 Figures in a Landscape, by Bertram Brooker (Canada) 1931 The Final Exchange for Shaohua Yan after Figures in a Landscape by Bertram Brooker (Canada), 1931 C.E. Our brief final exchange, after we had been naked together for the last time— before we parted our ways for good: YOU: … But you ought to know: whilst you were with me, you were always able to be yourself. … I know you like I know the back of my hand! … But perhaps, until you actually faced the music of the aphorism, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, you would never mature up (to life). … Forget me not! I: … This is the Final Resort: moving away (from everything). … Nothing else makes any sense to my emotional/rational mind anymore! Postscriptum … And when I was eventually betrayed by my so-called love of pragmatism & empiricism, I had no face left to face you. … I confess: you knew me like you knew the back of your hand, indeed! … And NO, I could never forget you—though I tried all manner of recipes to cook all manner of excuses. Saad Ali Saad Ali (b. 1980 C.E. in Okara, Pakistan) has been brought up in the UK and Pakistan. He holds a BSc and an MSc in Management from the University of Leicester, UK. He is an existential philosopher-poet. Ali has authored four books of poetry i.e. Ephemeral Echoes (AuthorHouse, 2018), Metamorphoses: Poetic Discourses (AuthorHouse, 2019), Ekphrases: Book One (AuthorHouse, 2020), and Prose Poems: Βιβλίο Άλφα (AuthorHouse, 2020). He is a regular contributor to The Ekphrastic Review. By profession, he is a Lecturer, Consultant and Trainer/Mentor. Some of his influences include: Vyasa, Homer, Ovid, Attar, Rumi, Nietzsche, and Tagore. He is fond of the Persian, Chinese and Greek cuisines. He likes learning different languages, travelling by train, and exploring cities on foot. To learn more about his work, please visit www.saadalipoetry.com. ** Figures In A Landscape "The man's body is sacred and the woman's body is sacred. No matter who it is, it is sacred..." Walt Whitman (The Body Electric) "With so much before me...mountains and lakes, how could I not Be only myself, the dream of flesh, from moment to moment?" Mark Strand When we gathered to say our last goodbyes, Mon Cher Ami, I was surprised when your daughter said I didn't know Daddy painted so many nudes. Your art was a secret, or perhaps I didn't know you well enough to imagine you in the Texas countryside, in a cabin you'd built yourself, with a woman peeling off her clothes -- that identity -- and assuming an evocative position close enough to reveal her details, her flaws, the way her embrace had inspired you to translate her body with the language of brush strokes... * Beside a lake in Manitoba, Bertram Brooker's figures are anonymous, and naked their faces hidden, the woman's hair falling forward, resembling the long branches of a willow as she bends beside the shapely backside of her partner, his body like a boy's in its beauty, unwrinkled by time, his head turned so he can watch her movements, her fingers reaching down to trace the pattern of his open lips as if she can catch sound, and hold it in her hand, the landscape filled with silence & a kind of music -- nature's fugue -- (point and counter-point) soothing 2 figures suspended between the finite world and the infinite, their dreams, abstract & representational fused in the artist's view by the sensual message of the girl's hair, drying after a swim; and the boy's body, articulated and repeated in the curved immobility of the mountains on the other side of the lake. Beneath a muted blue sky, an unexpected wind whispers an earthly interpretation of Eden: in the beginning, there was a tree, a Lone Tree -- and then I found you before the light exploded in abstract expressionism, and we were more than 2 figures, our images undressed in the landscape before another night came down and notes for summer music were written in luminous shorthand Laurie Newendorp Laurie Newendorp contributes, regularly, to the Ekphrastic Challenges. Her book, When Dreams Were Poems, 2020, explores the relationship of poets to art. One of the book's ekphrastic poems won second place in the Houston Poetry Fest, 2018, and another was nominated for Best of The Net, 2020. ** Figures in a Landscape A geography of bodies stretch across the canvas White as snow-covered hills, or the Sheer carbonate structures of the Dolomites. Ski-slope hips--wind-whipped, dimpled escarpments-- Dip into the spinal ridge and fall To the blanket below, gathered in snow drift folds, The other body rises, peaking, tree-like. A knobby white birch, or pale banyan, her Hair like aerial roots seeking richer soils. Nature is laid bare in them. Naked. Open to the light. So true to life It could not be shown as art. The landscape is artifice by comparison, A flat blue water plane, uncertain river or lake, The mammilated, over-round horizon. Brooker embarrasses the Victorian in us, Our shameful curators’ tastes, The nudes held from exhibition, Checked by the prudes, who exposed themselves As the gatekeepers that they are. Ian Evans Ian Evans is an emerging writer and middle school teacher with his B.A. in English and an Ed.M. in Secondary English Education. He is co-author of The Mechanic, a graphic poem, and his poetry has appeared previously in The Ekphrastic Review. He lives in Highland Park, New Jersey, with his wife, who is also a writer and teacher. ** Honesty More honest, two could seldom get than, fully naked, as eyes met for revelation once begun that nevermore could be undone in which the sense of absent space became the landscape of embrace in moonlit window aptly framed and seen as art to be acclaimed at moment they apart awoke to freedom relished as they spoke of all that it had meant to be in eyes they could but hope would see the soul each also sought to bare. but half its worth before its dare. Portly Bard Portly Bard: Old man. Ekphrastic fan. Prefers to craft with sole intent of verse becoming complement... ...and by such homage being lent... ideally also compliment. ** Figures in a Landscape Beyond the crest of hip and buttock and the smooth swell of shoulder and breast, hill and mountain sweep down to the lake in misty twilight hues of greys and blues. While his dawn sleep is dark and deep, her dreams were broken by first light a welcome respite from the wreck of night. Kim M. Russell Kim M. Russell has been writing poetry since she was a schoolgirl but only began submitting to competitions and anthologies when she retired from teaching in 2014. Her poems have been published on-line by Visual Verse, among others, and in print: Afflatus Magazine, River Writes (Bure Navigation Conservation Trust), Anthology of Aunts and Second Place Rosette (Emma Press), Peeking Cat Anthologies 2017 and 2018, and Field Work (UEA Publishing Project with Kunsthalle Cromer). She lives in the UK, in East Anglia between the North Sea coast and the Norfolk Broads, with her husband and two cats. ** Bareness What will I remember of you When I grow old? Will I think about our time apart, Our time as friends, as lovers? Will I recall certain sensations: Fear, heartbreak — all that comes With young