Late Painters: Matisse Papier-découpé: form filtered to its essentials Henri Matisse When his hands could no longer hold a brush, Matisse turned to paper and scissors: “painting” with cold metal carving heavy gouache like a knife through butter, shearing shallow reliefs. The liberation of image from paper. And my left hand, too, betrays me, mysteriously cramping, twisting like a snail in a shell. No relief but to pry my fingers back into the shape of a normal hand. And so the dance goes on. Confined to chair or bed, Matisse’s “seconde vie” lasted fourteen years, as he learned to use white as a negative space, working paper like a sculptor cutting through stone. This is where I’d like to be working, reducing the buzzing complicated world to its pure essence, ridding myself of arabesques and complexities, summing up the dance of my life in simple forms. Barbara Crooker Barbara Crooker is the author of many books of poetry; The Book of Kells and Some Glad Morning are recent. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies, including The Bedford Introduction to Literature, Commonwealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania, The Poetry of Presence and Nasty Women: An Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse. www.barbaracrooker.com
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Step over to our Ekphrastic Writing Challenge section for the details on our new challenge prompt. Click here or on image above. Call for Throwback Thursday selections! Be a guest editor for a Throwback Thursday! Pick around 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 theekphrasticreview@gmail.com. Along with your picks, send a vintage photo of yourself, too! **
War Visions, by devorah major "there's a hole/ in the sky..." ** The Riddle, by Suzanne Richardson "...the path you walked/Vanished like a voice in a canyon..." ** I[)when you are shoulder brushing shoulder(blouse], by Lindsey Thaden Lindsay Thaden tackles art by the poet e.e.cummings ** Poetry on Pottery of Jin Eui Kim, by Colin Pink "All revolves around the still centre..." ** Enter, by Shirley Glubka "Let us stand side by side in our nighttime simplicities..." ** The Currency of His Light, by Roy Beckemeyer "To gamble away light the way Monet did..." ** Répéter Depuis le Début, by Deborah Guzzi "...gorged on stimulus, burns in golden sunlight..." ** A Parable of the Blind Leading the Blind, by Lorette C. Luzajic A little something from yours truly on what I think about censoring art. ** August, by Joseph Stanton "The eye must enter this blaze of grain..." ** Bal du Molin de la Galette, by Barbara Crooker "Here in Montmartre, on a Sunday afternoon..." Ekphrastic Sex: the Contest Our new writing contest for flash fiction and poetry is on the theme of SEX. We are absolutely thrilled to have Alexis Rhone Fancher as our guest judge!!!!! Alexis is an ekphrastic contributor and she is also well known for her sensational writing on themes of human sexuality. (Her bio follows the RULES below.) Our special Adults Only ekphrastic sex ebook has sixty artworks on various themes and interpretations of human sexuality. The ebook is $10CAD and purchase includes entry fee. Selected entries in both categories (flash and poetry) will be published in a special showcase of The Ekphrastic Review. Alexis will choose one winner in flash fiction and one in poetry. Prizes are $150CAD in each category. Please note, this contest and the artworks in the ebook may not be for everyone. Content Warning You must be over 18 to view the contents of this publication. Some people may find the artworks here to be offensive. More than likely, everyone will be offended or disturbed by some of the images. While the works shown are all paintings, drawings or sculptures, some are extremely explicit, and some were created intentionally as pornography before the camera existed. Human sexuality is complex and varied and involves a wide range of practices, bodies, and themes. It is not always healthy or kind, and everyone’s view of what is acceptable or normal differs. The purpose of curating this collection is not to simply showcase beautiful artworks with bare breasts. It is to delve deeply into both the dizzying heights and the darkest recesses of the history of art, culture, and the human psyche, on themes related to human sexuality. It is about making your writing more naked than ever before. ** RULES 1. Click on button below to purchase your ebook of sixty visual art prompts on the theme of sex. 2. Write from any or all of the artwork prompts. You may submit up to five pieces per entry. You may enter as often as you wish with up to five works per entry, but each entry must include the entry fee of $10. (In other words, if you want to send fifteen pieces, please order a total of three ebook/entries. If you send five poems, and end up writing another batch you want to submit, please remit entry fee a second time by purchasing ebook again.) 3. You may write flash fiction or poetry, or a combination, up to 1000 words each. 4. We are looking for inspired, literary works on the complexity of the subject matter. This may of course on occasion include sensitive language and frank, mature discussion. We aren't looking for smut, however, or gratuitous, porny work without nuance. Your poem or story should be a work of art, not a Penthouse letter. 5. Deadline is October 10, 2021. 6. Send your entry to theekphrasticreview@gmail.com. In subject line, put EKPHRASTIC SEX CONTEST. 7. We hate to censor your creativity and will try to accommodate experimental formatting, but be aware that flush left formats work best for the web. Complicated formats or spacing is difficult or impossible to reproduce faithfully. 