Surprise Challenge- Rene Magritte

7/17/2017

The Unexpected Answer, by Rene Magritte (Belgium), 1933.

Surprise Ekphrastic Challenge: Rene Magritte

The recent poem by Andrena Zawinski on Marilyn Monroe and Magritte provides a perfect segue to our new surprise challenge.

I am amazed still, thirty years after first standing in front of Magritte's paintings of bewildering dreams, by his ability to surprise.

Especially intriguing is how there always seem to be paintings we have never seen!

Magritte hated to be called a surrealist, which I suspect was a combination of conviction and a clever bit of showbiz and tongue in cheek. His paintings are the very definition of surrealism, but the artist wanted us to think beyond labels and how they directed our conclusions.

Your challenge is to use these ten prompts to write some poetry, prose, or fiction. Use one or try them all. See where contemplating Magrittian mysteries will take you.

There are no rules. Any form, any length, any genre, any painting. And any other Magritte painting, should you be hooked and want to go for more.

But please, send only your best as submissions for possible publication in The Ekphrastic Review.

Deadline:

We always take late submissions, because we will consider work responding to any artwork at any time. So if you are coming upon this challenge after the fact, you aren't excluded. But try to send your responses by the deadline.

August 1, 2017

I can't wait to see what you come up with!

Lorette C. Luzajic, editor, TER

Read my essay, "What is the Artist Trying to Say? Nothing, Says Magritte" published earlier in The Ekphrastic Review, from my book Truck, and Other Stories About Art.