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Some Places So High, by Shannon Lise

11/30/2018

1 Comment

 
Picture
Natural Arch at Capri, by William Stanley Haseltine (USA). 1871.
Some Places So High

that ships in the sea
are like tiny white water birds
dwarfed by carven cliffs.

I should have liked
to bring you here

to clamber up
through brave patches of mossy grass
creviced in red rock

to watch our great shadows
dancing together

and to laugh at the ships
dreaming of gold and spices.

I could have talked to you
about what seeing is like, from up here

converting colours into hard gems of words
for you,

working carefully
until all the bloom of this red and blue world
burst in upon the graves behind your eyes –

slate pink horizon
dusted in distant shores and deepening
in the shadowed turquoise of these our waters

rust bright rocks stacked to rival Babel
rising to mighty arches –

I could have taught you the magic of the world
through the kiss of sea breezes
shivering so high above the surf

through the feel of stone
warmed in lingering sunlight

through the sound of baby waves
flirting with slippery crab-infested roots of the cliff

and laughing, as all the world laughs,
at the little white birds on the sea.

Perhaps, if you had come to visit,
if I had found a way

to lead you to the edge and paint the shades
of ocean in your brain –
perhaps you would not have jumped.

Shannon Lise

Originally from Texas, Shannon Lise spent twelve years in the Middle East and currently lives in Québec. Her first poetry collection is underway and recent work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Sunlight Press, Ink in Thirds, Eunoia Review and Red Eft Review. She also writes epic fantasy realism (Keeper of Nimrah, 2014).

1 Comment

Laura Ann and Her Papaw Brumleve Eat Bean Soup, by Brian A. Salmons

11/30/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
Family photo provided by the poet.
Laura Ann and Her Papaw Brumleve Eat Bean Soup
Picture
Brian A. Salmons
​
Brian A. Salmons lives in Orlando, Florida. His work has appeared in
Eyedrum Periodically, NonBinary Review, Poets Reading the News, Poetry WTF?! and PARKXVI, among others. He is the host of @BrianAndTheNight, a poetry podcast on Facebook.
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EKPHRASTIC WRITING CHALLENGE: Rainy Night at Etaples, by William Edouard Scott

11/30/2018

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Picture
Rainy Night at Etaples, by William Edouard Scott (USA). 1912.
Ekphrastic Writing Challenge

Thank you to everyone who participated in our last writing challenge for Tolima-Region Gold Breastplate, Colombia, which ends today. Accepted responses for the Gold Breastplate challenge will be published on December 7, 2018.

The prompt this time is Rainy Night at Etaples, by William Edouard Scott. Deadline is December 14, 2018. PLEASE NOTE: In order to better organize submissions, we have a new email for challenge submissions:ekphrasticchallenge@gmail.com

Everyone can participate! Try something new if you've never written from visual art before and discover why there are so many of us devotees. Ekphrastic writing helps artists and lovers of art to look more carefully, from different angles or mindsets, at visual art. And it helps writers discover new ways of approaching their work, their experiences, and writing itself. 

The rules are simple.

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 painting 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.

3. Have fun.

4. Send only your best results to ekphrasticchallenge@gmail.com. 

5. Include SCOTT WRITING CHALLENGE in the subject line in all caps please. Please use this email only for challenge submissions. Continue to use the regular email for regular submissions and correspondence.

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. 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 December 14, 2018.

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!

Please note, next year we are going to have some special guest editors judging some of the challenges! We're hoping this will inspire in unexpected ways, add new flavours and perspectives to the journal, and foster community. When a challenge has a guest editor, it will be announced in advance as well as in this space the day the prompt is posted. We're excited about this and about having a whole year of challenges, now that we've found an ekphrastic prompt system that is working out in terms of consistency and longevity. Many great poems will be written in the year ahead!

