Winter Landscape In old age life’s become a winter landscape. The traveler has come so far, through snow Above his shins, through drifts between his knees. Like hammered rocks, his bones crack when he slams The crutches down, then like a pendulum Swings the weight of an antique clock across The miles and miles of frozen swells and flats. This unmapped land’s as uncompliant as The god he’d begged to save his pregnant wife. But that’s all past. In Friedrich’s winter scene The snow has nearly stopped; he rests against A rock by intermeshing firs, which guard Him from the mortal storm. But note he’s holding Up his blistered palm as if it oozed Like Christ’s. It’s clear he soon will die, but not Forsaken: Friedrich’s put a crucifix Amid the trees—as if within the mind Of this old man—and makes this place A sacred spot, like the steeples rising out Of sight, in mist unveiling what has always Been there, that’s everywhere he goes. Matthew Brennan Matthew Brennan has published five books of poems and Snow in New York: New and Selected Poems is forthcoming from Lamar University Literary Press. Formerly a professor at Indiana State University in Terre Haute, he has retired to Columbus, Ohio.
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June Fairchild isn’t Dead she’s planning a comeback. she’s snorting Ajax for the camera. she’s landing a role on “I Spy.” she’s writing her number on a napkin and handing it to me at King Eddy’s Saloon. June Fairchild isn't dead she’s just been voted Mardi Gras Girl at Aviation High. she’s acting in a movie with Roger Vadim. she’s gyrating at Gazarri’s, doing the Watusi with Sam The Sham. she’s mainlining heroin in a cardboard box. June Fairchild isn't dead I saw her tying one on at King Eddy’s Saloon. she’s making ‘Drive, He Said,” with Jack Nicholson. she’s selling the Daily News in front of the courthouse. she’s snorting Ajax for the camera. June Fairchild isn't dead she’s relapsing in front of the Alexandria Hotel. she’s working as a taxi dancer, making $200 a shift. I saw her vamping with Hefner, frugging on YouTube. she’s naming Danny Hutton’s band 3 Dog Night. June Fairchild isn't dead she’s living at the Roslyn SRO on Main. she’s giving up her daughter to her ex. she’s snorting Ajax for the camera. she's planning a comeback, needs new headshots. June Fairchild isn't dead she’s Up In Smoke, getting clean. she’s sitting by the phone. she’s falling asleep in Laurel Canyon with a lit cigarette in her hand, waiting for me to call. Alexis Rhone Fancher Author's Note: Former Gazarri’s dancer/film star June Fairchild, a self-proclaimed “angel in a snake pit," died of liver cancer on Feb. 17, 2015. She was 68 years old. This poem was first published in Cleaver Magazine, 2016. Alexis Rhone Fancher is published in Best American Poetry, Rattle, Poetry East, Hobart, VerseDaily, American Journal of Poetry, Duende, Plume, Diode, Pedestal Magazine, Wide Awake: Poets of Los Angeles, and elsewhere. She’s authored five published poetry collections, most recently, Junkie Wife (Moon Tide Press, 2018), and The Dead Kid Poems (KYSO Flash Press, 2019). EROTIC: New & Selected, from New York Quarterly, and another full-length collection (in Italian) by Edizioni Ensemble, Italia, will both be published in early 2021. Her photographs are published worldwide, including River Styx, and the covers of Pithead Chapel, Heyday and Witness. A multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, Alexis is poetry editor of Cultural Weekly. www.alexisrhonefancher.com Unnamed Early 20th Century Burial in St Matthew’s Episcopal Church Cemetery Hillsborough, NC (2020) A small grave marked “Unnamed” Without date or acclaim, Past century’s mystery, Performs a ministry Of grace in this churchyard. This modest slab set hard Against the worst weather, Something meant forever, Became grief’s darkest gift. A still birth swiftly shifts Love from cradle to grave. Was this small life unsaved, Unbaptized and not named? So pure life was reclaimed Before life could begin, Before the curse of sin. Yet love with that life stayed. Where roots have made a braid, A resurrection fern Each rain, in green, returns. Paul Jones Paul Jones’ poetry has been published in Poetry, Red Fez, Unblocked, and in anthologies including Best American Erotic Poems (1800 - Present). Recently, he was nominated for two Pushcart Prizes and two Best of the Web Awards. His chapbook is What the Welsh and Chinese Have in Common. A manuscript of his poems crashed on the moon in summer 2019 carried by the Beresheet Lander. The Daughters of E.D.B. Julia, aged four in the portraiture, holds peace- fully in her hands a china doll with pink cheeks Mary Louisa – Isa, like their late mother, stands forward, hands mischievously bold, tucked behind as eight year olds seem, brazen, alabaster, bright red beneath her pinafore, bright white pouting out above bony knees Florence leans against a vase that stands above her head, the counterpart half unseen behind the shy partition, an afterthought though the pair more defined than the sisters, less so than the authentic porcelain - Emotional space leaves room, gaps that fourteen sees, but delicate china holds under