Image: “Through the Looking Glass” by Melody Carr. “Facial Recognition” was written by Janice Zerfas for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, April 2018, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.
Comment from the artist, Melody Carr: “My favorite poem was ‘Facial Recognition.’ What I loved in this poem is that there is a level of truth in it that taught me something about the photograph I took, something that I felt with a shock of recognition, the way the poem carefully moves over the face in the photograph, in an almost tactile movement, finding so much truth in each place the poem touches on, and yet so much mystery remaining, hidden in the closest gloss. The ending of the poem reminds me a bit of a story. Kathleen Raine wrote that the mystical view is that there is not one universe with many beings, but instead there are multiple universes, but only one being. This is a wonderful thought to me. I used to go around and think when I would see people passing in cars, that each one was just a form of me in another universe, as I was of them. Everyone a strange universe, everyone me. And by the way, the photograph is a selfie—that’s me—in another universe—almost familiar, but unknown … and reading poems submitted in response to it was quite interesting. It was wonderful to have the chance to engage with a community of poets writing on the picture and delightful to read the poems that it inspired. Thanks to everyone who created their own vision of recognizing a face inspired by seeing the photo.”
