Ekphrasis

May 26, 2022

“Broken Places by Daylight” by Sandra KasturiPosted by

Truck Stop Shell by Greg Clary, photo of a closed and abandoned Shell gas station

Image: “Truck Stop Shell” by Greg Clary. “Broken Places by Daylight” was written by Sandra Kasturi for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, April 2022, and selected as the Editor’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)

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Sandra Kasturi

BROKEN PLACES BY DAYLIGHT

What to do when buildings have not quite caved
in to the demands of their roofs, the quarrels
of their blown windows, the fallen bricks saved
against a leaning wall, lost amid sorrel
springing wild and ever wilder, escaping
the boundaries of an imaginary garden?
When the shells of buildings still stand, reshaping
themselves, refusing to fall, their ardent
decayed displays are their own flowering,
that collapsing tiled concavity, rude
with a different flavour of souring
promise—the last dull shine, a gloss imbued
with failing years and childhood’s spectral palms,
the ragged song of timbers’ splintered psalms.
 

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
April 2022, Editor’s Choice

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Comment from the editor, Timothy Green: “I always love a good sonnet, and this is a great one, full of music and unexpected rhymes. The poem renders in crisp lines the beauty of urban decay that’s found in the original photograph. We often choose poems that move somewhere surprising, but this sonnet captures in words what the photographer captures in light, and I kept coming back to it.”

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May 19, 2022

“The Next Time” by Byron HootPosted by

Truck Stop Shell by Greg Clary, photo of a closed and abandoned Shell gas station

Image: “Truck Stop Shell” by Greg Clary. “The Next Time” was written by Byron Hoot for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, April 2022, and selected as the Artist’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)

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Byron Hoot

THE NEXT TIME

They gather when they hear LaRue’s horn
on 80 sound. Rose smiles, starts thinking
of what she’s going to say when he says,
“What’s new with you?” The ghosts come
one by one, two by two. They know that horn,
they know the whine of that truck, they know
what’s left behind. Enter the Iron Kettle
Restaurant at The American Plaza truck stop.
They take their places at the counter; Cokes
and coffee and cigarettes and the smell
of the grill and soft conversation
and sudden laughter and softer sighs mix
with all of them looking for LaRue’s truck
to pull in. They talk as if they’re living, as though
yesterday was yesterday and tomorrow is tomorrow.
Jim says, “It was real.” Steve replies, “It was a dream.”
An old argument to which Reverend Smith decides—
“It was both.” They all look outside: the empty pumps,
the wind-damaged signs, the cracked concrete, no
trucks, no cars, no people. Rose says “He’s not
coming” like saying the Rosary. First light is breaking,
they get up slowly and leave, mumbling, “Maybe next time.”

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
April 2022, Artist’s Choice

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Comment from the artist, Greg Clary: “The story of ghosts gathering each evening in hopes of seeing their old trucker friend was imaginative and compelling. This is not a story of random travelers but that of a truck stop family whose nighttime vigil maintains and sustains their relationship. The scene and characters inside the Iron Kettle are vividly described and quite relatable to any traveler who has sought out a familiar roadside respite. The once vibrant, but now deserted truck stop’s impact on these likable spirits is melancholy. Yet, even as another dawn breaks without the return of their lost friend, LaRue, hope prevails—‘Maybe next time.’”

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April 28, 2022

“Her Vanity” by Marc Alan Di MartinoPosted by

Anonymous Was a Woman by Natascha Graham, impressionistic painting of a woman's back

Image: “Anonymous Was a Woman” by Natascha Graham. “Her Vanity” was written by Marc Alan Di Martino for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, March 2022, and selected as the Assistant Editor’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)