the weight - Jane stares straight as though perceptive at twelve, but statuesque, mirroring the mantel piece, rivaling the disjointed light bright white between two blurred blue urns. Gina Moriarty Gina Moriarty is an emerging writer working on her MFA from Chatham University in Pittsburgh. She writes about coincidence and how there isn’t such a thing. She has a spiritual connection with Hemingway and a knack for disappearing down research wormholes. Her poetry and creative non-fiction pieces have appeared in Brief Wilderness, The Classical Poets Society, The Inkwell, The CalTimes and The McKeesport Regional History and Heritage Center Quarterly. Dominance Scratch-drawn sinews Ooze over barricade; Harsh lines assault eyes; Pitchforks pin flowing waters, Seek open curtains, Alluvial fan. Cloud-streaked night Hears no rasp-throated scream-- Body becomes background… Dreams Of scorpions. Gale Naylor Gale Naylor is a technical writer in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her poem,”Target” was published in Homeward, the 2020 edition of Havik, The Las Positas College Journal of Arts and Literature. A Painting of a Painting on Fire for Ryan He lies along the roadside, his chin and elbows working a triangular dentation into a scraggly patch of grass, where the only flower he’s seen all day, maybe ever, lifts its face to be bathed in light and snapped still, captured in metal and magnets. With the daisy face the size of his head, he covers one eye to lose perspective. With a brazen edge he slathers and scores a just interpretation. Eliminating at once the insworn relation, he cuts the visual accord with a very real knife. The shreds are scattered and swept like petals across St. Margaret’s Square. Now the light is artificial and aimed with shadow consideration. The paste hardens with the resolve of an Italian mosaic. It’s the same camera and lens, the same iris and dilated pupil. It’s the same lens again, bent on a new purpose. He leans in and visions the change, Embraces for a moment the weighty detail of exposure, erases any false impression of life. As much as one relies on another, two can never be fully justified. Is it the weight or the depth, the perspective or the density that is right for sacrifice? He reaches for the secret, but it's too soon... so he strikes a match and flashes back to where the imprint of his chin has filled with rain, and the fire burns like fire paint, daisy yellow on daisy white. Kevin Jones Kevin Jones believes in the power of poetry to promote healing and inspire social change. He is Assistant Professor of Social Work at University of Portland (Oregon, USA) conducting research on the therapeutic effects of poetry writing for youth who have experienced trauma. He studied poetry writing with David Wagoner at the Richard Hugo House in Seattle and his poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Juniper, Two if by Sea, Ayaskala Review, Bamboo Hut, Lilliput Review, Pathos, and South District Journal. He lives in Portland, Oregon. Snail Heaven I just want to move slowly through the day and maybe night when they turn the sprinklers on. I yearn for clouds to manifest in summer’s cerulean unfortunately clear sky. Heaven is a patch of grass nobody dares to walk across because the dogs got there first. I’d like my days to mirror each other into infinitude. Too much to ask, to ooze smoothly along a path I make up as I go? Penelope Moffet Penelope Moffet is a Southern California poet whose most recent chapbook is It Isn't That They Mean to Kill You (Arroyo Seco Press, 2018). The drawing, Snail Heaven, was created as part of the 2020 Postcard Poetry (PoPo) festival, and the first draft of the poem was then written on the back of the card. Winslow Homer Painting A Summer Night The two women are dancing in the moonlight, twirling in between the glow of the house and the gleam of the moon breaking on the sea-- turning and turning on the worn planking of the porch that faces the rocky shore where friends have gathered themselves into piles of silhouettes shored up against the play of light whitening the robin’s-egg-blue sea between grim gesturings of black rock. This one’s dreaming smile reminds him of Helena, and he suddenly sees he must capture the wave spuming behind her. Joseph Stanton 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. Birds of a Feather The video is a product created for PAM Jam, an annual collaborative event in Saint Augustine, FL for Poets, Artists and Musicians. Typically in fall, teams present at Butterfield Garage Gallery and the Corazon Cinema (host to Ancient City Poets). This year due to the pandemic, live events have been cancelled, and the project has morphed into books, videos and social media programs. Christy Sheffield Sanford was the poet and videographer; Debra Mixon Holliday was the artist. Duffy Bishop interpreted the poems, and Chris Carlson composed the music and played guitar. The calls of crows and ravens play a starring role. In the video, we thank many people and above all poet Loretta Leto. Loretta was inspired by her late friend Carol Green, to realize the PAM Jam idea. https://pam-jam.com to donate The book Birds of a