 Les âges de la vie: les jeunes mères, by Eugène Carrière (France) 1897-1900 Eugène Carrière, Above All Else, a Man Still in Love With His Wife Sitting down to put pen upon a paper Eugène Carrière was first a Man Above all else. — Gabriel Seailles The city of Paris wondered, what would I paint? On these walls, in this room, where two make a commitment in a neighbourhood in the universe. What did I think? About it? The painter of motherhood. Marriage. A man with seven children, still in love with his wife. From the smoke, she becomes. Sophie. What did it mean to me, you mean. She always gave me the strength to go further in life…and so, I speak from the heart, a mysterious idea. From the landscape, the universal soul, we emerge — a shape, shapes, with depth, bare, some markers there, with sweeping clothes, brown. Brown, brown, brown. Earth, dirt. Spirit, yes, free associate, but from here. I just detest sentimentality. This is about the evolution of the spirit. Not sentiment. My family a microcosm of mankind. The social contract meant little to me, but the gift of life, did, mean something to me. A human responsibility. A bird flies, a clean objective: movement, pure. Time, can hardly see it pass, how fast, but then, I detest sentimentalism. But it does move us, doesn’t it? Life, love, responsibility… Sweeping into form behind her, a girl less formed for she will become, on the road, a mother caring for the same idea head-to-head at different stages. We are so many ages, sparkling from the other side, and dare I say, more sensual with time in the limelight, maybe moon. A fully realized person. My wife. Her hand, a tender touch, a babe, the tiniest thing. Not so much ghostly though we are all apparitions. My youngest died, the first, tragically, young. My son, a shock, a cleanse, lots of things. Born from her, I painted her, made her, watched her, loved her, sparkling from the other side, the painter of motherhood. Though the individual, not exactly the point, unity. In the middle of all that smoke, my greatest joy. Maybe the deepest, most universal, essential, yearning…unity, what we might be missing, the most. We return in a crescendo, a symphony, not sentimental. The illusion of separation dissolves, real, nonetheless, but the gift of life continues… as an unfinished masterpiece for us all. The matter. What mattered to me was not money or success but the only veritable acquisition: the evolution of my spirit. I accomplished nothing extraordinary. In the middle of all that smoke, I never made a mark that I did not want to make. The brume, the dust, the ephemeral nature captured forever, if they survive the test of time, I suppose they will, stirring, isn’t it? “Love each other wildly,” I said, to my family, in the end, on my deathbed. “Love each other wildly…” I owed my mother, my thoughtful spirit, subsumed. At my funeral, Rodin, my friend, who holds my painting in his house, spoke. “My very dear and very great Eugene Carrière, who left us so soon, showed genius in painting his wife and children. It was enough for him to celebrate maternal love to be sublime…” Maria Mocerino Maria Mocerino is finishing her first book between Italy and Turkey. She's currently writing about Barbara Harris, a stage and screen legend. Her work has been published in Bending Genres, Star 82 Review. The Rogue Mag, The Irish Examiner, and Reality Sandwich.