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Marc Alan Di Martino

HER VANITY

My mother used to sit like this before
her vanity, her shoulders bathed
in blue and pink light, her powdered skin
dredged in a cloud of talc, breathing it in.
Oblivious at seventeen, she wanted
more than anything to look her best
when Eddie Fisher offered her a Coke
in his posh Manhattan hotel suite.
I sat with her in a room off Times Square
years later, our last outing together
before the nursing homes enchained her.
She told me the story—as she said,
for the umpteenth time—of how she’d met
the singer whose career nosedived the day
Elvis broke the charts with “Heartbreak Hotel.”
They shared a Coke, the story went: his lips
kissing the weightless ‘O’ of the glass
bottle which was furtively snatched up
from where he’d set it down, forgotten it,
by her swift hand. Later, she told us
about the talcosis, how it affected
her breathing. For the rest of her life
she saw a pulmonologist. I sat there
letting her regale me with the tale
of Eddie Fisher for the umpteenth time
in a cheap hotel room off Times Square,
a crooked mirror fixed above the sink
a painting of a woman on the wall
which might have been her, poised
at her vanity, poisoning herself for love.

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
March 2022, Assistant Editor’s Choice

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Comment from the assistant editor, Megan Green: “When I read ‘Her Vanity’ and then look at ‘Anonymous Was a Woman,’ it’s so easy to see the poet’s mother, dreamlike in a ‘cloud of talc,’ disrobed and vulnerable but also vibrant and resilient. She seems, in both the painting and the poem, to be frozen in time, at once a youthful beauty and an older woman lost in memory. The poet’s choice of language is deceptively and skillfully effortless: ‘My mother used to sit like this/before her vanity,’ the poem begins, a line that appears simple yet contains layers of music and meaning. The vividness of the narrative and the unspoken questions about the value of beauty combine to create an extraordinary poem that reflects an extraordinary work of art.”

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April 21, 2022

“Angular Bones” by Jeanie TomaskoPosted by

Anonymous Was a Woman by Natascha Graham, impressionistic painting of a woman's back

Image: “Anonymous Was a Woman” by Natascha Graham. “Angular Bones” was written by Jeanie Tomasko for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, March 2022, and selected as the Editor’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)

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Jeanie Tomasko

ANGULAR BONES

I dreamed I gave you a snow globe
and after the snow snowed
and after the plows plowed
you stood inside watching

after the snow
which was blue and had come from all directions
you stood there watching
with your impossible spine

which was blue and directionless
and it made me weep
your impossible spine
and its question of whether

and what     it made me weep
this dream and you in the impossible globe
and the question of weather
as in snow as in what will happen

to this dream of an impossible globe
you in the snow your hair a perfect storm
as in snow as in what will happen
to your angular bones

you, snow, hair, perfect storm
in this impossible dream globe
and your beautiful angular bones
after the plows have plowed

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
March 2022, Editor’s Choice

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Comment from the editor, Timothy Green: “This was an especially strong month of submissions, but reading the top 25 over and over again, I kept coming back to this surprising pantoum. I could never have imagined the figure in the painting being trapped inside a snow globe, but once she was, she really was. There’s also something about the mood of the poem, a resolute sadness to the repetition that matched the curve of the woman’s spine—I couldn’t stop re-reading it.”

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March 31, 2022

“My Animal Understudy Replaced Me in the School Production of The Tempest” by Luigi CoppolaPosted by

Ekphrastic Challenge, February 2022: Editor’s Choice

 

Diaphona by Sarah-Jane Crowson, collage of a human-like deer standing near jellyfish

Image: “Diaphona” by Sarah-Jane Crowson. “My Animal Understudy Replaced Me in the School Production of The Tempest” was written by Luigi Coppola for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, February 2022, and selected as the Editor’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)

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Luigi Coppola

MY ANIMAL UNDERSTUDY REPLACED ME IN THE SCHOOL PRODUCTION OF THE TEMPEST

Cast as Caliban, my shuddered spine
and wrung hands hid me in the wings
when my cue came. I sweated through

the makeshift costume of tissue feathers
and glued fur and plastic teeth and rubber
claws and cardboard scales and rug skin
and tinfoil tusks and foam horns and wire
wings and a sting that flopped behind me,
an amalgamation of animals, both free now
and fossilised then, all brought to semi-

life offstage. Paper mâché hooves clung
to the boards, treading a stillness that
couldn’t be moved no matter how much
the teacher/director/failed actor push-pulled,
shout-whispered, tug-shoved at my stuffed-

bursting frame. Then something inside me
stepped out: part me, part free; part human,
part animal; part thought, part instinct.
I watched from my wingless wings
and envied what I heard and saw and

felt: every word spoken spotlighted;
every step stilled the air; every gesture
so weighted they shook the hands of all
that watched. The servant acted equal
to the master—and so was, amongst
the noises, sounds, and sweet airs of the isle,
the aisle, the stage, and this brave new world.

