 Watermill at Ondenv, by Katsushika Hokusai (Japan) 1830. Watermill at Ondenv The wheel rotates water into a slide. Women take buckets away while other women are bringing empty buckets. The wheel brings water regardless if anyone takes any water away. Men carry sacks of wheat to be ground into smaller grain. The wheel rolls over the grain in another circle, churned by the water. As the water turns, so does the wheel. The wheel crushes the wheat into almost dust. The wheel never stops. The number of men carrying bags never stops. The water never stops. The sun follows the moon on a bridge as it crosses over the sky. This world has motions this repetitive. This is useless pursuit. Not even Mount Fuji can explain why. I am dizzy watching this turning activity. Is it possible for a day to avoid following another day by skipping the endless cycle of days? My paintbrush makes small, tight circles: Light and Dark walk on the same circular path around Mount Fuji, wearing it down. This world is a grain carried in a sack, then ground into fine laughter. Martin Willitts, Jr Martin Willitts Jr has 24 chapbooks including the winner of the Turtle Island Quarterly Editor’s Choice Award, The Wire Fence Holding Back the World (Flowstone Press, 2017), plus 16 full-length collections including The Uncertain Lover, Coming Home Celebration. Forthcoming books include Harvest Time (Deerbrook Press) and the Blue Light Award winner The Temporary World. He is an editor for Comstock Review.
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 Gold Mining, Cripple Creek, by Ernest Lawson (USA) 1929. gold mining in 1929 broad landscape of frosted purplish mountains the fresh purity of a clear blue sky perfectly dotted with feathery clouds painted as a child might imagine them summits stretch skyward in vain pursuit houses painted scarlet and sapphire boldly refuse to blend into the earth the habitat of fresh aspirations hopes unrestricted by harrowing truths peacefully unaware of disaster emerald trees cascade down the mountainside flecks of disparate colours coalesce into blended streaks of reality everything made up of differences harder to discern the closer you look a portrait of simple intricacies like the backdrop of a distant memory or the vignette of a forgotten life a daydream drenched in natural brilliance imagination in technicolour from nature’s evocative majesty inspiration suddenly emerges in reveries fueled by desperation like a history of untold stories unrelenting once they are truly free searching for magic glistening metal rumored to solve the problems life presents in a frantic effort to steal from the earth they never truly stop to wonder what if we’re looking for something else? Stephanie Gemmell Stephanie Gemmell is an undergraduate at George Washington University studying Religion, Journalism, and Creative Writing. Her poetry has appeared in Wooden Teeth, and she has been a correspondent and editor for The Rival GW. She currently leads a campus service organization and serves as chaplain for a gender-inclusive fraternity. She is also a flutist and composer, and her work is motivated by the unique power of art to ask questions and inspire unity.  Night Windows, by Edward Hopper (USA) 1928. Night Windows Imagine the scene inside this New York apartment through the three windows, one open to the midnight air, a translucent blue curtain billowing in the cold breeze, two closed to the sound of the desperate corner traffic below where a young woman attends to her private affairs, her toilet, her telephone conversation with her estranged husband, her "unexamined life," played out in partial view of the artist/voyeur scrutinising the night windows, three floors up. Imagine again our heroine (for all women who live alone in the city of dreams/the city that never sleeps are de facto heroines) bending over in her pink/mauve dress, revealing her formidable backside, to read the weekly best-seller lists in the NY Times, where Winnie-the-Pooh, still sits at No. 1, a sad reminder of her lost childhood, far away from the latter day metropolis with its all night diners, movie houses, and automats, that eat at her soul, her solitude, her unassuming laughter, like a cancer. No doubt, she will do a great many strange things again and again, like reading The Great Gatsby, aloud to her unborn child, dancing the Charleston, the Peabody, the Turkey Trot, without any partner to swing with, dine with, dream with, share in her triumphs and tragedies, in her stifling room in the city of strangers, strange loves, strange art, strange affairs, but she will never sit, stand, or otherwise pose for Edward Hopper again, even if she lives to be a hundred, aware or unaware of her lasting impression. Mark A. Murphy Mark A. Murphy was born in 1969 in the UK. His poetry publications include Tin Cat Alley (1996), Our Little Bit of Immortality (2011), Night-watch Man & Muse (2013) and his next full length collection, Night Wanderer’s Plea is pending from Waterloo Press, UK. His latest collection, To Nora, A Singer of Sad Songs is to be published this year by Clare Songbirds Publishing House in America. He is currently looking for a publisher for his collection of epigrams, Little Known Aphorisms and he is now also working on a full length collection of ekphrastic poems, Word Painting. His poems have been published in 18 countries in over 200 journals in print and online.  