Ekphrasis

November 22, 2018

“What Is Not Lost” by Sharon CotePosted by

Ekphrastic Challenge, October 2018: Artist’s Choice

 

Hanging Collage by Courtney Carroll

Image: “Hanging Collage” by Courtney Carroll. “What Is Not Lost” was written by Sharon Cote for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, October 2018, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.

[download: PDF / JPG]

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Sharon Cote

WHAT IS NOT LOST

In my dream it was morning
or evening, the sky lightly stained
with Easter dyes,
the fields and mountains
glowing like an old stovetop,
dark in spots.

You were there, in a
living tree, living, unlike you,
but in my dream it was so
and you were back.

You played and sang
and the music grew and grew
and shifted the air around us
and was so much more beautiful
than even I remembered.
It tasted like fruit on my lips,
I could see it before me.

And your music was calling
others back too, everyone really,
and those of us still
on the ground stopped,
stopped whatever we were doing
and looked up and listened.

And everyone was stunned
or smiling, even the sky,
even the tree, and you most of all
until everyday light and
shadows
scrubbed it all away.

But I’ll hold on to your music,
clutch those notes tightly. They
are mine to keep, they
always were, and I’ll
hold on to them as hard as I can.

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
October 2018, Artist’s Choice

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Comment from the artist, Courtney Carroll: “I chose this poem because it captures the sensory feelings of memory so well. I enjoy the exploring the senses associated with someone loved and gone. It can seem like even trees smile when you think of that person.”

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October 30, 2018

“The Happy Meditator” by Katherine HuangPosted by

Ekphrastic Challenge, September 2018: Editor’s Choice

 

Back of the Beach by Karen Kraco

Image: “Back of the Beach” by Karen Kraco. “The Happy Meditator” was written by Katherine Huang for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, September 2018, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.

[download: PDF / JPG]

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Katherine Huang

THE HAPPY MEDITATOR

With a leg-cross
onto his skateboard,
he cropped himself

from the mirage.
No longer afraid
to be discovered

by the pale
shiny people who
populated the beach,

bleaching the oasis
with their sunscreen,
he became

three-dimensional
again, solid enough
to hear the rustle

of summer leaves.
When his mother
called, he tried

to explain to her
how he could depart
instantly from places

when they no longer
seemed real: the city,
the lakeside, the closeness

of today, leaving behind
not so much a shadow
as a doorway open to

interpretation.

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
September 2018, Editor’s Choice

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Comment from the editor, Timothy Green: “It’s not often that my favorite aspect of a poem is the line breaks, but that’s the case here; they’re perfect. There’s a both a tension and a touch of surprise in every new line as the poem slowly winds its way down the page, and the effect is perfectly meditative. I also loved that the poem centers around what seemed to me the most interesting detail of the photograph—the way that the figure appears physically separate from it, as if he’s practicing zazen in front of a green screen.”

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October 25, 2018

“Beer, Buoy, Boat, Board” by Devon BalwitPosted by

Ekphrastic Challenge, September 2018: Artist’s Choice

 

Back of the Beach by Karen Kraco

Image: “Back of the Beach” by Karen Kraco. “Beer, Buoy, Boat, Board” was written by Devon Balwit for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, September 2018, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.

[download: PDF / JPG]

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Devon Balwit

BEER, BUOY, BOAT, BOARD

Above it all or just apart, you watched
from the edges, a half-smile quirking
your lips, not a smirk exactly,
for you weren’t disdainful, merely
speculative, trying to figure out
what we called pleasure, the dumb
joy of the simple—a can shaken
and bubbling over, the chill of sun cream
down the back. We sensed you there
but stopped inviting you closer.
It’d been years since you’d said yes.
We let you remain our opposite,
like an afterimage on the retina, the sun
spangling the river before lazing beyond.
We sensed you wanted to follow its meander
but didn’t know how. We’d have rested easier
had you disappeared, no longer having to imagine
how we looked to one not joining in.
But you had a role to play before we,
grown resentful, finally splashed you
from the shallows or flicked a half-chewed crust
to send you home. Then we began
the earnest work of reassurance—
our castle, our towel, our girl, our footprints—
briefly clear in sand.

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
September 2018, Artist’s Choice

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Comment from the artist, Karen Kraco: “Reading through these poems reminded me of the individual lenses through which we each view the world. Poets took this in so many different directions, with compelling voices. Picking just one was hard. I think I wound up choosing ‘Beer, Buoy, Boat, Board’ because it captures the otherness and separateness in the scene that led me to make ‘Back of the Beach.’ Although I had race in mind when I took the shot, the poem feels more universal, examining our discomfort in the presence of those who are different from or set apart from us, and our tendency to turn away from that discomfort.”

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September 27, 2018

“Sonnet for the Night Shift” by Kim HarveyPosted by

Ekphrastic Challenge, August 2018: Editor’s Choice

 

Waiting by Alexis Rhone Fancher

Image: “Waiting” by Alexis Rhone Fancher. “Sonnet for the Night Shift” was written by Kim Harvey for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, August 2018, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.

[download: PDF / JPG]

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Kim Harvey

SONNET FOR THE NIGHT SHIFT

For the barbacks and the line cooks, this one’s
for you, for the jostle and bustle of
busboys hustling tips, for the aprons
and grease, for the fluorescent light above,

for how her hair falls at the nape of her
neck, for the way memory works, something
I chase, something I can’t control, slow burn
of swoon-jazz on the jukebox, for the sting

of tequila, for the draft beer on tap,
for the ones who come back night after night,
for yesterday’s special wrapped up as scraps
and for those who pass through just for a bite

or some human contact, for busting ass
and for refilling every empty glass.