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Untitled Love, by Faith M. Deruelle

11/28/2018

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Picture
Untitled, by Zdzisław Beksiński (Poland). 1984. (copyrights inherited by Muzeum Historyczne w Sanoku) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]
Untitled Love

The two of them died in the war, but their bodies
remained, entwined in each other’s limbs
causing them to become a statue of molten skin,
pressed tightly together and clenching open palms
to bare backs, locked in an embrace that can’t
be unbound, one continuous creature
unable to be ripped apart,
each trying to shield the other from the doom
lurking behind eyes closed tightly
because what you can’t see can’t hurt you
and life will be okay, but they perished with their naïve ideal
of hugs curing any harm that comes their way,
their arms scrambling to latch onto any part
they could wrap themselves around, bones protruding
from the translucent surface stretched loosely over
every angle of the two headed being with its four
legs crossed within itself, tightening the core
of the beast, digging claws into the shoulders
of its counterpart, toes thrust into the ground,
their last effort at rooting themselves
before the burst of light from the distance
swept them away in its radiant gaze,
and tears trekked down their faces, trusting the caress
to withstand the tenacious winds lamenting towards them,
this was their last exhale before they were damned to this ground.

Faith M. Deruelle

Faith M. Deruelle lives in Brooklyn with her one cat and one fish. She was born in Florida, and attended Florida State University where she obtained a Bachelor of Science in Creative Writing and Environmental Science. Faith is in a Master of Fine Arts program at The New School in New York.

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With Hidden Noise, by Jenene Ravesloot

11/28/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
With Hidden Noise, by Marcel Duchamp, (USA, b. France). 1916.
With Hidden Noise

Two  brass   plates,  engraved  on  the  top  and  bottom  with
English  and French words, and in between these, a small ball
of twine that hides a noise inside of it when it is shaken. All of
these  joined by four screws. If  you are inclined, supply  your
own  noise  because  you can’t  shake  this ball  of  twine. The
museum  won’t allow it.  So wear a grimace.  Begin to scream.
A scream will do it.  Don’t  save it for a private performance in
the shower.  Scream  if you are inclined.  Maybe you’ll cause a
fine  ruckus and  a  kind of  wonder.  The  museum  will  never
forgive you, but your audience  might  think  you’re part of the
display;  an  art  object.  You  scream.  It  just  won’t  work.  No
matter how much you  scream.  You can’t  shake them up. You
shut up and attempt to stuff your scream into that small ball of
twine,  with  a   noise  already  hidden  inside  of   it,  which   is
sandwiched between two brass plates joined by four  screws.
You can’t get near it.  It’s impossible.  Is it true that a  scream is
still a scream  even  if you can’t  hear it? Things  get  balled  up.
Things get hidden.  Things forget  to make a noise, or a noise is
ignored. Supply your  own  noise, or  keep  it  hidden.  No  one
will listen.


Jenene Ravesloot

Jenene Ravesloot has written five books of poetry. She has published in After Hours Press, Sad Girl Review, DuPage Valley Review, the Caravel Literary Arts Journal, Connotation Press: An Online Artifact, Packingtown Review, The Miscreant, Exact Change Only, THIS Literary Magazine, and other online journals, print journals, chapbooks, and anthologies. Jenene is a member of The Poets’ Club of Chicago, the Illinois State Poetry Society, and Poets & Patrons. She has received two Pushcart Prize nominations in 2018.
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The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, by Lizzie Ballagher

11/27/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, by Katshushika Hokusai (Japan). 1831-33.
The Great Wave Off Kanagawa

I am the one in the lowest boat
            my head flung back
            my face the colour of rice
            the colour of the distant moon
as the great wave     too                 flings back     crests
up       over      curving       curling              caving in

while I am only a white foam-speck
             my face a pale flint-fleck
my blue fishing jacket
             a drop of indigo water
at the foot of the glowering            towering     tide
    
our painted prow rises skywards
                                                             on the wave         but we are overswept

the mountain shakes
             even the very sea-bed quakes
                          heaves up     the tsunami
                                                              soaring              over             me

by beauty are we so engulfed
             in the unstoppable         rising         roaring     wave
                         all white-fingered
                                      more mountainous than Fuji