love? I’ll remember vulnerability –– The way first kisses and first fights Took me back ten years, to when I first flew a kite. I’ll remember how you laid me bare, Peeled back layers in a way that Nobody had ever done before Nor could ever do again. I’ll remember how you stretched me thin, Brought everything out of me (the butterflies, The cries, the feeling of your eyes on mine For the very first time). I’ll remember that you brought me closer to The sky, put my thighs on your shoulders, Picked me up –– the sunlight shone through me. Niko Malouf Niko Malouf: "As a teenager living in Los Angeles, I enjoy writing about the things that surround me, stimulate me, the events of my adolescence as well as the happenings of the world. I hope to share my experiences and perspective with others and inspire them to do the same." ** Tilting I like those words that tilt their emphasis from syllable to syllable, depending on what part of speech they’re playing. An adjective, for example: invalid. Dismissing something as false, irrational et cetera, a curt judge of a word, rolling back its weight from second place to first, making itself a noun. Heteronyms are good like that, you say. Your gaze is fixed on this chronic landscape, green with double meaning – this late nonplus of curve and counter-curve. A hip, an elbow, a white stretch of skin: our bodies mean exactly what they mean. Fatigue hangs like fate while the glossy lake swims past the nakedness of our defeat. It comes as some relief to be out here with you, amid the certainties of love and loss. The hills mimic (or mock?) our torsos. Or perhaps they think that we mock them, uselessly flung down here as we are, you beside me, one more time, as the sun dips in search of its usual resting place . . . Michael Caines Michael Caines was longlisted for this year's National Poetry Society Competition. ** Swan Maidens Afterwards, a stillness; they are arched, poised, aching for the possibility of more. Right now, they choose to pause for breath beneath their familiar oak; stare at light shafting glacial water; watch faint sunrays kiss curves of hills on the far shore; sense the ripple of sheet around each form. This dawn, they are featherless; the last wisps, from neck, breast, back, plucked by the other last night. Now, as in old tales, they are naked; queer bodies in true wilderness. Here they can be; remote from crowds and comment; hot blooded birds, rocking to the water’s cool lap. One day soon, thousands of downy feathers will sprout, uncurl, stretch before the long lift skywards; mute swans flying, back to the strong beats of bright city lives with men. Once there, they will wait: apart but still together. Dorothy Burrows Based in the United Kingdom, Dorothy Burrows enjoys writing flash fiction, short plays and poetry. This year her poems have been published on various webzines including Words for the Wild, Another North, The Ekphrastic Review and The Poetry Pea. ** Figures in a Landscape Gently rounded mountains and soft valleys. Undulating sensualness. Why did I always draw women, they asked? Because they have the lines that make me want to take my pencil or brush and… and then I just used my thumb to show them. Words failed me. What did you mean by that, they asked. And I remained shtum. If I had been able to explain, I wouldn’t have painted it. Women’s skin, women’s roundness, women’s edges, women’s joy in each other’s beauty, women’s desires, women’s love, women’s friendship. Eternal. Coveted. Feared. Persecuted. Let me watch. We are watching. Voyeurs of no-colour colours, strength, drama and tenderness. Figures in a landscape. If he had been able to tell us, he wouldn’t have painted it. There are as many new stories as there are watchers. There are as many interpretations as there are readers. We’ll all make our own second moment of creation. I can almost touch, reach into the painting and let my hand tenderly caress that moment where the torso melts into the hip, deep valley of the eternally feminine. I can almost reach in and stroke the crease where thigh joins buttocks. There aren’t words enough to tell you about where white meets grey meets flesh. Rose Mary Boehm Rose Mary Boehm is a German-born British national living and working in Lima, Peru. Her poetry has been published widely in mostly US poetry reviews (online and print). Her fourth poetry collection, THE RAIN GIRL, has been published by Chaffinch Press end August 2020. ** Choice This is a world of curves, of subtleties, of women. It is not reliably pleasant. Sometimes our hair hangs down. But the soft full strength-- folds of earth, folds of cloth, of flesh, folds at the centre of mind and heart-- who would choose to be elsewhere or other than this? Shirley Glubka Shirley Glubka is a retired psychotherapist, poet, essayist, and novelist. Her most recent chapbook is Reflections Caught Leaping: poetry and related prose. Her latest novel: The Bright Logic of Wilma Schuh. Shirley lives in Prospect, Maine with her spouse, Virginia Holmes. Website: http://shirleyglubka.weebly.com ** Remember When morning crowned belly swollen full of her own sex rising from ocean each day a virgin waiting for love we lay on dune our bodies tuned to the lyric of waves the rise and fall of crescendo drowning afterwards I traced your landscape soft strands seaweed hair draped on breast nestled in on folds of skin fingers trailed curves of spine an exotic shell unsure where spirals open or close anticipation mounting remember the man crafting sculpted sand? hands of a God creating something from nothing grain upon grain until we emerged immortal as if carved in stone day’s end we watched dusk wash her palette in ocean salt while lovers like driftwood coasted away arguments folded for later we waited for tide to begin his unkind erosion inevitable ruin his tongue lapping our sin Kate Young Kate Young lives in Kent with her husband and has been passionate about poetry and literature since childhood. Over the last few years she has returned to writing and has had success with poems published in webzines in Britain and internationally. She is a regular reader of The Ekphrastic Review and her work has appeared in response to some of the challenges. Kate is now busy editing her work and setting up her website. Find her on Twitter @Kateyoung12poet. ** What Will the Children Think? “Although Booker’s Figures in a Landscape, 1931, was accepted for a 1931 exhibition of the Ontario Society of Artists (OSA) at the Art Gallery of Toronto (now the Art Gallery of Ontario), it was not hung because it was felt it might negatively affect the sensibilities of children.” James King We refuse to display this painting of bare lines and elegant curves, of stark white flesh and warm tones, crowning the creases, of a stark white bedspread. What will the children think? We do know that nudity, is ubiquitous, filling the blank spaces of life- in restrooms, in bedrooms, in childbirth in operation theatres, in death. But, what will the children think? We revere Michelangelo and Donatello for their David, Rodin, for his thinker, Boticelli for Birth of Venus and Goya for La Maja desnuda and the endless