Beyond the Storm, by Dale Patterson (USA) 2019. Click image for artist site. Ekphrastic Writing Challenge: Dale Patterson Join us for biweekly ekphrastic writing challenges. See why so many writers are hooked on ekphrastic! We feature some of the most accomplished influential poets writing today, and we also welcome emerging or first time writers and those who simply want to experience art in a deeper way or try something creative. The prompt this time is Beyond the Storm, by Dale Patterson. Deadline is October 4, 2019. We welcome Jordan Trethewey for his second round as guest editor for our ekphrastic challenges. Guest editor's note: Dale is a wonderful mixed-media master I recently met online at Open Arts Forum (where I edit and curate). Not long ago he posted Beyond the Storm, which knocked me flat and sideways. Not only is it a stunning visual, the image and title combined screamed, "Write about me!" If this is before the storm...whew! Fish are flying, birds are in hysterics and the seaside row houses are jitterbugging with all the lights on! What comes next? What just happened to get things to this state? As the saying goes, the image is the start. The rest is up to you. Have fun! ** Jordan Trethewey is a writer and editor living in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. Some of his work found a home here, and in other online and print publications such as Burning House Press, Visual Verse, CarpeArte Journal, Califragile, and is forthcoming in The Blue Nib and Fishbowl Press. His poetry has also been translated in Vietnamese and Farsi. Jordan is an editor at https://openartsforum.com. To see more of his work go to: https://jordantretheweywriter.wordpress.com. ** Dale Patterson is an Indiana based artist and poet. His works have appeared in numerous online and print publications. Prior to retiring in 2011 Dale was a high school art teacher. You can learn more about Dale at dalepattersonart.com The Rules 1. Use this visual art prompt as a springboard for your writing. It can be a poem or short prose (fiction or nonfiction.) You can research the artwork or artist and use your discoveries to fuel your writing, or you can let the image alone provoke your imagination. 2. Write as many poems and stories as you like. Send only your best works or final draft, not everything. Please copy and paste your submission into the body of the email, even if you include an attachment such as Word or PDF. 3. Have fun. 4. USE THIS EMAIL ONLY. Send your work to ekphrasticchallenge@gmail.com. Challenge submissions sent to the other inboxes will most likely be lost as those are read in chronological order of receipt, weeks or longer behind, and are not seen at all by guest editors. They will be discarded. Sorry. 5.Include DALE PATTERSON WRITING CHALLENGE in the subject line please. 6. Include your name and a brief bio. If you do not include your bio, it will not be included with your work, if accepted. Even if you have already written for The Ekphrastic Review or submitted other works and your bio is "on file" you must include it in your challenge submission. Do not send it after acceptance or later; it will not be added to your poem. Guest editors may not be familiar with your bio or have access to archives. We are sorry about these technicalities, but have found that following up, requesting, adding, and changing later takes too much time and is very confusing. 7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 8. Deadline is midnight, October 4, 2019. 9. Please do not send revisions, corrections, or changes to your poetry or your biography after the fact. If it's not ready yet, hang on to it until it is. 10. Selected submissions will be published together, with the prompt, one week after the deadline. 11. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges!  Young Man Writing, by Jean-Louis Ernest Meissonier (France) 1852. Help us build our bookshelves with ekphrastic book listings and other books by our contributors. By purchasing a bookshelf space, you get a great value and you do a tremendous service to The Ekphrastic Review. Only $25 dollars for a year. Why not buy a listing for the writer in your life? It's a great way to show support and share their work with people who love to read. Click here for easy book list checkout. If you would like to support this journal without purchasing a mutually beneficial book listing, we appreciate gifts large and small. Click here to show some love with our easy gift page. A BIG THANK YOU to those who have purchased book listings or sent a gift. Your help is truly appreciated and we are very grateful.  Photograph of Georgia O'Keeffe, by Alfred Stieglitz (USA) 1933. Georgia O’Keeffe Made Rubble Out of Me The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum - Santa Fe, New Mexico Maybe it was holy, the edge of the petal the way it curved, rippling outward as if it were a blessing. And the fragrance it would crush me for its sweetness with its softness break my bones to dust. You know, she could shatter walls with just her gaze. Oh yes, she could be defiant with her hat tipped to the sky like a dark moon. But did you see her in the garden did you see the black iris of her eye? Vulnerability, was always her strength. And I felt something like oceans waves forming breaking, rising free. Alyssa Sineni Alyssa Sineni is a metalsmith and writer. She is a member of The Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange, The Craftsmen’s Guild of Pittsburgh, and she works as the Director of Programming for Art and Inspiration, a non-profit, which celebrates artists and writers. Ms. Sineni holds a BFA from The State University College at Buffalo and a BA in Spanish Language from Slippery Rock University. She has had four poems published in Soul-Lit and has been published in Hot Metal Press, and Uppagus.  