8. Your work must be inspired by the prompts in the book. They can incorporate a description of the art or connect to the artwork's history or subject matter, or to the artist biography, or they can use the art as a point of departure for imagination, memory, correlation, etc. In other words, the writing can be about the art or about anything else the art triggers you to dream up. 9. The Ekphrastic Review will publish selected works in special showcases from the entries. These are the finalists. Of these selections, guest judge Alexis Rhone Fancher will choose her favourite in each category. The judge's decisions are final. 10. The winners will each receive $150. Winners will be paid by PayPal. 11. Winners will be chosen and announced by early November 2021. 12. Please include a third person biography up to 100 words. 13. Your ebook purchases and entry for special contests are invaluable in allowing us to have cash prizes and are a tremendous support to the journal. Thank you. Only cash prize contests have mandatory entry fees. General submissions and bimonthly challenge submissions remain free or voluntary fee payment for all. Thank you for your support. ** Alexis Rhone Fancher is published in Best American Poetry, Rattle, Hobart, Verse Daily, Plume, Tinderbox, Cleaver, Diode, The American Journal of Poetry, Spillway, Nashville Review, Poetry East, and elsewhere. Her published books include: How I Lost My Virginity to Michael Cohen & other heart stab poems (Sybaritic Press, 2014), State of Grace: The Joshua Elegies (2015), Enter Here, (2017), and The Dead Kid Poems, (2019), each published by KYSO Flash Press, and Junkie Wife (Moon Tide Press, 2018). EROTIC: New & Selected, New York Quarterly (2021), and Stiletto Killer, a full-length collection (in Italian) to be published in 2021 by Edizioni Ensemble, Italia. Coming up in 2022, New York Quarterly will also publish Alexis’ next book, a full-length erotic follow up to Enter Here, entitled Last Exit, and DUETS, an ekphrastic chap-book written with poet Cynthia Atkins, will be published by Harbor Editions. Her photographs are featured worldwide, including the covers of Witness, Heyday, Blink Ink, and The Pedestal Magazine. A multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, Alexis is poetry editor of Cultural Daily. www.alexisrhonefancher.com Adults Only: Ekphrastic Sex ebook
CA$10.00
Sixty curated artworks on the theme of sex, to inspire your ekphrastic writing practice. Content Warning You must be over 18 to view the contents of this publication. Some people may find the artworks here to be offensive. More than likely, everyone will be offended or disturbed by some of the images. While the works shown are all paintings, drawings or sculptures, some are extremely explicit, and some were created intentionally as pornography before the camera existed. Human sexuality is complex and varied and involves a wide range of practices, bodies, and themes. It is not always healthy or kind, and everyone’s view of what is acceptable or normal differs. The purpose of curating this collection is not to simply showcase beautiful artworks with bare breasts. It is to delve deeply into both the dizzying heights and the darkest recesses of the history of art, culture, and the human psyche, on themes related to human sexuality. It is about making your writing more naked than ever before. Architecture Captured by the sullen night the building speaks with sporadic light that leaks from offices deserted for the nonce as if devastated by blight. Empty and enclosed by lonely coffers steel and concrete towers wait for dawn and business hours. Charlie Brice Charlie Brice is the winner of the 2020 Field Guide Magazine Poetry Contest and is the author of Flashcuts Out of Chaos (2016), Mnemosyne’s Hand (2018), An Accident of Blood (2019), and The Broad Grin of Eternity (forthcoming), all from WordTech Editions. His poetry has been nominated for the Best of Net anthology and twice for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in The Atlanta Review, Chiron Review, Plainsongs, I-70 Review, The Sunlight Press, Anti-Heroin Chic, and elsewhere. Dear Friends,
Some of you have been asking after my new book. It is now available on Amazon. Click here, or on image above. Winter in June is a collection of flash fiction and prose poems, haunted by visual art and memories real and imagined. Thank you all. love, Lorette "Winter in June is an ekphrastic journey through a word gallery. In these tightly crafted poems and flashes, Lorette Luzajic, inspired by a painting, posters, and other artwork, expertly spins language and experience into a beautiful smoke. A gorgeous collection indeed." Francine Witte, author of Dressed All Wrong for This and The Way of the Wind Touching I’m always touching my face. You see this in flies. Cats, too, have a way of brushing their heads with the crook of a licked front paw. My beard is for touching, pulling, scratching. I rest my chin or forehead in my hand in a dreamy or thoughtful pose, like Keats in the portrait by Joseph Severn, or the one by William Hilton, after death. The eyes see without seeing, the head dreams or reminisces, always somewhere else, but the hands are here, doing their caring and exploring, checking in, assisting, alert in ways the mind can never be, on call, prepared and waiting, practicing. Joseph Chaney Joseph Chaney is the director of Wolfson Press at Indiana University South Bend. He teaches literature and writing. His poems have appeared in The Nation, Prairie Schooner, Yankee, Crazyhorse, Dogwood, and other print journals. Online, his work can be found in Off the Coast, South Florida Poetry Journal, The Apple Valley Review, The Cresset, and the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics. The Eyes of Valentine Eyes are generally wise. Lived eons flying on ancient prayers. Lived with you. In you. With me. In