Ekphrasis

May 23, 2017

“The Woman and the Wolf” by Melissa Fite JohnsonPosted by

Ekphrastic Challenge, April 2017: Artist’s Choice

 

And the Wolf by Laura Jensen

Image: “And the Wolf” by Laura Jensen. “The Woman and the Wolf” was written by Melissa Fite Johnson for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, April 2017, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.

[download: PDF / JPG]

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Melissa Fite Johnson

THE WOMAN AND THE WOLF

He strangled me in his doorway.
Later he called the word “strangle”
dramatic. You could breathe fine.

Hand over my mouth, he shushed
into my ear. Later he said,
You can’t rape your girlfriend.
The next morning I cried at Easter service,
quietly so my mother couldn’t hear.
Another bowed chin in a pew.

I thought the wolf was a wounded bird
dreaming of flight. From a distance,
they’re not so different, his head
a wing puncturing the sky.

At night I lay awake while he slept.
I was nothing but pink flesh.

—Ekphrastic Challenge, April 2017
Artist’s Choice

[download audio]

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Comment from the artist, Laura Jensen, on this selection: “It probably isn’t the most ‘technical’ of the lot, but I truly felt the writer had taken the image, touched upon it, and then moved beyond that initial perception to reflect her own personalized redefinition within this poem. I find the result to be elegant, starkly laden, and meaning-rich.”

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April 27, 2017

“Modern American Gothic” by Stephen HarveyPosted by

Ekphrastic Challenge, March 2017: Editor’s Choice

 

La Familia by Lisa Ortega

Image: “La Familia” by Lisa Ortega. “Modern American Gothic” was written by Stephen Harvey for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, March 2017, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.

[download: PDF / JPG]

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Stephen Harvey

MODERN AMERICAN GOTHIC

Fresh from the feathers of our mother’s womb
and nursing at her daffodils in bloom,
my baby brother swings around the shoulder
of our flat-affect father. Three years older,
I wear that paisley Easter like the fringe
of my pink shawl while holding to the hinge
who held us all together. Time erases
everything—the faces from our faces,
all shadows, the ground and background sky.
Our father loved us when he didn’t try;
dead language for lyrics, he couldn’t name
the thing he wanted to; left us the same
blank expression, a longing to belong.
The shirt he gave us off his back was song.

—Ekphrastic Challenge, March 2017
Editor’s Choice

[download audio]

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Comment from the editor on this selection: “There’s a reason that the sonnet has so long been the most popular English poetry form: The combination of brevity and natural music make it the quintessential poem. Those attributes are on full display in this couplet sonnet by Vanderbilt anesthesiologist Stephen Harvey. The poem serves as a unique and insightful character sketch, while also featuring a few of the best single lines I’ve read all year—that last line in particular.”

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April 25, 2017

“Chanclas, Find Our Ground” by Gloria AmescuaPosted by

Ekphrastic Challenge, March 2017: Artist’s Choice

 

La Familia by Lisa Ortega

Image: “La Familia” by Lisa Ortega. “Chanclas, Find Our Ground” was written by Gloria Amescua for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, March 2017, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.

[download: PDF / JPG]

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Gloria Amescua

CHANCLAS, FIND OUR GROUND

here in an unfamiliar universe
of beginnings, spattered into being
is essence, la familia:

el papá, carrying
la niña as he carried her in his
heart-womb for nine months,

she—awash in internal waves,
salt-floating until arrival, ancestral
song woven into her body

from his and her mamá’s whose
belly-strong wings have given her flight
into the unfathomed, whose

flower-milk breasts nourish,
and her sister, in shawl-sheltered
comfort, whose cells keep

multiplying love—all unwavering
survivors, nameless faces,
amid the turbulence of politics

that can cut them apart like
paper dolls and send them
stumbling onto separate paths.

—Ekphrastic Challenge, March 2017
Artist’s Choice

[download audio]

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Comment from the artist, Lisa Ortega, on this selection: “Tenderness and a delightful choice of words permeate her writing. She was able to capture a unique yet universal story through vivid metaphors. I truly enjoyed reading it, even aloud, for it has a certain cadence that I found equally pleasing.”

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March 30, 2017

“Threading North and South” by Matthew MurreyPosted by

Ekphrastic Challenge, February 2017: Editor’s Choice

 

Hwy 41 by Debbie McAfee

Image: “Hwy 41” by Debbie McAfee. “Threading North and South” was written by Matthew Murrey for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, February 2017, and selected as the Editor’s Choice winner.

[download: PDF / JPG]

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Matthew Murrey

THREADING NORTH AND SOUTH

31 frayed my nerves pulling
over in the middle of nowhere
Michigan every thirty miles to pour
water into the hot, leaky radiator.

45 took us south into ninety degrees
of July and a battlefield nearby
before we slipped like wounded
ghosts into Mississippi for the night.

17 was awfully pretty skirting
the river as it wound its way
from the city where I grew up
to my first home away from home.
And I never moved back.

In my twenties I headed north
and I’ll never forget my first trip
south on 41 with the oceanic
lake to my left and the giant teeth
of sky scrapers ahead. I grinned
like a kid seeing mountains
or snow for the first time.