The applause lasted the length of a storm.

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
February 2022, Editor’s Choice

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Comment from the editor, Timothy Green: “Luigi brings this month’s artwork to life by giving it such a vivid and surreal backstory. I’m transported to another realm with every re-reading. The details are rich, the narrator is engaging, and the poem provides significant insight into the relationship between the actor and the self. Bravo!”

Bonus:

Luigi turned this poem into a song and lyric video—view that here.

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March 24, 2022

“Homemaker” by Mary MeriamPosted by

Ekphrastic Challenge, February 2022: Artist’s Choice

 

Diaphona by Sarah-Jane Crowson, collage of a human-like deer standing near jellyfish

Image: “Diaphona” by Sarah-Jane Crowson. “Homemaker” was written by Mary Meriam for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, February 2022, and selected as the Artist’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)

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Mary Meriam

HOMEMAKER

Mother of Earth, conceive the art of home,
give birth to jellyfish, the start of home.

My drawings screw the seeds to root and grow
to green, the frame of every part of home.

Didn’t she sex the trees from outer space?
Wasn’t blue-black my counterpart of home?

The miles I travel hard until my head
is antlered, both the doe and hart of home.

I have this reaching after flight, this dress
that doesn’t fit, fast birds, my heart of home.

Dismiss my poverty and build for me
a golden house to hang the art of home.

She steers the moon, the clouds that lift and roll
the chariot of time, the chart of home.

Marvel of whales, of mythic story-telling,
of seas that never drift apart, of home.

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
February 2022, Artist’s Choice

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Comment from the artist, Sarah-Jane Crowson: “I thought that this was such a beautiful ghazal, and that the ghazal form worked so well with the collage form of the artwork. I loved how within each image I can read ideas from the original picture, but I also love how these are taken in a new direction, creating new narratives or possible narratives—the poet’s creative response changing the ideas in the picture, transforming these into something different. I thought that the choice of form also aligned really well with collage as a medium—both, perhaps, thread together images that draw strength from each other whilst being in some ways dislocated. I also really appreciated the technical skill of the poem—how the quafia and radif worked so beautifully together, and the iambic patterning of the poem held it all together.”

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February 24, 2022

“Why I Love that We’re Not Gods” by Sean KeckPosted by

Ekphrastic Challenge, January 2022: Editor’s Choice

 

Dark Figures by Matthew King, photograph of a figure surrounded by gulls

Image: “Dark Figures” by Matthew King. “Why I Love that We’re Not Gods” was written by Sean Keck for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, January 2022, and selected as the Editor’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)

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Sean Keck

WHY I LOVE THAT WE’RE NOT GODS

If we could live all time at once,
there’d be no room for words
in that total lack of silence.

The sky, grown thick with birds
trailing themselves like film frames,
would buckle and heave, spurred

along by wind and flames,
competing moons and stars,
bodies no longer named

on any legible charts.
Buried beneath thunder
of innumerable heart-

beats half off, under
the weight of too many
todays, we’d wander

nowhere and there. Any-
where you turned
there’d be a litany

of you and me, churned
into an us of each of us,
two we who learn

nothing because the cup
of our choices
is already filled up

with overflowing voices
of every grace and sin
we’d done or do. Noises

all about. The love we’re in,
in that total lack of silence,
won’t end but won’t begin.

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
January 2022, Editor’s Choice

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Comment from the editor, Timothy Green: “This mind-bending poem compresses time into a single point where our entire lives happen all at once in a silent, frozen time-lapse. It’s a fascinating interpretation of the photograph, worthy of several reads on its own, but the gorgeous musicality of the poem is what put it over the top for me. It’s a layered, memorable, and surprising response.”

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