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 The Woman with the Sparrows, by Carl Bloch (Denmark) 1886 The Food Chain The old woman looked at her starving babies. It was a frightful sight. Something had to be done. "To reap, you must sow," she said, and immediately knew where she had to go. The baker sold her yesterday's bread for a coin, and she went in search of a quiet corner, crumbled up a piece of the day-old bread, and scattered it on the ground. She leaned on her crutch and waited patiently. It wasn't long before the first one showed up. Then another, followed by another, and another. "5, 6, 7...." A baker's dozen she counted, and smiled at the irony. Once a trust had been established between them, she started hobbling down the street, slowly, throwing a trail of crumbs behind her all the while. The little sparrows, excited and content, followed the old cat lady home, where they were welcomed by her starving babies. Steen W. Rasmussen Steen W. Rasmussen was a singer/songwriter and guitarist with various garage bands in Denmark, his native land. He now resides in New York City and recently became a member of Woodside Writers, a literary forum that meets weekly. His poetry and prose have appeared in numerous publications over the past eighteen months, including in The Ekphrastic Review.  Ruth Sears Bacon, by John Singer Sargent (USA) 1887 Ruth Sears Bacon (1887) Ruth was not happy this morning. The curtains did not rustle their morning rhymes; the sun did not stripe the window frames. Cook was baking, and whatever it was, it made the house smell like tea biscuits. Then it made the house smell like burnt tea biscuits. Ruth was not happy this morning. This morning, the mailman forgot to leave any mail, and Cook wanted Ruth to eat oats. Ruth did not like oats. Ruth wanted bacon. Cook said Ruth couldn’t have bacon until Saturday when the family had breakfast together, and today was only Tuesday. Ruth would have to wait until Saturday, Cook said. “And while you’re waiting eat your oats.” Ruth was not happy this morning. Late this morning a gentleman was coming to visit. Mother said Ruth was to wear her white frilly frock and her chestnut parlour boots, and then she tied Ruth’s hair with a baby-blue bow. Ruth could feel its weight on the back top of her head. Ruth shook her head and shook her head and shook her head, when no one was looking of course, but the bow held fast, and Ruth knew if she tugged it off, Cook would be cross. So, the bow would have to stay, but the oats, no, that was something else. Ruth did not want oats; Ruth wanted bacon. Twosday, Satday, fooey. Ruth was going to have bacon — today. Today, the gentleman coming to visit was going to paint Ruth in honour of her fourth birthday, which was two weeks away, so her Mother said. Ruth was happy to turn four, though three had been fine enough. Ruth was going to have a party. She had picked out a cake. The frosting was butter yellow and the roses were candy pink. Cook said Ruth was too young to choose her cake trimmings, but Mother said, “No, let her, besides you know how tiresome she gets when she doesn’t have her own way.” So Ruth would get to have butter on her cake, and candy, and at her party, she would get to eat her cake too. But for right now, what Ruth wanted was bacon. The gentleman painter’s name was John, but Mother said Ruth was not to call him John. Ruth was to call him Mr. Sargent. “But if his name’s ‘John’, why can’t I call him John?” “Ruthy honey, it’s not polite to call grown people by their first names. Ladies don’t do that.” “Will he wear a uniform?” “No, why would he wear a uniform?" “People called ‘sergeant’ wear uniforms.” “He’s not that type of sergeant. He’s a painter. That’s why we’ve asked him to paint you.” “If he’s a painter why do I have to call him Mister? Why can’t I call him Painter?” “Ruth, do be a sweetheart and go play. Mother has a headache right now.” Ruth didn’t get headaches, but she did get unhappy, like now. So Ruth went to play. Ruth liked to play, mostly. Ruth liked to play with Boxer, who was a teddy bear given to her by Uncle Laurie. Uncle Laurie’s face was as round and white as the dinner plates Cook used at fancy parties, and he was as noisy as a party too. He trumpeted his arrival with a bellow when he stepped out of the carriage and he bellowed again on the third step of the front door footsteps. On his second bellow, he would throw his hat up in the air, catch it, and then hand it to Cook waiting at the front