Ekphrastic Writing Challenge: Teresa Vito

Equipoise, by Teresa Vito (USA) 2018.

Ekphrastic Writing Challenge

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. 

Thank you to everyone who participated in our last writing challenge featuring the work of Joan Miro, which ends today at midnight. Accepted responses for the Miro challenge will be published on June 21, 2019. 

The prompt this time is Equipoise, by Teresa Vito. Deadline is June 28, 2019.

We welcome Kyle Laws as guest editor for this challenge. Thank you so much to Kyle for taking on the challenge of the challenge! Kyle has been a frequent contributor to The Ekphrastic Review and has regularly taken part in the ekphrastic writing prompt challenges.

Note From Kyle Laws, Guest Editor
 
Welcome to the Ekphrastic Challenge!  We have a painting by Teresa Vito, Equipoise, for your response.  The artist lives in Pueblo, CO, a town on the Arkansas and Fountains Rivers that was once the border with Mexico.  It had the largest steel mill west of the Mississippi in its heyday.  And it still produces steel.  There is a bit of grit in the art.  Artists and poets thrive.  Teresa Vito found her way to Pueblo for some of the same reasons I did—an industrial landscape that was familiar to someone growing up on the East Coast paired with stunning desert and mountain views. 
 
When I participate in an Ekphrastic Challenge, a work of art often produces a story in my head when I look at it, but that doesn’t mean I only like narratives.  I love experimental work too.  Say something I may not have heard before.  Or say it in a way I haven’t seen on the page before.  Or say what it means to you.  Just say…because I want to hear from you.
 
Kyle Laws

The Rules

1. Use this visual art prompt as a springboard for your writing. It can be a poem or short prose (fiction or nonfiction.) You can research the artwork or artist and use your discoveries to fuel your writing, or you can let the image alone provoke your imagination.

2. Write as many poems and stories as you like. Send only your best works or final draft, not everything. Please copy and paste your submission into the body of the email, even if you include an attachment such as Word or PDF.

3. Have fun.

4. USE THIS EMAIL ONLY.

Send your work to ekphrasticchallenge@gmail.com. Challenge submissions sent to the other inboxes will most likely be lost as those are read in chronological order of receipt, weeks or longer behind, and are not seen at all by guest editors. They will be discarded. Sorry.

5.Include TERESA VITO WRITING CHALLENGE in the subject line in all caps please. 

6. Include your name and a brief bio. If you do not include your bio, it will not be included with your work, if accepted. Even if you have already written for The Ekphrastic Review or submitted other works and your bio is "on file" you must include it in your challenge submission. Do not send it after acceptance or later; it will not be added to your poem. Guest editors may not be familiar with your bio or have access to archives. We are sorry about these technicalities, but have found that following up, requesting, adding, and changing later takes too much time and is very confusing. 

7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry. 

8. Deadline is midnight, June 28, 2019.

9. Please do not send revisions, corrections, or changes to your poetry or your biography after the fact. If it's not ready yet, hang on to it until it is.

10. Selected submissions will be published together, with the prompt, one week after the deadline.

​11. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges!

Many thanks to Kyle Laws, and to all of our guest editors who have been taking the helm for some of the challenges. We look forward to working with Janette Schafer next time.