line of sculptors and painters who have been there, done that. But today, what will the children think? We do see the two bodies, natural, real, foregrounding a beautiful landscape. We do remember Nude in a Landscape that hung aslant in all its glory on these pastel walls not long ago. But today, what will the children think? We do know that art is an endeavor to acknowledge the beauty of human body - a temple of new ideas, of fresh thoughts, of sacredness, an altar of offering to God, a means to find answers to life’s questions. But, what will the children think? What will the children think? No, we cannot corrupt their morals, their malleable minds. No, we cannot, we cannot. We refuse to display this painting. Preeth Ganapathy Preeth Ganapathy is a software engineer turned civil servant. She lives in Bangalore, India. Writing has been her passion since childhood. Her works have appeared before in a number of online magazines including The Ekphrastic Review, Snakeskin Poetry Webzine, Voices on the Wind Poetry Journal and are upcoming in Mothers Always Write and Willawaw Journal. She is also the winner of Wilda Morris’s July 2020 Poetry Challenge. ** Statues The statues have come to life – their marbled skin made flesh and glowing pink by a rush of blood and a flush of warmth from the icy lake. Fluid now and graced with softer curves – their plinths forgotten with their fear – they lounge at ease, adopt a pose that fits within their skin, adapt to one another, breathing in the scent of evening’s balm. Alive, at one, so still, so calm. Claudia Court Claudia Court has had work published in several magazines and anthologies, and has won a number of competitions. Her debut collection, How to Punctuate a Silence, was published in July by Dempsey and Windle. ** Figures in a Landscape Do not expect the moon’s blue glow to linger longer on the two women’s naked flesh, or that either one will move a finger, stir, turn, or offer yet another caress, and don’t think these lovers will hold their pose forever. One is on her side, at rest upon a luminous blanket -- tints of rose flecking the mounds of her shoulders, her rear, the creases of her legs; the other shows one small breast’s bewitching curves. She sits near a window while gleams soften on a lake walled by dark hills. The stars shall disappear, just like these figures in a dream’s landscape, dim, fleeting, gone as soon as you awake. Gregory E. Lucas Gregory E. Lucas writes fiction and poetry. His short stories and poems have appeared in many magazines such as The Horror Zine, Dark Dossier, Ekphrasis, Miller's Pond, and Blue Unicorn. Some of his poems have also appeared in past issues of The Ekphrastic Review. ** Lovers Afterwards we lay there naked looking through the window at the paired down blue landscape. We thought it was just as if waiting for Magritte to add a surreal touch. We thought if only a fine artist was standing behind us easel and paints at the ready. What a beautiful picture we would make lying there even without a surreal touch. Lynn White Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud 'War Poetry for Today' competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Apogee, Firewords, Vagabond Press, Light Journal and So It Goes Journal. Find Lynn at: lynnwhitepoetry.blogspot.com and facebook.com/Lynn-White-Poetry-1603675983213077/ ** Explorers I was a traveler in a place without borders where we were the only citizens exploring with care each hidden crevice, we climbed cliffs and crags, ascended to the apex, ecstatic, enraptured, dizzy and delirious. Now, gone the roses, the softly mounded hills--my gnarled fingers reach out to a void, a landscape erased by time. You were my true north, and we created a textured map, each touch imprinted in my mind. But the map is fading, and I am lost. Merril D. Smith Merril D. Smith is a historian and poet. Her poetry and stories have appeared recently in Vita Brevis, Streetlight Press, Ghost City, Twist in Time, Mojave Heart Review, Wellington Street Review, Blackbough Poetry, and Nightingale and Sparrow. ** Just Off The Sea-To-Sky Highway At Lions Bay BC We did not close the curtains yet we did not close our minds woken by first light sun stuttering over Gambier, the island shimmering on Howe Sound. With silence of late fall nobody jogging through Douglas fir no orange on Maple, the leaves no bears no skunks no kayaks off Lions Bay. We spooned tight, as one pheromones screaming assault droplets of guilt on our horizon beyond woodland and rippling waters deep blues, the pain. Behind us Two Sisters behind us September/October ahead Porteau Cove, sandy beach on the periphery of our liaison shipwrecked by Howe Sound. Far too anxious for breakfast too early for TransLink two six two, the bus route West Vancouver due south for Horseshoe Bay, your ferry. Soon to be separated, gone miss the silk of your pristine skin miss moments we shared miss tension and self-incrimination woken by first light for there can be no other. I ingest your body parfum digest your body language resist your fingers on my lips, the touch forbidden fruit is a dark hollow above pristine shores of Lions Bay. Alun Robert Alun Robert is a prolific creator of lyrical verse. Of late, he has achieved success in poetry competitions and featured in international literary magazines, anthologies and on the web. He particularly enjoys ekphrastic challenges. In 2019, he was a Featured Writer of the Federation of Writers Scotland. ** Serenity Hills unfold a backdrop as sensuous as the flesh reclining, undulating in front of them. Two women fallen under the spell of the river’s current, the last light of a darkening sky, as though they had laid down to love, then rest in its sensual presence. Their lithe bodies rosy, slants and slopes painted with a whisper of blue shadow, the Greek perfection of the breast. The curtain is pulled back on the edge of spiritual and material-- complementary in this moment of pure serenity. Forget that the public cried out against these figures, removed them. Admiring beauty in nature and countryside, they turned prudish faced with nude figures in a landscape. Sandi Stromberg Sandi Stromberg was a prize-winning magazine feature writer and editor in another life. Today, art and poetry combine to brighten her days during the pandemic. Her most recent work has been published in The Ekphrastic Review, Still the Waves Beat, Snapdragon: A Journal of Art and Healing (“Silence as Matter”), and Waco WordFest Fire Anthology (“Mischief on Jamaica Beach”). **
Lorette C. Luzajic Lorette C. Luzajic's creative writing has been published in several hundred literary and arts journals in print and online, and in about a dozen anthologies. She has been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize and for Best of the Net, with one making it to the finalists. She is the author of numerous books, including five collections of poetry. Pretty Time Machine: ekphrastic prose poems is the latest. Her poetry has been translated into Urdu. Lorette is the founder and editor of The Ekphrastic Review. She is also an award-winning mixed-media artist. Visit her at www.mixedupmedia.ca.