                                                  that we are done for
​
                                      small consolation to be dying a beauteous death
               forever                       poised            below           the wave
immortalized by Hokusai’s deep                  dangerous                 ink

Lizzie Ballagher


A published novelist between 1984 and 1996 in North America, the UK, Netherlands and Sweden (pen-name Elizabeth Gibson), Lizzie Ballagher now writes poetry rather than fiction. Her work was featured at the 2017 Houston, TX, Poetry Festival and also appears intermittently in South-East Walker Magazine and Poetry Space.  Having spent all her life in editorial and teaching work, she is a long-time member of the UK Society of Authors. She lives in southern England, writing a blog at https://lizzieballagherpoetry.wordpress.com/. Her poetry has appeared in magazines in England, Ireland and the US. Two of her poems have recently been nominated for the 2018 Pushcart Prize.
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Mind/ful/l of Miles, by D.R. James

11/27/2018

0 Comments

 
Mind/ful/l
of Miles


What’s new?
I too
am kind
of blue,
ear buds
soothing

“So What,”

Chambers
and then
Evans
noodling
Gil E.’s
intro.

Sooo what?

Upright
walks in
the tune,
conjures
modal
three-part

sooo what’s.

No mute
for Miles,
just cool,
crystal-
clearful
riffing.

Sooo what?

Coltrane’s
tenor
takes me…
Jimmy’s
brushing
behind.

Sooo what?

Cannon-
ball’s break
before
more Bill,
then back
as one:

Sooo what?

B-dah
b-dah-
b-dah
b-daaah:

Sooo what?

B-dah
b-dah
b-dah.
b-dah
bah:

Sooo what?

B-dah
b-dah-
b-dah
b-daaah:

Sooo what?

B-dah
bah-bah-
baaah:

Thaaa’s what.

D.R. James

This poem was first published in Ireland's Galway Review.

D. R. James has taught college writing, literature, and peace-making for 34 years and lives in the woods outside Saugatuck, Michigan, with his wife, psychotherapist Suzy Doyle. His work appears in various magazines and anthologies, his latest of seven collections is If god were gentle (Dos Madres Press, 2017), his micro-chapbook All Her Jazz will appear soon from The Origami Poems Project, and his chapbook Surreal Expulsion will be released in the spring of 2019 by The Poetry Box.  www.amazon.com/author/drjamesauthorpage

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We Are Galactic Trout, by Jordan Trethewey

11/25/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
Photograpy by Mark Basarab (USA). Contemporary. From Unsplash. Click image for artist site.
We are galactic trout
 
and swim where canyon walls
give shape to the galaxy above--
a black oxbow river dotted
with firefly prey.
 
We are docile trout--
hungry, yet know the hunt
is pointless.
 
For when we arrive,
the objects of our desires
will be gone--
 
moving as far away
as we move near.

Jordan Trethewey

Jordan Trethewey is a writer and editor living in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. His work has been featured in many online and print publications, and has been translated in Vietnamese and Farsi. To see more of his work go to: https://jordantretheweywriter.wordpress.com

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Lonely Bird, by H.W. Bryce

11/25/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
Improvisation 35, by Wassily Kandinsky (Russia). 1914

Lonely Bird
 
All the colours of chaos and smudge smear
The clear eyes of heaven and of earth
So that nothing is clear any more
And black and white is buried in the turmoil
Smeared onto the canvas of life
And man cannot recognize his mate…
But in the turmoil, the caloposy* of modern art
In the disharmony of colours arguing against blending…
                A loney bird sings.
 
Its voice rises above the cacophonic pandemonium
As the musical notes fall from their clefs
And scream in their horror of loss and abandonment…
Yet the loney bird sings, a lonely herald of hope
In a vision of renewal and peace.
Listen. Listen.
Listen to the lonely bird sing.
 
