Ekphrasis

October 21, 2024

“Poems Used to Rhyme” by Doc MehlPosted by

Doc Mehl

POEMS USED TO RHYME

Poems used to rhyme.
In time, the couplets were dispensed.
Incensed, today’s poet rebels from rhyming schemes,
It seems. The writer, newly shedding the shackles of quatrains,
Refrains from even a modicum of lilt.
 
And built now from unpaired diphthongs,
His songs have lost a measure of glue.
It’s true. No longer does the ear delight
In flight of fancy, in teeter-totter,
Like water on the endless sand, the to-and-fro,
And no, this tide will not abate.
 
Of late, I find that poems no longer draw me in.
They’re thin.
 

—from Rattle #85, Fall 2024
Tribute to Musicians

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Doc Mehl: “In songwriting, poetry, or prose, I strive for (and rarely achieve) poignant simplicity. Genius is overrated. Simplicity is its own form of genius.” (web)

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September 26, 2024

“August Thistle” by Sonya SchneiderPosted by

Forage by Tammy Nara, mixed media watercolor of a thistle on an expressive blue and brownish pink background

Image: “Forage” by Tammy Nara. “August Thistle” was written by Sonya Schneider for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, August 2024, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.

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Sonya Schneider

AUGUST THISTLE

Now that their bodies hurt, they listen
from their bedroom window
to the goldfinch song—
 
sweet repetition, it sounds
like po-ta-to-chip with a very
even cadence.
 
Wild canaries, says Pa.
They must be feeding
on thistle seed, says Mom.
 
My younger brother sleeps
facing the wall, in the room
across from them. Every night,
 
they lift him to his bed, change
his diaper, tuck the blue quilt
with green squares
 
around his fetal bend.
After forty-two years, there is still
that awkward moment
 
when he wets their hands
with his warm piss. He is music
without words. Still, I ask—
 
When will it be time
to find him a different home?
My father looks out across the dense
 
thicket of invasive species:
prickly-winged stems, bright
purple flowerheads,
 
releasing into the wind.
We love the birds so much, Pa says.
Wild canaries, Mom says.
 
Their bristle-like spines shine
in the moonlight. My brother
sings in his sleep.
 

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
August 2024, Artist’s Choice

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Comment from the series editor, Megan O’Reilly: “The thistle depicted in this image is bold, sharp, and undeniably beautiful, and in ‘August Thistle,’ we witness the sharp beauty of love as we watch an older couple care for a beloved adult child with disabilities while enduring the hardships of their own aging bodies and minds. I love the way the poet subtly connects the ‘sweet repetition’ of birdsong to the dailiness of caregiving tasks, and how much she reveals through the father’s response to the question of rehoming the child: ‘We love the birds so much.’ There is love in the way the poem speaks of this family, love in the parents’ devotion to their child, love in the way the couple admires the birds and the flowers, love and pain coexisting: ‘prickly-winged stems, bright / purple flowerheads.’”

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September 19, 2024

“Brushscape” by Samuel ErteltPosted by

Forage by Tammy Nara, mixed media watercolor of a thistle on an expressive blue and brownish pink background

Image: “Forage” by Tammy Nara. “Brushscape” was written by Samuel Ertelt for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, August 2024, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.

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Samuel Ertelt

BRUSHSCAPE

A man is stuck between
        two dreams in a patch
of thistle. Reaching
down, he picks a spiny brush
and dips it in the sky dark as indigo
before it bleeds. In front of himself,
he paints a lake         a memory
a kind of dusk lingering
       around the edges of
how reflections appear lavender
when still. The evening blots and runs.
He wipes the brush clean
       and turns, turns to steal
some white from the cloud
he’s imagined above his head. The man kneels
and paints         the ghost of a snowbank,
but the ghost keeps disappearing
       before he can make it solid
enough to melt, and he can only
imagine so many clouds.
 

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
August 2024, Artist’s Choice

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Comment from the artist, Tammy Nara: “I’m transported inside the painting as it is created. The artist creates his world. The evening blots and runs. (Yes, it does!) Stealing the white from a cloud. The ghost of a snowbank that disappears before he can make it solid. The other poems connected to the metaphor of the thistle, this poem is connected to the act of painting.”

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August 29, 2024

Haiku [call to prayer] by Almila DükelPosted by

Black and white photo of men and women crossing a temple courtyard, the woman in a burka, the men's faces blurred with dots

Image: “Lahore #44” by Faizan Adil. The haiku was written by Almila Dükel for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, July 2024, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.

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Almila Dükel

HAIKU

 
 
call to prayer
our faces hidden
from ourselves
 
 
 

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
July 2024, Editor’s Choice

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Comment from the editor, Timothy Green: “Moving beyond simple description, the best ekphrastic poems expand on their source material, often by imagining new narratives or pointing out small details that alter our perception of the piece. This haiku does something more unusual. In hyper-focusing its few words on the overall theme, the poem acts like a lens directing all of the scene’s energy onto a single point so intensely that it feels like we just might ignite.”

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August 27, 2024

“Song of a Masjid’s Floor” by Ammara YounasPosted by

Terry's Keys by Kim Beckham, photograph of keys hanging on a fence at a beach

Image: “Lahore #44” by Faizan Adil. “Song of a Masjid’s Floor” was written by Ammara Younas for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, July 2024, and selected as the Series Editor’s Choice.