door. “Oh my, Mr. Inglewood,” she would giggle, and blink, blink, blink. Then Uncle Laurie would blow through the front doors and if Ruth was about, scoop her up and swing her round. Ruth didn’t mind being swept around because Uncle Laurie smelt like spring flowers and his jacket felt like hair ribbons and he brought Ruth presents, like Boxer Teddy, who was so sturdy you could swing him upside down by one foot on the edge of the first floor landing, and his head never fell off, which is more than you could say for any of the dolls. Ruth liked swinging and shaking Boxer, ‘til she tired of it. Like now. Right now, Ruth had had enough of Boxer. The lingering smell of burnt biscuits reminded her of something, what was it? That’s right — Ruth wanted bacon. Cook kept the bacon in an icebox on the bottom shelf in the pantry. Ruth didn’t need Cook; she could get her own bacon. So she did. When Cook was outside on the backdoor steps, chat, chat, chatting, and blink, blink, blinking at the milkman, Ruth went into the pantry, opened the icebox and peeked inside. The box held blocks of butter that looked a lighter yellow than the frosting Ruth was going have on her cake. They were stacked on one side like a yellow brick wall. The other side of the icebox held lumps of red speckled with white, and strips of pink – bacon. Ruth picked the top strip, held it between her thumb and first finger, and toddled out of Cook’s kitchen. She got to the entrance parlour and was about to climb the stairs to her room, but decided she could eat her bacon downstairs. Besides, Mother was upstairs, and she might not be pleased to see Ruth carrying a strip of bacon. Father’s study door was open and Ruth knew he had left by carriage in the early morning because that’s what he did every morning. Ruth took her strip of bacon and laid it down on the rug in front of Father’s tree trunk of a desk. Against the blue-green plush of the rug, the bacon looked very pink. Too pink. When Cook gave her bacon, Ruth couldn’t remember it looking so pink. Cook’s bacon had bits of black and stripes of brown. Cook must do something to make the bacon black and brown. Ruth would have to brown her bacon. But how? And with what? Ruth sat with her legs tucked under her dress, her elbows resting on the rug, her chin cradled in both hands, and considered her unbrown bacon. A breeze fanned the chiffon curtains in the study, making a sheet of paper curl, lift, and slide to the floor. Ruth looked up and spotted Father’s fountain pen. The black feather was leaning with its pointy end in an inkpot that sat at the back corner of Father’s desk — the corner closest to her. Ruth remembered Father writing; his fountain pen splotched black, and dried to brown. Ruth stood, walked to her Father’s desk, and seized the feathered inkpot. This time she crossed her legs when she sat on the rug, inkpot on one side, pink strip in front. Ruth picked up the feather, pointed it at the strip, and shook it (the same way she liked to shake Boxer). Splotches landed on the rug, on Ruth’s stockings, and a few splats even caught her boots — but none reached the bacon. On her second try, she did better. The ink splat the tail end of the bacon and made a few specks higher on the strip. The specks spread ever so slightly like eyes caught by surprise. Ruth held up her blackened bacon — that’s when the front door bell rang. Someone was coming down the stairs. The swish against the bannisters suggested Mother’s skirts. Hushed fussing sounded from the entrance parlor. Followed by a few moments of quiet during which Ruth mulled over her next move. “Rooo-Theee,” calls Mother. Cook thump, thump, thumps up the stairs. “Ma’am, she’s not in her room,” heard from above. Ruth looks at the ink: on the rug, on her stockings, on her boots, decorating her bacon. Ruth is not happy. Ruth starts to cry. “Ruthy, what are you doing? You know you’re not supposed to be in Father’s study.” Mother stands at the door, the cloudy puffs of her skirt blocking all light from the corridor. Ruth turns and stands, and in so doing stains the back of her white frilly frock. Mother looks at Ruth. Mother looks at the feather in Ruth’s hand. Mother looks at the inked stockings, the rug, the bacon. Mother is not happy. Ruth cries harder. Cook comes to the doorway and sees Mother, unblinking, straight-lipped, still as a stone. An unknown man comes to the doorway and lurks behind Cook. Cook takes charge, so the fussing moves from demure to reproving rather