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
August 2018, Editor’s Choice

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Comment from the editor, Timothy Green: “Many excellent poems saw something sad or sinister in Alexis Rhone Fancher’s photograph, but Kim Harvey managed to flip the script entirely. I can’t remember the last time I read a good old fashioned praise poem. And there’s so much in this world worthy of praise that slips by unnoticed. I appreciated being reminded of that—and of all the night shifts I’ve worked over the years, and the strange intermingling of duty and possibility that comes to life in those hours.”

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September 20, 2018

“That Bit Me” by Matthew MurreyPosted by

Ekphrastic Challenge, August 2018: Artist’s Choice

 

Waiting by Alexis Rhone Fancher

Image: “Waiting” by Alexis Rhone Fancher. “That Bit Me” was written by Matthew Murrey for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, August 2018, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.

[download: PDF / JPG]

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Matthew Murrey

THAT BIT ME

The sex is only good if we’re totally fucked up.
It blurs how wrong we are for each other.
—Alexis Rhone Fancher

It’s all a blur
how we wound up
this morning two spoons,
hand in glove, glass
full half, full empty.
Who was smooth
porter, creamy
stout, and who sweet-
strong Barbados rum?

Come, don’t pretend you
don’t remember taking me
home saying God,
you look like you
could stand a little
something to eat (I did)

and drink (we did).
We tipped many
and found ourselves lips
on lips, unbuttoned and undone.
I don’t remember you
regretting a thing. So don’t

toss that look, Lenny,
as if I’m just any stranger
strolling this joint. You
aren’t fooling anybody,
this body. Now lean in
and let me know where

and when we’ll hook up
again, then fill me
a glass of something light
tonight: a pilsner
or lager—hair
of the dog that bit me.

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
August 2018, Artist’s Choice

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Comment from the artist, Alexis Rhone Fancher: “So many terrific poems, inspired by my shot of the waitress and busboy at The Artisan House restaurant in DTLA, a restaurant that, sadly, no longer exists. I had a hard time choosing the winner, but I kept going back to Matthew Murrey’s tongue-in-cheek poem that riffed on a line in a poem of mine. Oh, that’s clever! I thought as I began reading the poem, prepared to be underwhelmed. But the poem delivered. It caught the just-perceptible despair in the slump of the server’s shoulders, juxtaposed with the late night bravado that’s the stock in trade of the successful cocktail waitress. I should know. I was one.”

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August 30, 2018

“Grave of a Tourist Trap” by Hannah V. NormanPosted by

Ekphrastic Challenge, July 2018: Editor’s Choice

 

What Once Was by Bryan DeLae

Image: “What Once Was” by Bryan DeLae. “Grave of a Tourist Trap” was written by Hannah V. Norman for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, July 2018, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.

[download: PDF / JPG]

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Hannah V. Norman

GRAVE OF A TOURIST TRAP

We visited the hotel
and it was a tombstone now.
We had stayed as
sunburnt sunglass laden
tourists when it was
beachside property,
and then it was swallowed by
the dunes and became a relic.
The tour guide made
up something about it
featuring a ballroom
and library—as if it was
a palace—but I laughed
because it had been a few decades
but I remembered the
ballroom had been
converted to storage and
single rooms. Things become
more glamorous when they
are relics, the palace the relic
of consumerism and sunburn,
the empty perfume relic of
her wilting like a flower, only
not so sweetly, the stack of papers
a relic of his devotion, the grey
half moons under his eyes and
the rivers bulging under his skin.
I think the manager still lives on the
top floor, and laughs to see us
trying to climb a wave of sand,
trying to convince ourselves that
the past was beautiful, simply
because it is
gone.

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
July 2018, Editor’s Choice

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Comment from the editor, Timothy Green: “Usually I’m drawn toward the more strange and surprising takes on an image—I like it when the poet finds some dimension of the artwork that I didn’t see myself. This wasn’t the case with ‘Grave of a Tourist Trap,’ which is a good representative of the consensus view: an apocalyptic future that can barely remember the past, extreme climate change expressed or implied. Several other poems even used the same trope of a group of tourists visiting the ruins. But Hannah V. Norman out-wrote them all, with vivid and precise details, an interesting turn in every indispensable line, and an ending that’s just so aphoristically true.”

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August 23, 2018

“Relic” by Ginny Lowe ConnorsPosted by

Ekphrastic Challenge, July 2018: Artist’s Choice

 

The Sound of Wings by Gretchen Rockwell

Image: “What Once Was” by Bryan DeLae. “Relic” was written by Ginny Lowe Connors for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, July 2018, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.

[download: PDF / JPG]

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Ginny Lowe Connors

RELIC

It was a city once. That much we know.
People began it. Machines mostly ran it.
And faces of the missing accumulated.
They became scraps, weather-stained.

People began it. Machines mostly ran it.
Spoke for them. Told what to do, where to go.
They became scraps, weather-stained.
Dark blue ink on skins of the living

spoke for them. Said Here I am, Here I go.
Etched in pain, mocking light.
Only pigeons still believed in flight.
There were no stars at night.

Just a large, loud mockery of light.
And faces of the missing accumulated.
There were no stars at night.
It was a city once. That much we know.

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
July 2018, Artist’s Choice

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Comment from the artist, Bryan DeLae: “I was tempted to choose a poem that was quite different from the thoughts I had when creating the image, however I decided to select the one that most captured the mood of my creation. I feel that Relic did that so well and with a minimal amount of words which mirrors the bleakness and solitary feel of the image itself.”

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