“Crane Possibly Walking on Water” by Erin Newton WellsPosted by Rattle
Ekphrastic Challenge, November 2020: Artist’s Choice
Image: “Leaping Crane” by Kim Sosin. “Crane Possibly Walking on Water” was written by Erin Newton Wells for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, November 2020, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.
Comment from the artist, Kim Sosin: “Reading this poem, I picture a sunset, a sky darkening to navy, and I hear thousands of wings beating and loud calls filling the sky. Anyone who has seen this phenomenon can hear the Sandhill Cranes’ trumpeting as they circle and settle in the shallow river in safety for the night, their wings folded at rest, but filled with potential. The birds dream of freedom from earthly boundaries and of buoyant flight; they dream of catching the thermals tomorrow, just as they did in primordial days, as the Sandhill cranes have been doing for 2.5 million years according to the fossil record. As morning light dances up the river, the cranes begin a hopeful dance. Will you be mine? Will you travel onward with me on our magnificent wings? Such wings.”
“Four Loaves of Stone, Ascending” by Joel VegaPosted by Rattle
Ekphrastic Challenge, October 2020: Editor’s Choice
Image: “Dream Spirit” by Christopher Whitney. “Four Loaves of Stone, Ascending” was written by Joel Vega for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, October 2020, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.
Comment from the editor, Timothy Green: “As much as possible, I try to choose a poem each month that’s different from the artist’s choice, so that this series can show the breadth of human imagination. It worked out well this time, as the two poems couldn’t be more different in length, style, and interpretation. I loved the timeless beauty of Joel Vega’s response, and the haunting ambiguity of those last few lines. The title alone could be a poem, and you’d be hard pressed to find a phrase more pleasurable to speak than ‘loaves of stone.’ I found myself returning just to say that phrase aloud again.”
“One for Sorrow” by Carmel BuckinghamPosted by Rattle
Ekphrastic Challenge, October 2020: Artist’s Choice
Image: “Dream Spirit” by Christopher Whitney. “One for Sorrow” was written by Carmel Buckingham for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, October 2020, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.
Comment from the artist, Christopher Whitney: “As I read and re-read the poems, this one kept coming back to me, stayed on top of the pile. I think of the day I made the photo, on a beach near Monterrey with two other photographer friends, each looking for his own shot the way the poets each looked for their way to respond to my image. In ‘One for Sorrow,’ the poet captured imagery the way I tried to do in my photo. There is a personification to the bird that brings me into the narrator’s story, lets me sit with him/her at that window, looking out and trying to see a glimpse of myself in the other, of peering into nature to answer life’s questions and then realizing the answers are in the simplest things, like the bird’s gifts. I enjoyed the flow of the poem, each stanza a gift to the whole, giving life to the crow as the crow gives life to the narrator.”
“In the Dream-Pool” by Elizabeth McMunn-TetangcoPosted by Rattle
Ekphrastic Challenge, September 2020: Editor’s Choice
Image: “Pool Head” by Pat Singer. “In the Dream-Pool” was written by Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, September 2020, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.
Comment from the Editor, Timothy Green: “Interestingly, both this poem and the artist’s choice throb with the losses of the pandemic while looking through a fence that isn’t in the painting. In this case, the closing of the summer pool becomes a kind of obsession, haunting in its absence, as so many things are. There are so many memorable lines here: ‘The thing with dream-pools is / you never get to swim.’ That will stick with me.”
“Visiting the Gardens at DePugh Nursing Center, Winter Park, Florida” by Vivian ShipleyPosted by Rattle
Ekphrastic Challenge, September 2020: Artist’s Choice
Image: “Pool Head” by Pat Singer. “Visiting the Gardens at DePugh Nursing Center, Winter Park, Florida” was written by Vivian Shipley for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, September 2020, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.
Comment from the artist, Pat Singer: “The way this poem unfolds feels very real and unexpected. I enjoy the surprising and unpredictable way that the sister’s tumor introduces the visual of the pool inside the mind. The writer captured the grim, desolate reality of visiting someone who is unable to care for themselves anymore. Visiting someone who’s a husk of what they once were is difficult, sobering, and emotional. The words the writer uses conveys these feelings with raw power and an authentic voice. The visual cues tie in well with the art literally, but also manages to expand the meaningfulness into something much more robust and with more depth than what is on the surf.”
“A Duty to Look Beautiful” by Patty HollowayPosted by Rattle
Ekphrastic Challenge, August 2020: Editor’s Choice
Image: “Blue Bowl” by Liz Magee. “A Duty to Look Beautiful” was written by Patty Holloway for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, August 2020, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.
Comment from the editor, Timothy Green: “Everyone loves a sonnet, apparently, and this is another great example of why. So much is packed into these fourteen lines, which arc perfectly into the surety of the final couplet. One of the main tasks of poetry—and all art, more generally—is to change the way you look at the world. After reading this piece of modern mythology, I’ll never look at ancient statues the same again.”
Ekphrastic Challenge, August 2020: Artist’s Choice
Image: “Blue Bowl” by Liz Magee. “Mantra” was written by Michael Harty for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, August 2020, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.
Comment from the artist, Liz Magee: “This is the poem that I would like to have written, and the more I read it the better it sounds. I am biased toward short, direct poems that I do not have to work too hard to understand and which yet manage to set up a painting in themselves. If I did not know Leonard Cohen, I would know him from this poem. It suits the sonnet form so well, the rhymes are not intrusive, and the final couplet gave me a bit of a shiver! There were poems that looked more closely at the painting, but I liked the focusing on the small detail of the crack in the bowl and giving it a whole new meaning that I did not intend.”