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 Book Pile 26, by Ephraim Rubenstein (USA) contemporary. Click image for artist site.
Transliteration: Kitab Dewaangi Mai kitab-khanay kay andar gaee maira irada toh nahein tha, magar mai gaee mai nai wo sub daikha jo mai dhoonti thee kitabain jin say mai jaan churah chuki thee aur jagah bananai ki deewangi mai shelves kay liay jin pay auron kay liay jagah thee mai nai unhain dobara khareeda, aur apnay ghar mai farsh par aur zaida dhair laga deein. Book Madness I went into the bookstore I didn’t mean to, but I did I saw all that I looked for The volumes I had gotten rid Of in a frenzied purge for space For shelves that had some room for more I bought them back, and at my place Heaped piles further on the floor. Lorette C. Luzajic, translated into Urdu by Saad Ali
The English version of this poem was first published in Aspartame, by Lorette C. Luzajic (Mixed Up Media Books, 2016.) Saad Ali (b. 1980 C.E. in Okara, Pakistan) has been brought up in the UK and Pakistan. He holds a BSc and an MSc in Management from the University of Leicester, UK. He is an existential philosopher-poet. Ali has authored four books of poetry i.e. Ephemeral Echoes (AuthorHouse, 2018), Metamorphoses: Poetic Discourses (AuthorHouse, 2019), Ekphrases: Book One (AuthorHouse, 2020), and Prose Poems: Βιβλίο Άλφα (AuthorHouse, 2020). He is a regular contributor to The Ekphrastic Review. By profession, he is a Lecturer, Consultant and Trainer/Mentor. Some of his influences include: Vyasa, Homer, Ovid, Attar, Rumi, Nietzsche, and Tagore. He is fond of the Persian, Chinese and Greek cuisines. He likes learning different languages, travelling by train, and exploring cities on foot. To learn more about his work, please visit www.saadalipoetry.com. Lorette C. Luzajic's creative writing has been widely published in hundreds of literary journals online and in print. She has been twice each nominated for the Pushcart Prize and for Best of the Net, with one poem making it to finalist. She has five poetry collections, two of which are ekphrastic: Aspartame and Pretty Time Machine. Lorette is the founder and editor of The Ekphrastic Review. She is also an award-winning visual artist whose works have been collected in at least 25 countries. Visit her at www.mixedupmedia.ca. Thank you to everyone who participates in this phenomenal ekphrastic resource, as a reader, a writer, guest editor, member of the prize nomination committee, our generous social media volunteers, and anyone who shares our pages. Thank you to everyone who has sent a gift to help with web maintenance and hosting fees or help support the ongoing time investment of the editor. We have published approximately a thousand ekphrastic writers and thousands of ekphrastic poems, stories, and essays. THANK YOU. It is wishful thinking but there is a button below for a gift of 1000$. Should a flush benefactor feel a surge of literary inspiration and click that button, the entire fee will be used to create a print anthology of selected works to date, with contributors' copies. Your gift of five, ten, fifty or more will be used to help with the recent web fees of 300 USD, out of pocket by the editor. Thanks to those who have already shared some of this burden. THANK YOU for helping to keep this great community and journal alive and growing. love, The Ekphrastic Review Gift of Five
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Thank you for your generous gift. You are helping to make great ekphrastic things happen. Much appreciated!  Gloomy Day, by Pieter Bruegel (Flanders, modern Belgium and Netherlands) 1565 Pieter Bruegel’s The Dark Day Spring must start always as a dark day where golden light is only underpainting, glimmering everywhere and nowhere, highlights to an overshadowed, windwracked time. Beneath the scene delicate buds of light carefully unsheathe their brief flags of colour. On the surface all is austere, seasoned for the harsh weather that falls between days of ice-white calm and full-flowing green. The lowland thaw sprouts small leaves on trees along the shore, but mountain and fortress still dream under massive drifts of snow. A man devours Mardi Gras waffles one after another, oblivious to his gaunt wife, who begs one for the pudgy child who wears a Mardi Gras crown of paper and carries a lantern. Greedy father and greedy son both daydream about tomorrow’s festival in the town square at Hertogenbosch. Their dreams are another picture by Bruegel. But the man lifts his snack beyond the reach of wife and child. His eating is a music he makes for himself, a tune blown sweetly through a panpipe into almost-spring air. All day he has been pruning willows and he thinks now he cannot live without this moment of greedy devouring. The season’s darkness, too, is hungry. In the vast harbor mouth a dozen ships break apart in the jagged teeth of the brutal equinoctial storm. Strangely, the fierce winds do not bend the skeletal trees of the calm foreground. As always, dreams of close and dreams of far refuse to interlock. Auden told us so. I can almost see his legs, somewhere, disappearing into the cool green. Joseph Stanton This poem was first published in Imaginary Museum: Poems on Art, by Joseph Stanton, Time Being Books, 1999. Read The Ekphrastic Review's interview with Joseph Stanton, here. Joseph Stanton is Professor Emeritus of Art History and American Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He has published six books of poems: Moving Pictures, Things Seen, Imaginary Museum: Poems on Art, A Field Guide to the Wildlife of Suburban Oahu, Cardinal Points, and What the Kite Thinks: A Linked Poem (co-authored with Makoto Ooka, Wing Tek Lum, and Jean Toyama). Over 500 of his poems have appeared previously in The Ekphrastic Review, Poetry, Harvard Review, New Letters, Poetry East, Ekphrasis, Image, Antioch Review, Cortland Review, New York Quarterly, and many others. His awards include the Tony Quagliano International Poetry Award, the Ekphrasis Prize, the James Vaughan Poetry Award, the Ka Palapala Pookela Award for Excellence in Literature, and the Cades Award for Literature.  