Black Iris, by Georgia O'Keeffe (USA) 1926.  Landscape with Fall of Icarus, unknown artist copying Pieter Bruegel (Netherlands) c. 1560s. Finally to Burn Athena takes me sometimes by both hands and we go levitating through strange Dreamlands where Apollo sleeps in his dark forgetting and Passion seems like a wise bloodletting and all I remember ,upon awaking, is: to Love sometimes is like forsaking one’s Being—to glide heroically beyond thought, forsaking the here for the There and the Not. * O, finally to Burn, gravity beyond escaping! To plummet is Bliss when the blisters breaking rain down red scabs on the earth’s mudpuddle ... Feathers and wax and the watchers huddle ... * Flocculent sheep, O, and innocent lambs!, I will rock me to sleep on the waves’ iambs. Michael R. Burch With over 4,500 publications (including poems that have gone viral), Michael R. Burch claims to be one of the world’s most-published “complete unknowns.” His poems, translations, essays, articles, letters, epigrams, jokes and puns have been published by TIME, USA Today, BBC Radio 3, Writer’s Digest–The Year’s Best Writing and hundreds of literary journals. His poems have been translated into fourteen languages and set to music by four composers. He also edits www.thehypertexts.com and has served as editor of international poetry and translations for Better Than Starbucks.  Li Po at the Lu Waterfall, by Hokusai (Japan) 1833. Watching Li Po at the Waterfall In our Dark Ages, China’s poets turned Proud backs to futile wars along the Wall To journey into mountains thick with mist And contemplate cascades sprung from the moon. A thousand years had passed when Hokusai Looked back to capture one immortal soul, Engraving Li Po rapt with wonderment But not alone as in his famous verse, Accompanied instead by acolytes Who cling to Master’s robe above the cliffs. The painter’s waterfall, against his wont, Emerges from no rocks, nor feeds a pool. Omitting even polished, frothy slopes, It drops uninterrupted, unified As Li Po’s skystream circling the world, Joining Middle Kingdom’s running streams With all the universal ethers poured In every cycle of created life, A revelation of the writer’s art Forever redirecting such spare lines Imprinted once again in time’s long scroll. Now I add my voice to the accolade, Writing about painting about writing, Part of the cosmic stream brought full around. Jim Gaines Jim Gaines lives in Fredericksburg, Virginia and is active in state and local writing groups there. His work has been widely published, most recently in journals such as Avocet, Poetry Quarterly, Piedmont Journal of Fiction and Poetry, The Poet's Domain, and El Portal.  Starry Night, by Vincent Van Gogh (Netherlands) 1889. At the Psychiatrist’s Office Through an open door, while seated in a waiting room chair , I glimpse a partially hidden view of Starry Night magically, its thick eclipse exposes yellow sun & moon, inky blues now streaking across canvas once the colour of clinical white walls. It’s only a print. One of many Van Gogh reproductions stacked in bins in shopping malls across the country, thumb-tacked on dorm walls, or framed in the homes of aspiring corporate types with a fondness for the arts, doctors’ offices, or here, in the office of my teenage daughter’s psychiatrist. Printed posters everywhere, easy to overlook or dismiss in the rush of ubiquitous overload, not unlike breathing—forgotten—until one forgets to breathe. Look again. Thick broad brushstrokes deceptively simple until one notes the swirling complexity-- the giant fingerprints of god, the bold genius of colour gone mad This brief glimpse of a starry night escaping through an open door that will soon close to swallow my daughter and her secrets bruises my mother-heart with new tenderness. I think of my daughter’s sad lovely eyes peering through her camera’s view, recognizing beauty in a hard world, if only for a tiny starlit flicker, before the dark of night descends and we wait for a new constellation to appear. Robin Michel This poem first appeared in The Rappahhanock Review. Robin Michel’s fiction and poetry has been published in Fresh Ink VI, The Midwest Poetry Review, The Noyo River Review, The New Guard, Pittsburgh Quarterly, Star 82 Review and elsewhere.  Image courtesy of Alun Robert. I Read The Ekphrastic Review Fridge Magnet Red Zazzle in the mail drop Brown package, double sealed Scissors in my right Delving with what is left To open, excited Then into the kitchen Feet in the dog’s biscuits Confronting the fridge freezer Surveyed for ten seconds (actually 9.7) Stuck forward my hand Then plop Placed red in the middle Under the Streets of Baltimore In sight of a Poppy from Flanders A watchful Evil Eye Talisman Above Istanbul and Prague Close by CI Sark To the left Florence On the right Nigel, long gone Behind it the ice box Whirring like the stream engine En route to Noyelles-sur-Mer About to drop off, again Wondering whether the red Is derived cochineal Or blood from the mail man Bitten by a hound - not mine But as I am observing Should it be “read” not “red” Cannot stand conundrums if I could work out what they are. Alun Robert Born in Scotland of Irish lineage, Alun Robert is a prolific creator of lyrical verse achieving success in poetry competitions in Europe and North America. His poems have featured in international literary magazines, anthologies and on the web. He is particularly inspired by ekphrastic challenges. |
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