me. And outside like old sages. Their knotted pignut hickory walking sticks snoring on their side, knowing more than sages do. The curve, the slant, the paint brushes the eyes hold. The shivers that smolder in cold winter icy winds. The red air that quivers like in loos* of deep summer India. Or could be anywhere. Clasping of hands. The hands of the eyes that feel. Feel the stance. The slight bent at the corner of the eye’s hips. The pimples are bursting carbonations of purple. The purple turns into my hair dancing wild with sea horses on the beach. Goldfishes lay in pink heart shapes singing and fins play on piano keys hanging from the fishes’ backs, the hooks stainless steel polished. The sky is cool, not bothered. I am bothered when my eyes look into yours and you turn your head away. I can hear the sky cringing as your head walks away on two empty legs. But I fly out to the ocean calm, collected and in a plethora of blues, greys and satin peach hues. The sky joins me, with a hunched back full of secrets of humans. Anita Nahal *hot winds Anita Nahal, Ph.D., CDP is a poet, professor, short story writer, flash fictionist, and children’s writer. She teaches at the University of the District of Columbia, Washington D.C. Besides academic publications, her creative books include, two volumes of poetry, a collection of flash fictions, four children’s books and three edited anthologies. Her third book of poetry is scheduled for release in December 2021 by Kelsay Books. Her poems and stories can be found in national and international journals in the US, Uk, Asia and Australia. Nahal’s poems are also housed at Stanford University’s Digital Humanities initiative, and she is also a columnist and guest contributing editor for New York based Aaduna. Two books of Nahal's are prescribed on university syllabus at the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands. Nahal is the daughter of Indian novelist and professor, Late Dr. Chaman Nahal, and educationist mother, Late Dr. Sudarshna Nahal. Originally from New Delhi, India, Anita Nahal resides in the US. Her family include her son, daughter-in-law and their golden doodle. For more on Anita: https://anitanahal.wixsite.com/anitanahal Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, Pieter Bruegel the Elder How small he flails, in the corner, away from eyes of farmer and horse, who plow even lines into steep land, preparing seeds to grow. Away from sailors and falcons, only to be tended, perhaps, by the faceless fisherman, red scarf-wrapped, crouched by the shore, reaching with his pole. Auden and Williams sung of ships and sun, of wings and wax burned and drowned, and of a world drunk on apathy. But I see the pain unspoken, the haunting yet to come. Did Daedalus, his father, absent from this scene, cry as his only son fell? Did he, still soaring, beg the help of those nearby? Did he plummet, pulled by grief and gravity, into a cliff or into the waters? And how does the young shepherd, faced upturned to the place where Icarus once flew like a god, like a dream, how does he, how do we, how do I ever shake free the image of a man in flames leaping from a tower, then falling, falling, falling? Heather Bourbeau Heather Bourbeau’s fiction and poetry have been published in 100 Word Story, Alaska Quarterly Review, Cleaver, Francis Ford Coppola Winery, and The Stockholm Review of Literature. She is the winner of La Piccioletta Barca’s inaugural competition and the Chapman University Flash Fiction winner, and has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her work has been featured in several anthologies, including America, We Call Your Name: Poems of Resistance and Resilience and Respect: Poems About Detroit Music (Michigan State University Press). She is finishing her latest collection, Monarch, a poetic memoir of overlooked histories from her American West (CA, NV, OR, and WA). Pandora The ornate gold box perches on a rock. You kneel before it, hand just lifting the lid, chin lifted to peer into the slit that hints of sparkling things. Who could resist opening such a gift? Dark trunks of branchless trees, boulders, a dusky stream with a lace-splashed waterfall surround you. The hem of your delicate gown of ebony and mahogany, is stitched in gold—Athena taught you weaving skills, one of your gifts from all the gods. The only glow in these dark woods comes from the carved chest and your pale skin-- Epimetheus made you of finest clay, the kind that yields porcelain. You could not know how costly the contents, retribution for Prometheus’ forbidden gift of fire to humans, all evils and plagues, war, toil. I recognize the look on your upturned face, Pandora, the moment just before the world-altering mist escaped and sent you reeling in shock, until you closed the lid trapping that one thing inside. Anticipating good, sometimes we are crushed, perplexed by outcomes we caused or were innocent of, called on to assemble our own gifts--courage, patience, reason, and often self-forgiveness. After all this, your daughter would survive the coming flood and renew the drowned world by casting stones on the earth, generations who must face those horrors and misfortunes, must fold them in among the ordinary hours, the joys. Karen McAferty Morris Karen McAferty Morris loves poetry for its ability to lift both the heart and mind to discoveries, connections and, ultimately, comfort. She is Poetry Editor of the National League of American Pen Women’s magazine The Pen Woman. Her chapbook “Elemental” was published in April 2018, followed by “Confluence” in May 2020. Morris' poetry, written in both free verse and forms, has been recognized for its "appeal to the senses, the intellect and the imagination." She lives in the Florida panhandle. |
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