Rooms by the Sea, by Edward Hopper (USA) 1951 Rooms by the Sea When many dreams that mattered are late, let’s keep it simple — a loaf of crispy bread, small jobs to fuel the tank, long road trips without destinations. Landscapes will lead from lost sensations of dried mesas and the prairie grass to hairpin turns, heart-mending windy vistas, limestone tunnels that will rush to open the higher views: sun-sprinkled birches, the crystal-blue of the inverted sky in pallid tarns. There will be pines, quartz-spangled boulders with lichen tracery, the rarified air, and then descent by driving on the edge. Red-glossed diners will suffice at midnight, a highway past salines will widen into the sun white-wash of bridges over bays preceding larger waters — the massive breathing haze with hoots of distant ships. Rooms by the sea ... The ocean will suffice when many dreams that mattered will cease. Elina Petrova Until 2007 Elina lived in Ukraine and worked in engineering management. Elina published one poetry book in Russian and two poetry books in English: Aching Miracle (2015) and Desert Candles (2019). Elina’s poems have appeared in Chicago Quarterly Review, Texas Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Porter House Review, Southwestern American Literature, Texas Poetry Calendars, FreeFall (Canada), Ocotillo Review, Melancholy Hyperbole, Poetry of the American Southwest series and many other anthologies. A frequent Pushcart Prize nominee, Elina was a finalist for the post of Houston Poet Laureate in 2015 and Austin International Poetry Fest's Featured Poet in 2019. She received second place honours in the 2020 national contest of Public Poetry.  The Conversation, by Henri Matisse (France) 1908-1912 Matisse’s Conversation where to put that chair? the woman’s too big, no floor to meet a wall. the chair’s blue on blue will have to do. she’ll face him straight. the striped pajamas must be painted over, pare him down. keep the neck of the larger man two stripes ago. there. both diminished now. her flesh startles – so pale. angle the chest. thrust heart upward as if to beat nearer her rigid throat. weight her down with black and green, tie her to gate and landscape. a hint of fleur de lis throughout all three their faces? flat. mostly empty. midnight eyes. he gazes down. his straight lines taut, broken only by his elbow. a pink-yellow wrist. one of her arms disappears into the chair. she is bound he heads out of the canvas. neither has feet. he, she done, redone, still unfinished. what holds the eye? the world in the window between them shall say the most, the loudest. Mary Buchinger Mary Buchinger is the author of four collections of poetry, including e i n f ü h l u n g/in feeling, Aerialist, and Navigating the Reach (forthcoming). Her poetry has appeared in AGNI, DIAGRAM, Gargoyle, Salamander, Slice Magazine, The Boston Globe, The Massachusetts Review, and elsewhere. She is president of the New England Poetry Club and professor of English and communication studies at MCPHS University in Boston; her website is www.MaryBuchinger.com. Sohrai The art of the Palaeolithic age Shifted to the mud walls, Well adorned after harsh monsoon, Repaired with subtle colours of the earth Is inscribed- the Sohrai art of the tribal community. In flora fauna motif illustrated Through the fingertips in broken lines, Carved out from poverty Of broken combs and chewed wood tooth-sticks Dipped in mud white, yellow ochre and red oxide Is the tradition of a mother A heritage for a daughter The ancestral lineage passed on to generations. The euphoria dabbed in cloth swabs is The manganese black contour of Lord Shiva’s blessings To the newly wed chaste bride. Fertility and fidelity gilded art, In her wedding chamber- the Khovar. Epitomising the spring of plenitude Hiding in her bosom the art survives. But, in her teardrop floats An empty-bellied agrarian Sitting with folded hands out on the porch. Sunlight peeping inside the broken thatched roof, Sits a mother Celebrating harvest and potency- the Sohrai- now with a GI tag. Rema T. Das Author's note: "This is my first ekphrastic writing on Sohrai Art form which is the oldest form of wall painting, continuing since 10,000- 4000 B.C. This art form is practiced by the tribal people of Jharkhand from where I belong. The sohrai has received the Geographical Indication (GI) tag just this year but the artists are still not given the due recognition and their lives are dismal due to poverty. This art form is matriarchal and some artists compare this to the sgraffito technique of Greece." Rema T. Das teaches English in the Intermediate Section of St. Xavier’s College Ranchi, Jharkhand a suburb in India. She has currently published a poem on the myth of inclusion in education published in the July 2020 issue of Literary Garland and two poems, related to violence on women in Lockdown due to COVID-19 and dismal state of migrant labourers in India, have also been published in Aulos: An Anthology of English Poetry released in paperback worldwide. She is working on trauma literature on Partition as her doctoral thesis. She has presented and published research papers on inclusive education and education for social change in the national seminars. She works in an institution which caters to uplift the tribal children who come from the deprived sections of the society. She believes that through education one can try to remove the social evils prevalent in Indian society due to poverty and poetry is sometimes a refuge to seek help from educated literary minds to bring that change. Christian Riese Lassen The anti-impressionist. Sequence and depth. Repoussoir reefs, with flatly vivid Moorish idols, tubes, and tangs—a polychromatic welter that draws back as we "swim" forward, into the crystalline nursery where dolphins adore a humpback calf, or orcas glide, dive, and roll, exposing ventral patches to a sun they seem to know. Fluke-trailing bubbles: legible propulsion. Breaching, twisted individuals—look closely for the catchlights, always present-- rip into the air, an honest signal whose energetics field zoologists are reckoning. Exactest flux—the artist's ministry—as caustic networks spread their crazed glories over locomotive silk. Melissa Tuckman Melissa Tuckman teaches in the English Department at Rowan University. She lives in Philadelphia.  Oratory of the Sacred Heart, Dun Laoghaire, Dublin, Sr Concepta Lynch. 