The Ekphrastic Review
  • The Ekphrastic Review
  • The Ekphrastic Challenges
    • Challenge Archives
  • Ebooks
  • Prizes
  • Book Shelf
    • TERcets Podcast
  • The Ekphrastic Academy
  • Give
  • Submit
  • Contact
  • About/Masthead

Women in Red Dresses by Susanna Lang

4/9/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
After Sunday Services, by Laura Wheeler Waring, 1940.
Picture
Marian Anderson, by Laura Wheeler Waring, 1944.
Picture
Girl in a Red Dress, by Laura Wheeler Waring, 1935.
Women in Red Dresses
 
Here a strappy dress ready to dance, the girl’s cheeks
red as her bodice, hands on the knee she’s drawn up
on the seat, big black stone on her finger; and there
 
an upright and angle-length red, neckline not too low,
matching brimmed hat coming from Sunday services
in the mary janes she polished this morning; and
 
for Marian, a soft red gown off the shoulders,
single strand of gold against her dark skin
as she waits for the cue, door opening to the stage
where she’ll let loose her voice to sing of liberty
and her forefathers’ deaths—sing so her fathers
can live again, their stories and their torn shirts
offered to those who had almost forgotten,
who had hoped too much, who will weep to hear.
 
Susanna Lang
 
Susanna Lang’s most recent collection of poems, Tracing the Lines, was published in 2013 by the Brick Road Poetry Press.  Her first collection, Even Now, was published in 2008 by The Backwaters Press, followed by a chapbook, Two by Two (Finishing Line Press, 2011).  A two-time Hambidge fellow and a recipient of the Emerging Writers Fellowship from the Bethesda Writer’s Center, she has published original poems and translations from the French in such journals as Little Star, New Letters, december, The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, Blue Lyra Review, Prime Number Magazine and Poetry East.  Book publications include translations of Words in Stone and The Origin of Language, both by Yves Bonnefoy.  She lives in Chicago, where she teaches in the Chicago Public Schools.
 
 
 

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    The Ekphrastic Review
    Picture
    Current Prompt
    COOKIES/PRIVACY

    This website uses marketing and tracking technologies. Opting out of this will opt you out of all cookies, except for those needed to run the website. Note that some products may not work as well without tracking cookies.

    Opt Out of Cookies
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Join us: Facebook and Bluesky
    @ekphrasticreview.



    ​
    ​Archives
    ​

    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015

    Lorette C. Luzajic [email protected] 

  • The Ekphrastic Review
  • The Ekphrastic Challenges
    • Challenge Archives
  • Ebooks
  • Prizes
  • Book Shelf
    • TERcets Podcast
  • The Ekphrastic Academy
  • Give
  • Submit
  • Contact
  • About/Masthead