quickly. The three big people encircle Ruth, so that the room looks dark. Ruth wails louder. “No, no, it’s fine,” says the man. He leans down. The whiskers on his chin are the same chestnut as Ruth’s boots. “Really, she’ll be fine.” “Look at the back of her dress! And her stockings! And what am I going to tell my husband about the rug?” Ruth has never seen Mother look at her for so long. Ruth stops crying. “We’ll sit her in a chair so we won’t see the black on her dress, and I’ll paint her stockings a charcoal hue. That will probably work better against the ivory of the chair and her dress anyway. She’ll be fine, Mrs. Bacon. Really, she will be fine.” Cook, Mother, and the man, who Ruth decides to call “Painter John,” place Ruth in an armchair so that the ink on her frock doesn’t show from the front. Cook finds a doll with a head, Ruth’s not sure from where, and sits it next to Ruth. Ruth is not happy, though she did sear her bacon. Mia Pandey Gordon Mia Pandey Gordon was born in India and raised in many places around the globe, including Australia, Greece, Hong Kong, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. She has now returned to the sunny shores of Sydney where one of her essays, "Walking the Wire," has just been released in a book titled Growing Up Indian in Australia. She received a Master of Arts in Writing from Johns Hopkins University in Washington D.C., where she was awarded Outstanding Graduate in Fiction. Further, she just finished teaching a poetry course titled, "Seasons of Verse" through Odyssey, the continuing education arm of Johns Hopkins University.  The Pushcart Prize is an annual awards anthology honouring the best of the small presses, since 1976. More info: pushcartprize.com The Ekphrastic Review nominates writers annually for this important honour. Please join us in congratulating the following writers for their nominations and their talent. ** Tough: A Sijo Sequence Rose Menyon Heflin https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-challenges/gustave-guillaumet-ekphrastic-writing-responses (scroll down) ** Christ After, by Niko Malouf https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-challenges/francisco-antonio-vallejo-ekphrastic-writing-responses (scroll down) ** Mr. Death, by Catherine Owen https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-review/selections-from-somatic-the-life-and-work-of-egon-schiele-by-catherine-owen-1998 ** The Invisible Hand, by Royal Rhodes https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-challenges/francisco-antonio-vallejo-ekphrastic-writing-responses (scroll down) ** Manet’s Funeral, by JoAnna Scandiffio https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-review/manets-funeral-by-joanna-scandiffio ** Eve Writes to Mary Cassatt, by Sharon Tracey www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-review/eve-writes-to-mary-cassatt-by-sharon-tracey   Hope, by George Frederic Watts (UK) 1886 Hope If she were here, would she likely be cliche? Not the thing that always sings, but one that scorns the day, draped in black threads, tiny sunburst tattoo on her leg hanging off her bed. Bent over a cracked screen, eyes accusing light, she’d tell you she doesn’t like school, and she’ll never need trig, but she watches for what creeps and crawls on scarlet knees. Hears the vibrating sibilance of silenced tongues, sees the random flight of smoke collected by a breeze. Marks her journal with phases of the moon, weaves tendrils of words to cry themselves into green. Notices each fiddlehead unfurling to fern. Listens for the drip, drip, drip of incipient spring. Nancy Sobanik Nancy Sobanik is a Registered Nurse, who started writing in 2020 and is learning poetics through workshops, study and the feedback of generous poet friends. She was awarded second place in the Belfast Maine Postmark Poetry Contest 2023 and is currently a 2024 finalist. Her poems can be found in Sparks of Calliope, Best of The Net Nominee 2023 and Pushcart Nomination 2024, Triggerfish Critical Review, and Sheila-Na-Gig. Maine is her playground and home. Louise Bourgeois Untitled 1991 This is a story of spirals inextricably linked but not touching Octopus limbs curl around ear canals loud with silent drumming The empty Aegean roars inside an unmarked shell Split by whim or weight here is a cruel Etruscan sarcophagus of spouses by way of Henry Moore These are not polychromed lovers at ease sharing a caress an eternal moment Purged of peripheral vision left with a