1919-1939 Each Dot a Stone The first time I visit the Sacred Heart Oratory in Dun Laoghaire, Dublin, I bring along my teenage son. He’s off school for the day and supposed to be studying. But he likes art, so I ask him if he wants to join me. “What’s an oratory?” he wonders, and I have to confess I’m not sure. “A small church, I think. This one has interesting murals.” I throw in an offer of lunch and he shrugs and grabs his jacket. Anything’s better than study. I know Dun Laoghaire well, but I’ve never been sure where the Oratory is located. The GPS brings us to a strange building I’ve driven past before, a bright circular structure with miniscule windows. It’s only when we step inside I realise it’s a shell, constructed around the Oratory to protect it from the weather. The Oratory is completely enclosed, like the smallest of Russian dolls, its tiny scale and simple exterior no longer visible from the road. There’s a handful of other visitors in the waiting area and we watch a short documentary together. The TV is an old, bulky affair and the documentary dull. An art historian speaks in an art history way and my son shifts in his seat. I’ve heard the Oratory described as a hidden gem, but I wonder if it was wise to come. Perhaps it won’t live up to its billing. The guide, however, is eager. She turns off the TV and walks towards the Oratory. “Ready?" she asks, and with a flourish, opens the wooden doors. The surprise is instant. Beyond the doors, a small room the size of a bedroom, covered in exuberant murals. Fantastic birds and beasts whirl around walls interspersed with Celtic knots and Christian symbols. Dots and dashes add emphasis. The room shimmers with a golden energy: The Book of Kells on steroids. “Wow,” my son says, under his breath. I feel giddy with delight – me, a woman who hates flamboyance, who values restraint above everything else. Suddenly, I’m Emily Dickinson in the presence of poetry, amazed by the intensity of my response. I try to follow the guide’s speech; listen to her explanations. One artist, I hear her say. A nun. Ordinary household paint. The stained-glass windows are from the Harry Clarke Studio. Something about stencils. But what I really want to know is: Who did this? Who did this? * * * Lily Lynch was born in Dublin in 1874. Her father, Thomas, was an artist, famous for his illuminated addresses in the style of early Celtic manuscripts. Lily spent much of her childhood in her father’s studio, becoming such an accomplished illuminator herself, she sometimes carried out work in her father’s name while he was away on business. It must have been a contented childhood; the cherished, only child, learning at the hands of the father, but Lily’s mother died in 1884 and her father three years later. Lily was faced with the challenge of supporting herself. Despite her youth, and despite the limited expectations of women at the time, Lily took over her father’s studio and ran it successfully for a number of years before entering the Dominican Convent in 1896, where she became Sr Concepta. There’s a framed photo of Sr Concepta on the altar of the Oratory. She’s wearing a long white habit and a black veil, and she looks at the camera with equanimity. It’s difficult to tell how old she is. Late forties, mid-fifties, perhaps? I stare at the photo, trying to reconcile Sr Concepta’s unassuming appearance with the riot of colour and imagination that is her Oratory. I’ve a hundred questions, but the photograph remains silent. * * * The guide fills us in on the history of the Oratory. It was built in 1919 with a dual purpose: to celebrate the coming of peace and to commemorate the dead of World War 1. The tiny building was plain, inside and out, but Mary Lyons, the Mother Superior, asked Sr Concepta to decorate the niche behind the altar containing a statue of the Sacred Heart. The statue was controversial. It had been donated to the neighbouring Christian Brothers’ school by parishioners of a French village near Ypres, in memory of the Dun Laoghaire troops who had been stationed there and killed during the War. But the political tide had turned in Ireland following the 1916 Rising and it was no longer politic to memorialise Irishmen who’d served in the British army. The brothers declined the statue. It was left to the sisters to find a home for it. Sr Concepta decorated the niche and when she was finished, invited her cousins to see her work. They took one look at the remaining walls, plain as a ‘Connemara cowshed’ they said, and urged her to decorate the rest of the Oratory. And so began 16 years of labour, six hours per day, after a full day’s teaching. Former pupils remember Sr Concepta tucking her habit into a pair of white overalls as she raced down the corridor after school, eager to get to the Oratory. * * * In the days following my visit, I read what I can about Sr Concepta’s work. She had “…an unerring eye for, and understanding of, colour”, according to Sighle Bhreathnach-Lynch, former Curator of Irish Art at the National Gallery of Ireland. “Strong shades of red, greens, oranges, yellow and white balanced the more muted browns, blues, purples, pale pink and black. Gold paint was used sparingly throughout. The total ensemble . . . presents the viewer with a decoration in which all the colours are harmoniously balanced.” Archaeologist Etienne Rynne describes Sr Concepta’s work as “… ever mouvemente, vibrant with life; her birds squawk, bite and even dance, her serpents wriggle and knot themselves, as do her quadrupeds. Her art has a striking originality throughout….” I go back and look at the photographs on my phone: the sinuous cat-like figure above the altar; the interlocking snakes; the strutting bird trailing red and gold feathers; the two monks pulling on each other’s beards. I wonder about the 22-year-old Lily’s decision to enter the convent. Giving up her personal freedom released her from the demands of making a living. But it also protected her from the fickle fashions of the art world. In Ireland, Celtic Revival art fell out of favour. But not in the convent. In the convent, Sr Concepta was free to continue her work. And what she produced, day after day, was wondrous. * * * The next year, when the Oratory opens to the public once more, I bring my daughter. She’s in her final year of college studying Film, and for the past few years she’s been introducing me to films and directors I’d never heard of before. My world has expanded on the back of her education. Now the tables are turned, and I have something to show her; something I know she’ll appreciate. I can barely contain my excitement on the drive. I feel like a child with a secret, about to burst with the effort of self-control. We’re the only visitors to the Oratory that day. In the waiting area, I position myself at an angle to my daughter, so I can see her first reaction. I remember my son’s barely whispered wow the year before and wonder what my daughter will say. But she doesn’t say anything. Instead, when the doors are opened, her eyes widen. She opens her mouth as if to speak, then closes