing reluctantly through the fog, which you must learn to fasten upon and celebrate, to catch and devour, if you wish not to pass your days in a blur of hunger. V.J. Saraf V. J. Saraf lives in Cambridge, Mass., with his wife and young daughter. By day he works as an executive at a software firm in the financial services space; by night, he is a tucker of blankets, a reader of picture books, and an occasional poet. His first book of poetry, For Once Then Nothing, was published by Kelsay Press in 2021, and his previous journal publications include a sonnet based on John Singer Sargent's Helen Sears in The Ekphrastic Review. When not working, tucking, or writing, he sometimes sails in Boston Harbor or takes in a baseball game at Fenway Park. Read another Saraf poem here: https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-review/helen-sears-by-v-j-saraf  Automat, by Edward Hopper (USA) 1927 The View from Here I haven’t seen Damion today, or yesterday, or last week, and I’m worried. I’ve been sitting here as long as I can recall, at the same blue table, sipping the same cup of coffee. My mind races with concerns, and I ache to see him again. I met him three years ago, when I arrived to live here with him. He settled me into a delightful spot facing the garden. I’ve spent hours watching the light travel across leaves and flowers, creating a kaleidoscope of colours before it reaches towards me across the floor, slides up the wall, and then skips across my face. The light warms me, even if only briefly before the dark comes. I peer into the coffee cup before me, realizing I neglected to take the black satin glove off one of my hands again, a habit I was born with. I’m unsure why I do it. My memory and my existence is limited, yet punctuated by the men in my life. I recall living with two men before Damion. The most recent wasn’t kind, only looking my way when a guest would remark on my beauty or how sad I looked. I didn’t stay with him for long; he didn’t seem to have as much of a need for me as he did money. I was worth more to someone else. Before that was the first man in my life - Edward. I rested in the middle of his studio, a place that, according to him, had the ideal amount of light. I didn’t exist before Edward. Some might call him my father, but that is not the best word to characterize him. Father assumes there is a mother and I don’t have one of those. He created me from a memory of his first love and made me in her image. He beamed at me as I was being born. I had to look perfect, he told me. Edward often spoke to me, much like the new man in my life. He told me how he was feeling, what he was thinking. He asked me questions, and I longed to answer. My affection for Edward was one of respect and gratitude. He created the form and stability I needed to exist. But how I love my Damion is special; he is my soulmate. When he is here, he talks to me as if he sees me. Even though I can never reply, he gives me time to consider my response. His glances are full of adoration, and my pulse quickens whenever he enters the room. He ensures I am in excellent shape and have a pleasant view, that I am surrounded by fine things to keep me company when he is away. The apartment is lonely and cold. The only person I see now is the woman who cleans each week, but she avoids looking at me. She concentrates on her job, pushing and pulling a noisy contraption across the floor. She annoys me by thrusting feathers in my face while telling me she doesn’t understand why Damion likes me so much, that I’m not special. Maybe she is right, maybe I’m not unique. He has probably forgotten about me, left me here as he moves on with his life somewhere else, with someone else. A man removes me from my place. His plump, cracked fingers wrap me in brown paper. I tremble in the blackness that envelops me. The light no longer dances across my face. I am forgetting the sound of Damion’s voice and the way he looked at me. Without him, I’m fading. I’m still alone, still sitting at this table, still staring at my image reflected on the surface of my coffee. I’m stuck here, waiting for him to see me again. Melanie Maggard Melanie Maggard is a flash and poetic prose writer who loves dribbles and drabbles. She has published in Cotton Xenomorph, The Dribble Drabble Review, X-R-A-Y Magazine, Five Minute Lit, and others. She can be found online at www.melaniemaggard.com and @WriterMMaggard.  