single deep empty socket no archaic smiles flicker across their white marble bulbs Dana Salisbury This poem was inspired by Untitled, by Louise Bourgeois (USA, b. France) 1991: https://massmoca.org/event/louise-bourgeois/louise-bourgeois-untitled-1991-4/ Dana Salisbury was a visual artist for twenty years before shifting mid-career to experimental choreography. An exploration of non-visual perception led her to create Dana Salisbury and the No-See-Ums, a company dedicated to creating Unseen Dances, dances for blindfolded audiences. Her Dark Dining Projects offered sensory feasts to blindfolded guests. For the last several years, she has focused her attention on writing. Her work has appeared in Nashville Review and Months to Years. She lives in Easthampton, MA.  Woman with a Parrot, by Gustav Courbet (France) 1866 Woman with a Parrot The painting is still shocking, after nearly two centuries. The woman’s flesh, her voluptuousness, her expression, the bird, astonishing in a way nothing is astonishing anymore. Erotic, not necessarily pornographic. There are Titian's Venuses, Olympia, Psyche, Leda. What is it that makes this more erotic? Beauty and strangeness. Whether we are men, women, or anyone else, the woman in the painting is not for us. It’s easy to imagine certain viewers in nineteenth century Paris, male viewers, who simply took the image in, thought it a pleasant nude, wanted to meet the model, but they would have been fools. A woman who loves only women once told me, she wanted to run her fingers over the painting, kiss it. She was an artist. Despite rejoinders to the contrary, it would be easy to regard this as a mythological subject, as there are numerous stories of women and birds in Greek mythology. The painter Courbet never made that claim. There is a timelessness to the image. What did the woman do before this moment? What did she do afterwards? In the background we see swirling dark drapery. She lies on a white sheet, which may be a painter’s drop cloth. No one else is present. Her hair is wild, voluminous, spread out beneath her head like a mass of what, seaweed perhaps. No doubt there are twenty-first century feminists who dislike the painting. Louisine Havemeyer was a nineteenth- and early twentieth century feminist who fought for women’s suffrage. It was Mrs. Havemeyer who insisted that her reluctant husband purchase the work. It would be interesting to have seen the painting on the wall in their house on Fifth Avenue, particularly when guests were present. “I begged Mr. Havemeyer to buy the picture. Not to hang it in our gallery lest the anti-nudists should declare a revolution and revise our constitution, but just to keep it in America, just that such a work should not be lost...” The male gaze, the female gaze. Mythology from a story that doesn’t exist, that we then invent. Perhaps the museum should add a warning, an admonition not to leap to conclusions. Steven Fraccaro Steven Fraccaro is the author of two novels, Dark Angels and Gainsborough’s Revenge, as well as of a book of essays, The Recalcitrant Scrivener. His most recent book is Skeleton Keys, published by Chax Press in 2023, a hybrid work intended to inhabit the space between poetry and prose, fiction and nonfiction. His piece on The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein appeared in The Ekphrastic Review in January 2019.  Ouiseaux Rouges (Red Birds), by Max Ernst (Germany) 1926 Filled With Emptiness Red birds perch and pray, beaks touch mildly while swirling hurricanes subvert wings, shadows morph, suns rise, feathers flutter wildly as harsh sides of wood cages close and enclose lashing tongues, tearful eyes, ears, beating hearts constrained within cycles of vicious mirth. The viewer of this savagery departs, unwilling to observe oppression’s birth amidst stone columns, harsh gallery lights, hushed tones detached from feathery madness, and heedless of these desperate, hopeless fights. Outside the prison of our nakedness lives on humanity’s unabashed shame at the destruction inside, outside of this frame. Lee Marcus Lee Marcus is a high school English teacher from Brooklyn, NY. When not encouraging young people to engage in academic discussions about poetry and prose or inspiring them to improve their writing skills, he enjoys yoga, running, walking his dog, Chef, and the joys of being a new parent (this list is not in order of priority). He also loves to write, cook, and bake, which he does, mostly during the summer, in Hinsdale, MA.