Her song is the song of hope.
Her song is the prayer of the lost children,
Of the lonely and the beaten,
And a cry for the path less taken.
 
Sing with the lonely bird
Gird your lonely loin,
Join with the colours of Hope,
Slope not away from her song.
 
For the fish in the seas lose their senses
Of navigation and distance in the reverberations
Of the swirling, howling colours and one landmark
Butts into another and one fish can no longer
Recognize another in its new and splodged colours
In this crazy mixing bowl of splish splashing
Hues and dyes,
And one by one each fish, each one dies...
 
And in the swirl and the scramble of chaos
And rewritten history repeating itself
The minds of mankind like The Scream are screaming
Out like the lost souls being sucked into
Dante’s Inferno, and the crazy painter
Splashes more colours and more...
 
And the butterflies, and the humming birds
Are not painted in but are being painted right out…
 
And the drum beat keeps skipping its beat
And the music can find its rhythm no more
And the orchestral members keep trying to
Out-loud each other in great disharmony…
 
And yet, the loney bird sings.
 
Her song is the song of hope.
Her song is the prayer of the lost children,
Of the lonely and the beaten,
And a cry for the path less taken.
 
Sing with the lonely bird,
Gird your lonely loin,
Join with the colours of Hope,
Slope not away from her song.
 
H. W. Bryce
 
*caloposy – a made up word to describe the chaos of colours (in modern art)

H. W. Bryce, BA, Western University, lives in Metro Vancouver, Canada. Former journalist, editor, book editor, teacher, courier, and robbery and kidnap victim while travelling the Middle East and North Africa, he survived near-clinical depression by writing poetry. While learning the art of caregiving to his late wife on her long goodbye Alzheimer’s journey, both his writing and his life were transformed. His poetry appears in anthologies in Canada, the US, and India. He is published in the Neworld Review. Mr. Bryce was one of three judges for the 2017 Rabindranath Tagore Award International English Poetry Competition. He is the author of a family book Ann, A Tribute, and of Chasing a Butterfly: a journey in poems of love and loss to acceptance, the poems of Alzheimer’s and poems for everybody. Mr. Bryce’s blog appears on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/herb.w.bryce He has been a featured poet and frequent contributor to many venues, and has ‘appeared’ on radio as well. Mr. Bryce is a member of the Royal City Literary Society and the Holy Wow Poets Canada.
 

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Blackbird, by Jonel Abellanosa

11/23/2018

2 Comments

 
Picture
The Day Before Heaven and Hell, by Jean Vengua (USA). Contemporary. Click image for artist site.
Blackbird
        
Sound was nonexistent.

“Tree” or “hill” or “mountain” were ideas
in God’s mind. The creative urge shaded
with blues. “Flower” and “leaf” were light’s
saplings, which upon command went wild,
divine desire for company spindly
as needles. Millennia later, man’s
self-extensions grew black as greed.

Let there be light was a thought
that sounded good. Light neither
from the sun nor the moon, but the ray
of love from God’s heart. Light remained
for three days. Then the tree, the hill
and the mountain formed. Heaven still
the background. Blue until today.

The Earth’s bowel had to be carved
and abyss was a thought. A hunch.
Sufferings would be black as pines,
pains red as shadows before dawn.
Hell’s hole had to be dug, before
the blackbird resisting God’s
thirteen ways of looking

created the first sounds with its song

Jonel Abellanosa

Jonel Abellanosa resides in Cebu City, the Philippines. His poetry has appeared in numerous journals, including Rattle, Poetry Kanto, Anglican Theological Review, Mojave River Review and Star*Line. His poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and Dwarf Stars award. His fourth chapbook, Songs from My Mind’s Tree, has been published in early 2018 by Clare Songbirds Publishing House (New York), which will also publish his full-length collection, Multiverse, in late 2018. His poetry collection, Sounds in Grasses Parting, is forthcoming from Moran Press.
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