The Shelton with Sunspots, by Georgia O’Keeffe (USA) 1926 Coping with Awe "You wouldn't always see it that way, but I just happened to see it with a bite out of it." Georgia O'Keeffe, New York City, 1926 There are moments in the city when buildings part to let the light come through. This can happen, say, on a winter’s afternoon, just before sunset, when the light slants eastward from the river, and blazes in the glass and steel. I can mistake my own direction, forget where the Shelton Building is, find myself at the Flatiron instead. I watch the narrow widen, the low arc of brilliance rising a corona that anyone who dares can wear, sunspots rising like living orbs. And then? I hear the men talk of writing the great American novel, painting the great American painting, but they don't see what I see. They only use their eyes. What about ten thousand eyes staring into ten thousand suns, each one biting away blackness and steel, blackness and steel and glass the master work of all proud masters, obliterated. That is my awe. No other way but to paint it, then, nothing left to do but leave them to their squabbles. The language of the world is not the same as the language of the heart. I will never stop trying to translate it. I will follow the light. Bonnie Proudfoot Note: The italicized sections are quotes from interviews with the artist. This poem was previously published in Sheila-Na-Gig online. Bonnie Proudfoot is a poet, fiction writer, essayist, and reviewer whose work has appeared in many online journals and anthologies. Her novel, Goshen Road (OU / Swallow Press), was Longlisted for the PEN/ Hemingway and received the WCONA Book of the Year Award. Her recent book of poems, Household Gods, can be found on Sheila-Na-Gig Editions. Her interest in art emerges from a family connection as her Great Aunt Annette Nancarrow was a surrealist painter who lived and painted in Mexico for decades. Proudfoot is also a practicing glass artist. Her writing and artwork can be found at https://bonnieproudfootblog.wordpress.com/  Nine Lives: an Ekphrastic Marathon
Try something intense and unusual- an ekphrastic marathon, celebrating nine years of The Ekphrastic Review. Join us on Sunday, July 14, 2024 for our third annual ekphrastic marathon. This is an all -ay creative writing event that we do independently, together. Take the plunge and see what happens! 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!  Dreamcycle, photography by Darrell Staggs (USA) 2016 My Sky Blue Bike an ekphrastic etheree I wanted that bike more than anything: ice cream, a puppy. Riding with sun shining. Everyone watching me. ME. On that bike. It arrived on a Tuesday. I still remember that day. The most beautiful thing I ever saw. Same blue as the sky, tires like the clouds. I rode until far into night. Mom made me stop for dinner. Nothing ever surpassed memories of it. It still shimmers in my mind. My blue bike. Marilyn Wolf Marilyn Wolf lives in Indiana, is a member of several writing groups. In Celebration of the Death of Faeries, is her first book. Her work has been published in anthologies and INverse and displayed in physical and online galleries. She is a member of local, state, and national poetry organizations, currently an editor with The Howling Owl and a reader for Of Rust and Glass. She is a past 1st VP of the Poetry Society of Indiana and current Director for Indiana Writers Center. A Pushcart Prize nominee. https://wolfen25.net/ ** Bicycle Dreams Simple times ruled in days gone by, when youngsters with bicycles rode dreams of adventures. Racing on driveways and sidewalks, kids were free and dreamed of flying, kicking up air, and cruising down hills. Double-dog dares—Look, Ma, no hands! The thrill of handle-bar rides and hanging on from behind, soaring through parks and playgrounds, legs cranked on single-speed. Not a care in their naive corner of the world, when wars dragged on with countless lives lost in faraway lands. Parents struggled, shielding their children from life’s cruel lessons. But life on a bike distanced troubles with wheels spinning and tire rods roaring. A clothes-pinned Joe DiMaggio or Yogi Berra slapped against spokes, mimicking motorcycles. Dreams launched fearless escapades with homemade Evil Knievel ramps, hurling kids through the air to master skid-marked landings. Rain puddles were no match for the heat of spinning rubber that shot geysers from the wheel, and tattooed legs with mud and grit. Life was simple then for a kid with a bicycle, and dreams were made for wheelies. Karen Zimmerman Karen Zimmerman, a Midwesterner at heart, is a published poet and