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Ammara Younas

SONG OF A MASJID’S FLOOR

I sang
to atoms emptied in a mother’s feet
replicating the prosody of Adhān itself
the dust trembling like a lost child
burgeoning parable-like when her feet
shot up vertically         & as her face
descended to meet my face         my eyes
did not have the heart to meet hers
mine torrid & hers         torrential
 
I sang
to vowels         lost         into a father’s lips
thinking themselves         muhajir
who don’t belong in tongues harvesting
love off-season but in the tenement
of Mihrab they found a home &
journeyed back & sugared his mouth
a spoonful of sweet persimmon        & he
prayed take me before you take anyone
 
I sang
to a daughter adrift in the persistence
of memory         as she hid desire in
the crevice of the ceramic floor
when amidst Sajdah         she kissed me
homelike         I cradled her like my own
her face dribbled down my arms
feathering gathering to become whole
until she abandoned it         &         went home
faceless she told me she’d finally
escape the guilt of being woman
the lone daughter of Hawwa
 
I sang
to a son whose feet         gripped         me
like hands holding up         soapy
firmament of gods & though his touch
was hot mess he stayed mere inches
from visions of eden & though his
touch was slippery he distilled love
from abstract         plucked         flowers
from wastelands         perfumed them
himself & left me         with those flowers
& a smile that could sun
even         elegies
 
I sang
to a child with no mother no father
his weight the heaviest to carry
here my tongue         turned flamingo
too long for meaning         to traverse
through as he asked me to return
the love he could’ve had         I dreamed
of him turning into wild
cherry blossom
& if he sang back to me         I’d float
outside my body and see seas
of psalms sewn into people & ceded to
me as they turned homeward
but he’d come vacant         & never
leave
 
I sang
& sang & sang
swallowing sandals borrowing
bottle caps I birthed footprints lent
water         & sang & sang to
no god but
human
 

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
July 2024, Series Editor’s Choice

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Comment from the series editor, Megan O’Reilly: “Two things immediately struck me about Faizan Adil’s artwork: First, the cultural and religious significance, and second, the sense that the figures in the foreground seem to be lost in their own worlds, as though each is a universe unto themselves. Ammara Younas’s poem prioritizes both of these elements. The poet paints a vivid tapestry of the life of a Muslim family, and though the poem is superbly cohesive, each stanza dedicated to a family member could easily stand alone as its own poem. The distinctive language, both earthy and elegant—‘tongues harvesting/love off-season’; ‘dust trembling like a lost child’—mirrors the image’s contrast between ornate reverence and human humility, a dichotomy that is also encapsulated in the poem’s last stanza.”

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July 30, 2024

“What You Thought You Lost” by Wendy VidelockPosted by

Terry's Keys by Kim Beckham, photograph of keys hanging on a fence at a beach

Image: “Terry’s Keys” by Kim Beckham. “What You Thought You Lost” was written by Wendy Videlock for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, June 2024, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.

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Wendy Videlock

WHAT YOU THOUGHT YOU LOST

What you thought you lost along the way
hangs in the air like a prayer
 
May you find your way home
may the doors swing open wide
            from the out and the in
 
              side
 
under a wide open sky
May you lose
            may you find,
may you know
              in the core
of your weathered soul your old
 
and your new sign
 
May every stranger on the path
become the one who
                        stopped
 
to hang something you thought
you lost in the air
              by a thread like an ancient
pagan prayer
            like some kind of
elder
          warm-eyed
 
guardian was standing there.
 

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
June 2024, Editor’s Choice

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Comment from the series editor, Megan O’Reilly: “‘What You Thought You Lost’ begins with comparing what was lost to a prayer–an apt simile, given that this poem feels like a prayer, with its reverent language, melodic sound, and spiritual references. What a transcendent connection, too, the poet draws between the concrete image of keys hanging on a beach fence and the abstract concept of something lost (we don’t know what, but somehow we have a sense of it) hanging in the air ‘by a thread like an ancient/pagan prayer.’ There’s already an intangible quality to artist Kim Beckham’s beach scene, a sense of possibility, but the metaphysical tone of the poem adds greater complexity to the photo. One of the things I love most about the ekphrastic challenge is how differently I can see a piece of art after I read a poem about it, and ‘What You Thought You Lost’ made me look at this image in a way I never could have without it.”

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July 18, 2024

“Bigger Than Us” by Emily WalkerPosted by

Terry's Keys by Kim Beckham, photograph of keys hanging on a fence at a beach

Image: “Terry’s Keys” by Kim Beckham. “Bigger Than Us” was written by Emily Walker for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, June 2024, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.

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Emily Walker

BIGGER THAN US

we ran out shrieking
leaving our mark as
footprints in the sand
only stopping to
plant our keys on the fence
like a flag on the moon
terry, her short hair,
her red face,
said we owned the beach
and we could’ve
but the black-backed gulls
who mimicked our screeches,
they were thieves
the dunes were our country
the waves, our closest friends
the sun burnt us in continents
drawing maps on our backs and
painting our hair with streaks
of light, of day, of promise.
stay forever, we swore and
locked our pinkies till they bled
 

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
June 2024, Artist’s Choice

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Comment from the artist, Kim Beckham: “‘We ran out shrieking.’ I really like that the poet created characters and a world to fit the scene. They truly captured all of the senses in the images, sounds, and heat of Terry’s day at the beach. It felt really tight with the perfect image to punctuate the ending. Pinky swear!”

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