I love the blocked, black
numbers on white shields;
they conjure up slowing down—
tobacco sheds, red bricks, a river,
a bean field, intersections and signs:
Open, Closed, Vacancy.

Sometimes it’s fences to the west,
or waking up to see what the clouds
are up to and how many miles are left.
Sometimes it’s speeding to get there
before nightfall, and hoping—that dark
or not—the lights will be on as they should be.

—Ekphrastic Challenge, February 2017
Editor’s Choice

[download audio]

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Comment from the editor on this selection: “A road trip embroidery deserves a road trip poem, and Matthew Murrey delivered the mood—the lonely, dull, excited, monotony of highway travel. I also appreciated how the thread metaphor only appears in the title, giving the poem an extra unspoken layer to ponder.”

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March 28, 2017

“Tanka (Lonely Highway)” by Tracy DavidsonPosted by

Hwy 41 by Debbie McAfee

Image: “Hwy 41” by Debbie McAfee. “Tanka (Lonely Highway)” was written by Tracy Davidson for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, February 2017, and selected by McAfee as the Artist’s Choice winner. (PDF / JPG)

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Tracy Davidson

TANKA (LONELY HIGHWAY)

lonely highway
the wheat fields of my childhood
come back to me
the unrelenting crop
my father beat me with

—Ekphrastic Challenge, February 2017
Artist’s Choice

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Comment from the artist, Debbie McAfee, on this selection: “I was driving alone up to Yosemite to go to a friend’s daughter’s wedding. I left late, because I had something to do in the morning. It was October, and the sky was gray, and it was about to rain. It was a long, lonely drive, and I was thinking about the past and my life. I stopped at a gas station and saw this scene across the field. I took out my phone and took a photo, which I posted on Instagram—and then several years later turned it into this artwork. I picked the poem I did because it hit me immediately upon reading. It seemed to capture the mood I felt as I was driving along the road and took the photo. Although the thoughts were not the same as in the poem, I felt like it captured the mood of the day perfectly.”

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February 28, 2017

“An Accounting” by Joanna PrestonPosted by

Ekphrastic Challenge, January 2017: Editor’s Choice

 

Days In San Francisco #1, 1984 by Harry Wilson

Image: “Days in San Francisco #1, 1984” by Harry Wilson. “An Accounting” was written by Joanna Preston for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, January 2017, and selected by Timothy Green as the Editor’s Choice winner. (PDF / JPG)

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Joanna Preston

AN ACCOUNTING

And the days spill like soot from a fireplace,
ash of them dusting skin.

Days hoarded like krugerrands.
Days transfixed, pinned

like beetles to the pages
of her clothes. Their passage a shuffle

of dried leaves, hoarse whisper
of an overdue bill. She plucks

unattended days out of the air
—hey presto and a shower of doves.

Days like confetti litter the streets.
Days like bankers litter the streets.

How they gather, the days. Haggard moths
to a lantern. Hungry mouths

to a soup canteen.
A paper boat of wasted days

unfolds in the gutter, forgets itself
in the rain.

—Ekphrastic Challenge, January 2017
Editor’s Choice Winner

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Comment from the editor on this selection: “Preston has crafted a poem full of great images and great music, and at the end of the day I think that’s all poetry really wants. While many other poets had similar reactions to Wilson’s photograph—maybe it’s the year, too; 1984 is now 33 years gone—this was the poem that best captured the emotion of these fleeting days.”

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February 23, 2017

“A Town of Mirrors and Quaking Forty-Fours” by Richard Manly HeimanPosted by

Ekphrastic Challenge, January 2017: Artist’s Choice

 

Days In San Francisco #1, 1984 by Harry Wilson

Image: “Days In San Francisco #1, 1984” by Harry Wilson. “A Town of Mirrors and Quaking Forty-Fours” was written by Richard Manly Heiman for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, January 2017, and selected by Wilson as the Artist’s Choice winner.

[download: PDF / JPG]

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Richard Manly Heiman

A TOWN OF MIRRORS AND QUAKING FORTY-FOURS

Tomorrows whirl along, they promenade
like pages ripped from too-brief years, before
their soft-shoe asphalt syncopations fade
down Geary to the Van Ness corridor.

The beats in Fillmore boom-boom, saxophones
uncurl and snake around a fog of nights.
And yesterdays? Don’t think about them—gone.
Like endless hours spent browsing City Lights.

Once, hungry fire raged through the Tenderloin.
The dead shipped south to Colma, out of sight.
Once, bitter Tong-blood soaked the urban groin,
and Carol’s boobs glared proud in neon light.

But now who thinks of Sutro’s on the sand,
or Playland at the Beach, or Winterland?

—Ekphrastic Challenge, January 2017
Artist’s Choice Winner

[download audio]

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Comment from the artist, Harry Wilson, on this selection: “Richard triggered enough of the city that I knew, experienced, and loved. And of course it was also a time that I returned to through his poem. It is a different city now, but I keep going back anyway. So it was his focus on the city that did it. There were other poets that made the choice difficult, though—thanks to Judy Kaber and Loretta Walker, and their more personal takes.”

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