writer. Her works appear in poetry journals, anthologies, Chicken Soup for the Soul, and numerous publications. She is the director and editor for Central Indiana Writers’ Association, and proofreads for the national magazine The Pen Woman. A member of Poetry Society of Indiana and other writing groups, she writes for a Parkinson’s newsletter, and offers copywriting and editing services. Karen loves nature, is an outdoor enthusiast, dabbles in photography, arts and crafts, and adores her doggies, family, and friends. She attempts a website at www.writtenperception.com. ** Broken Dreams As I finish the last of the dishes that December evening I look through the sink window. I see a light in the barn. I expect it is Bill bidding Duchess farewell. At the bus he makes me promise to take good care of her. He loves that horse. In my letters to his ship in the South Pacific I write of her trotting along the fence line standing in the spring breeze of the orchard galloping to the swimming hole. I think she looks for him. I think she remembers. After Bill was gone and Pa faded away with his loss I had to rent the farmland sell the cow and the car. Duchess moved to someone else’s pasture. I see her walking the fence line as I bike into town. I wave halloo. I bring her carrots from the garden and apples until she is no longer there. I bike the empty fence line thinking of Bill riding along the field rows stopping by the orchard head turned into the wind wasting the day at the swimming hole. After the war after I return the job I love to a man who came home again before I give up the farmhouse forever I pedal down the fence line to the swimming hole. I think I can hear Bill yell as he swings over the water his splash breaking apart the smooth surface like the rippled regret of broken dreams. Nancy Simmonds Nancy Simmonds writes letters, postcards, and poems from northeastern IN. A member of the Poetry Society of Indiana and of NIPoets, as well as a longtime member of a university book group, when a pen isn’t in her hand or her head in a book, Nancy designs and sews scrap quilts and designs paper collage art, plans travel adventures, and runs in local Fort Wayne Running Club events as well as in virtual races for bling and bragging rights.  Vintage postcard of unknown origin. I Don’t Know Where I’m Going But I’m On My Way—After a Postcard An Invocation On cat’s feet, not quite little, I traverse the blank page… Within my bag, Red, red, red: A book or two, Papers, thread. Form--an umbrella-- Closed at my side, Tucked beneath my arm. Hungry for phrases. Hungry for words. I eat birds, I eat birds. Skylark, Raven, Thrush. Behold: I am Nightingale’s turned claws, Serpent eyes to watch in gold. Tessa C. Berman Tessa C. Berman is a current undergraduate student at the University of Virginia, where she studies as an Echols Scholar and an Ideal Scholar. She concentrates on English Literature alongside Psychology with a focus on Neuroscience and is working toward completing a thesis on bird symbolism in poetry from the Romantic period forward. As a Wolfe Docent Fellow, she is currently curating an upcoming special collections exhibit on the work of poet and civil rights activist, Anne Spencer.  Still Life with Cherries and Peaches, by Paul Cézanne (France) 1885-87 Cherries and Peaches Cézanne developed a completely new way of depicting objects in space. He reinvented still lifes on the basis of their two-dimensionality, and used purely artistic means to give them depth. - Ulrike Becks-Malorny View the cherries like a lover waking her lover’s body / this bowl of peaches now in profile from the wrong side of the bed / the table: part here, part there, no worries. On the canvas self-taught, all is as it should be, all is as its painted in my heart. Did I say heart? Kitsch. But left to your imagination is the heart’s depiction. It's been placed in your-- are they capable?—hands. Laurin Becker Macios Laurin Becker Macios is the author of Somewhere to Go, winner of the 19th annual poetry award from Elixir Press, and I Almost Was Animal, winner of the 2018 Writer’s Relief WaterSedge Poetry Chapbook Contest. Her work has appeared in [PANK], The Pinch, and elsewhere, and is forthcoming in -ette review and Ibbetson Street. Her YA verse novel will be published in 2026. The former Executive Director of Mass Poetry, she earned her MFA from the University of New Hampshire, where she taught on fellowship. More at laurinbeckermacios.com. |
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