Feather, with poems and images in colour, is now available at Amazon. The artist Debra Mixon Holliday and poet Christy Sheffield Sanford collaborated on the creation of this work. Artist Debra Mixon Holliday Debra is a native of Florida’s central Gulf Coast where, as a child, she had free reign to wander her grandparents' farm and ranch. Those wanderings began a foundation of watching and observing the region’s flora and fauna that now influence her art. Working primarily as a printmaker and mixed media artist, she explores nature as a boundless well of subject matter. Our relationships to nature also serve as an entry point to addressing themes on boundaries, connections, sense of place, time, memory, and identity. Debra holds a Bachelor of Arts in Visual Arts from Eckerd College and a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from the University of South Florida, both located in Saint Petersburg, Florida. Since 2014, Debra has resided in her adopted hometown of Saint Augustine, Florida, where she is an enthusiastic member of Butterfield Garage Art Gallery. Her work is available through the gallery, on her website, and at various outdoor art shows throughout the state, where she has won a number of awards. In 2019, Debra seized an opportunity to escape the corporate world and transitioned to become a full-time artist. She looks forward to continuing with learning, exploring, and pursuing expression through her art. https://www.debramixonholliday.com Poet Christy Sheffield Sanford Christy Sheffield Sanford, daughter of visual artists, grew up in Atlanta. She spent several years at Rollins College before obtaining a Bachelor of Arts from Georgia State University. She holds a Master of Arts Degree in Creative Writing and Interarts from Antioch University. Christy has received State of Florida recognition awards in Literature and regional grants in New Forms and has won a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry. She was the first Virtual Writer-in-Residence for trAce, formerly housed at Nottingham-Trent University. Her representative web-specific works are being archived at Washington State University. Sanford has been an experimental artist-writer, specializing in Genre Fusion and Interdisciplinary Arts for over thirty-five years. Christy is the author of eight small press books including The Hs: The Spasms of a Requiem and The Cowrie Shell Piece (Baroque and Rococo Strains). Her digital animated poetry, featured in literary magazines, is housed at Vimeo. Her work has been published by A-3, Inverted Syntax and The Ekphrastic Review. Her essay, “The Roots of Non-linearity: Toward a Theory of Web-Specific Art-Writing” is forthcoming from The Digital Review. christysheffieldsanford.com Musicians Duffy Bishop and Chris Carlson On the West Coast, Duffy is a Hall of Fame member for the Cascade Blues Association (Portland), Washington Blues Society (Seattle) and a recipient of both organizations’ Lifetime Achievement Award. She won the Cascade Blues Society’s Female Vocalist Award so many years in a row they renamed it the Duffy Bishop Female Vocalist Award. Duffy was inducted into Oregon Music Hall of Fame in 2016. With long-time collaborator, guitarist and husband Chris Carlson, they’ve played venues across the US, Canada, Norway, Japan, Hong Kong, and Austria. “Bishop is a revelation, belting dynamic blues, sometimes in duet with the blistering guitar of her husband, bandleader Chris Carlson” -- Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Chronicle. When not touring with their band, Duffy and Chris have performed with Teatro ZinZanni, a circus/cabaret/tent show in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and with the Palazzo show in Europe. Duffy starred in the lead role as Madame ZinZanni, a role also performed by Thelma Houston, Joan Baez and Ann Wilson. Duffy played Janis Joplin in a Seattle production of the play Janis, with Chris as Musical Director. Sam Andrew, guitarist for Janis’ band Big Brother and the Holding Company, was a show advisor. Through that connection, Duffy toured Japan with Big Brother. She played the role of Dr. Frankenfurter in Seattle’s Empty Space Theater production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. duffybishop.com 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 Figures in a Landscape, by Bertram Brooker. Deadline is September 18, 2020. 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 you wrote down. (Please note, experimental formats are difficult to publish online. We will consider them but they present technical difficulties with web software that may not be easily resolved.) 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 BROOKER WRITING CHALLENGE in the subject line. 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, September 18, 2020. 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! 12. Please share this prompt with your writing groups, Facebook groups, social media circles, and anywhere else you can. The simple act of sharing brings readers to The Ekphrastic Review, and that is the best way to support the poets and writers on our pages! |
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