it again. Relief rushes through me and I find myself smiling, as if the beauty of the Oratory reflects well on me, as if I am somehow responsible for it. After the tour, I ask her what she thinks. “So beautiful,” she says, then pauses for a long time. “And coherent.” Coherent. She’s put her finger on it exactly. The Oratory thrills because it’s coherent in conception and execution: a contained expression of a lifetime’s work. I think back to my first visit. When the guide opened the doors, I seemed to see the Oratory in its entirety, as if I’d ingested it whole. I’d never experienced that feeling before, and I haven’t experienced it since. * * * I exhaust the small store of books and articles available on the subject. There’s consensus that Sr. Concepta’s work has been overlooked, a shared sense of injustice on her behalf. But there’s also gratitude that the Oratory exists at all; its survival touch and go in the 80s when the nuns sold the convent to a property developer and the Oratory was slated for demolition. It was saved by a grass-roots campaign led by local artists; Sr Francis Lally, a past-pupil of Sr Concepta’s; and the then Minister for Culture (now president) Michael D Higgins. A grant from the EU Cultural Directive allowed the construction of the specially designed shell to protect the Oratory, the new building itself an architectural award winner. And so, Sr Concepta’s work remains in situ, the murals untouched, the effect undiminished. I track down an unpublished thesis written in 1997 and spend a quiet morning reading Naoise Griffin’s socio-historical account of the Oratory. What I’m really looking for is insight into Sr Concepta herself; still consumed by the question that sprang into my mind the first time I saw the Oratory: Who did this? Who did this? * * * Griffin at last provides some answers. Her interviews with Sr Concepta’s colleagues and pupils paint a picture of a multi-talented woman, sensitive, intelligent, and charming. She seems to have had a genuine religious calling. One sister recalled (1997, p.13) that she had “a favourite nook outside, where she liked to pray, and often while she was engaged in this pursuit, she was utterly oblivious to the world and could not be summoned away, lost in a trance.” She was a devotee of St Colmcille and admired the discipline and dedication of the ancient monks. In many ways, she replicated their lifestyle in the convent, teaching her students the art of illumination in a seven-year apprenticeship, working in austere conditions (the Oratory was frequently cold and dark), regarding her art itself as meditation and prayer. Her description of monks at work in a scriptorium could equally apply to herself: “Making lines these roads to God Each dot a stone, each curve a hill, All these were prayers Which they had at will.” The convent provided Sr Concepta with considerable freedom. She taught art and piano, sang operatic songs, staged plays, and subscribed to art journals. The one restraint she faced was physical. The Dominican Sisters were an enclosed order at the time, so she was unable to leave the convent grounds. Instead, she had her students walk to the local hardware shop to pick up her paint: tins of ordinary household emulsion mixed according to her detailed instructions. She died of TB in 1939, leaving the ceiling of the Oratory outlined but unpainted. Its relative brightness helps illuminate the walls below while also providing an insight into Sr Concepta’s method. * * * The last time I visit the oratory, I’m by myself. I’d promised my husband we’d go together, but one afternoon, I sneak out while he’s at work, too impatient to wait until our free time coincides. When I arrive, a small group is waiting for admission and I feel put out, as if the Oratory belongs to me and the group is trespassing on a private pleasure. A woman smiles at me and I have to force myself to smile back. Inside the Oratory, I tune out the guide and try to ignore the other visitors. I have a system now for examining the Oratory. I start, like Concepta herself, at the niche behind the Sacred Heart statue; its Byzantine art and fleurs-de-lis yielding gradually to the Celtic-inspired art that surrounds it. I think of the boys who died in Flanders; many the same age as my son who stood here with me just a few short years ago. I sweep my eyes upwards, take in the cat creature with its golden scales, the lofty red birds on either side of the altar, their elegant forms and outstretched wings frozen mid-dance. Then I turn to the side wall and its panels of intertwined serpents and intricate interlacing; St Kevin with his long blond hair; the wonderful wheeled cross in the centre of it all; and finally, around to the back wall and my favourite section: the two birds flanking the doors, so striking, so fierce. I glance at the unfinished ceiling; Sr Concepta’s vision delicately outlined in gold, at once poignant and satisfying. I imagine Lily, Sr Concepta, lying on her scaffold in the cold, dim chapel. She knows she’s dying; how could she not? Her body aches and her lungs burn; the effort of holding her brush is almost too great. She would like to finish the ceiling, has already made the stencils and chosen the colours, but time is against her. She thinks of the monks of the past, the great scriptoriums of early Ireland. She thinks of her father and his studio; the vellum addresses he crafted so diligently. And she sets to work again, each dot a stone, each line a road to God. * * * I’m still surprised by my response to the Oratory; still unravelling its attractions. I haven’t lost my preference for restraint. Or developed an interest in religious art. But I think about the Oratory often. Its survival appeals to the historian in me; Sr Concepta appeals to the feminist. But those factors only account for its intellectual appeal. They can’t explain the sudden jolt of joy I felt when I saw the Oratory for the first time or my need to revisit it whenever it’s open to the public. The next open day isn’t for six months. I plan to bring my other son. He’s a musician with a stubborn streak. I’m curious to see his response. Aileen Hunt Aileen Hunt is an Irish writer of creative nonfiction with a particular interest in lyric essays and flash forms. Her work has been published in a variety of online and print journals including Cleaver Magazine, Sweet, Hippocampus, Entropy, and Slag Glass City. You can find her at aileen-hunt.com and @HuntAileen.  Oratory of the Sacred Heart, Dun Laoghaire, Dublin, Sr Concepta Lynch. 1919-1939.