Send in the Clowns: an Ekphrastic Circus
The rise of the circus over 200 years past inspired an incredibly vast and varied world of visual art depictions. Painters were attracted to the rich array of themes and interesting characters of the circus. The colourful props, epic entertainment, harrowing feats, and beautiful women were irresistible subjects for many artists. The circus, of course, also had its darker side, its underbelly crawling with strange power exchange relationships, the display of differently abled human beings for profit, abuse of animals and women, and more. This colourful tapestry of psychology and spectacle was and is fertile ground for artists and writers, too. The new contest at The Ekphrastic Review is Send in the Clowns. We have curated more than NINETY fascinating paintings and other artworks, chosen to invite your writing to unexpected places. You can write poetry, flash fiction, or both, inspired by any of the artworks in Book One or Book Two. Be inspired by the characters and scenes in these paintings, by the art itself or the artists, or the subjects of the art, in any way that you want to interpret them. The purchase of one ebook of circus images serves as entry fee for the contest ($10CAD or approx. $7USD). You can choose book one or book two or both. These images can serve your ekphrastic practice through the contest and beyond, providing endless inspiration. We will publish a selection of finalists in The Ekphrastic Review. One poetry entry and one flash fiction entry will be declared winner in that category. The winning poet and winning flash fiction author will receive $100CAD. Rules 1. Write stories or poems inspired in any way by any of the artworks in the Send in the Clowns ebooks. Art can be from book one, book two, or both. 2. Submit up to three poems or flash fiction entries. You can enter as many times as you wish, with three entries for every $10 entry purchase. (For example, if you get both books one and two, you can enter six works.) 3. Poems and flash fiction 1000 max including title. 4. Deadline is midnight, eastern standard time, February 20, 2025. 5. Submit entries to [email protected]. 6. Put your entries in a Word document, together. Don't put your name etc. on the document. 7. Include a 100 word bio with your submission. Include your order number with your submission as well. 8. Include CIRCUS CONTEST in the subject line when submitting. 9. Please include the name and artist of the painting that inspired the work, noted along with every poem or story. 10. Please tell your friends and peers about this fabulous contest. We can't wait to be inundated with amazing circus stories and poetry! Containers: a Collaboration Between Poet Christine Stewart-Nuñez and Artist Julia Franklin11/6/2024   Stacked, by Julia Franklin (USA) contemporary  **   Ringed, by Julia Franklin (USA) contemporary  **   Discarded, by Julia Franklin (USA) contemporary  Christine Stewart-Nuñez, after art by Julia Franklin
Containers began when visual artist Julia Franklin and literary artist Christine Stewart-Nuñez met in preparation for Poetry Palooza, and event held at Main Frame Studios in Des Moines, Iowa in 2023. The aim of playful experimentation brought both women together initially, but learning about each other’s books and exhibitions cemented their commitment to ongoing collaboration. Through conversation, both artists agreed on a theme—containers—a concept that also informed formal constraints. Stewart-Nuñez identified containers made from different materials and found sources to serve as erasures, including manuals, blog posts, and magazines. Franklin responded to the erasures with imagistic multimedia pieces that she composed in Sucrets tins. In the third round, Stewart-Nuñez wrote another set of poems using the physical frame of the tins and the images Franklin created inside as inspiration. Containers represents a departure for both artists. Franklin, who had been producing large-scale exhibitions, made distilled compositions; Stewart-Nuñez, who had been writing lyric poems and essays, opted for erasures and a series of palindrome poems. Currently, the pair has made nine sets of works. Christine Stewart-Nuñez is the author of six books, including Chrysopoeia: Essays of Language, Love, and Place, (Stephen F. Austin State University Press 2022) and The Poet & The Architect (Terrapin Books 2021). Her work has been the basis for international, cross-artistic collaborations with colleagues in music, dance, visual art, and architecture. Christine served as South Dakota’s poet laureate from 2019-2021 and currently teaches for the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. christinestewartnunez.com. Julia Franklin is an accomplished artist, leader, professor and founder of multiple community arts programs. She creates immersive installations that memorialize everyday people, places, and moments to explore ideas of memory, loss, and identity. Franklin is a recipient of the prestigious Iowa Artist Fellowship and has exhibited artworks in over 85 shows across the United States. She is currently the Executive Director of Mainframe Studios in Downtown Des Moines. juliafranklinart.com/landscapes |
The Ekphrastic Review
COOKIES/PRIVACY
May 2026
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