The Sacred Family In nearly every museum in Europe, there hangs a painting of a mother, with her child perched upon her lap. A mother and her child flanked by bodiless winged cherubs. Perhaps consulting the Bible. Swaddled in headscarf and robes. Sometimes the child resembles a shriveled old man, other times the limbs are too long for the body. The mother appears serene, save for a crimp of worry, perhaps for the child’s fate as the Chosen One, or not even as the chosen one, but because this child who comes into the world, skeptical and squalling, is hers. Sometimes halos in pure gold gilt or wispy rings hover like cake plates behind their heads; other times, nothing. Sometimes the artist gilds the backdrop in solids, other times it’s mountains and trees and fields. Sometimes Mary is flanked by scores of men, presumably the saints, inside the walls of an elegant palace, her heaven on earth depicted in opulent fabric, even though she supposedly gave birth in a manger. How many generations of ordinary women have sat as Mary, humble and regal? How many children have sat, unbeknownst to them, as the Son of God, as a careful eye turned their wriggling forms into art? Like so many before me, I was once cast as a Mary. I did not pose for a painting, but rather found myself as an unwilling Madonna shuffling across the church in my mother’s bathrobe on Christmas Eve. Mum’s was the gold star threat of holiday threats that began, as all threats do during that time of year, with “Santa’s not going to come unless...” unless I answered the priest’s call to play a last-minute Mary because the girl they picked first, Carmella Hinojosa, was sick. What else could I do? I hated crowds, but I wanted Santa’s presents. Under mum’s powder blue terry, and shepherded by Joseph, I carried a plastic babydoll wrapped in a king-sized sheet, our heads draped with towels like nuns’ veils. The trees—my catechism classmates in brown plastic trash bags holding swaths of pine branches—went “swish swish,” as we searched for a place to have the Baby Jesus. And I tried to be a good Mary but with my red patent shoes gleaming I knew I was no Galilean virgin, but rather, a child of the 80’s who certainly was not destined to be the mother of a Chosen Child. And yet, as the spotlight followed me past the throngs of packed pews, toward the innkeeper’s stall—in actuality, one of the confessionals—I couldn’t help but think about the fate of the Chosen baby, of the first Mary, of all the people who were mean to her and forced her into the barn in the first place. And with the spotlight trailing me, I stopped, even as the beam, to its credit, attempted to guide me toward my final destination. In that moment, Harold Jameson, the “good” innkeeper, perked up, and opened the cavern we were expected to enter—the confessional manger barn where Mary, symbolically, has the baby—and even though the whole congregation waited on me to enter the manger, I simply couldn’t. It was Christmas Eve, 1988, and for the people of Hobart, Connecticut, baby Jesus was not born that night. He was not born there because I fled the church, tripping over my robe, clutching the plastic baby to my belly, out into the wintery night. Outside, the air was cool enough to see my breath and every corner of the church glowed in strings of golden lights. To heck with Santa’s presents. Baby Jesus, I believed, needed me not to share him with the rest of the world. He needed me to be his mother. On the stone steps under those glowing lights, I pulled him out of the king-sized sheet and held him on my lap, cradled him in my arms, studying him with all wonder and care due of a new mother: would he be okay? Would he survive? Could I protect him? Until my own mother burst out the parish doors, arms akimbo and mad as hell. In case you’re wondering, Santa did come for me that year. A rainbow legwarmer set and a baby doll not unlike the one I fled with, fluttering eyes and all, appeared the next morning under the tree. The priest decided I was too much of a renegade to finish the pageant, and it went on without me. That night at Christmas dinner, Mum told everyone how the priest emerged from his throne, scooped up a real one-month old baby, and presented it to the parish, high above his head, to applause, and held the sleeping child on his chest throughout the homily, giving each parishioner hope that maybe this child would turn out all right, even if the one they chose to play Mary that year did not. I decided I didn’t care. I’d been Chosen too, for once, and realized it was not for me. So I study these paintings of the woman and her child, Madonna with Christ. Mother with child. Mary and Jesus. Alone, Mary is just a woman. Alone, the child is just a child. Sometimes a man—Joseph, we presume—emerges on the canvas, making the family, by some accounts, whole, sacred, together. But I gravitate to the paintings where it’s just the two of them, alone together on a wood-backed canvas or stone tablet, once destined to grace a small ornate parish on an Italian hillside, creating something bigger and more precious, alone together. But enough about my obsessions, for that is what these paintings are. Maybe it’s not even an obsession, but rather the byproduct of how I spend most of my time, away from my own mother, seated in a scratchy blue uniform before a wall of a dozen gilded Madonnas, hoping no one will force me to scold them for getting too close to the art. Erica Plouffe Lazure Erica Plouffe Lazure is the author of a flash fiction chapbook, Heard Around Town, and a fiction chapbook, Dry Dock. Sugar Mountain, a flash fiction chapbook, is forthcoming by Ad Hoc Press (UK) in Fall 2020. Her fiction is published in McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, Carve, Greensboro Review, Meridian, American Short Fiction, The Journal of Micro Literature, The Southeast Review, Phoebe, Fiction Southeast, Flash: the International Short-Short Story Magazine (UK), Hippocampus Magazine, Litro (UK), and elsewhere. She lives and teaches in Exeter, NH and can be found online at ericaplouffelazure.com. |
The Ekphrastic Review
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September 2023
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