Ekphrastic Challenge

December 19, 2024

“My New Dress” by Sarah CarletonPosted by

Paradigm Shift by Morgan Reed, abstract painting of people walking in the rain with umbrellas

Image: “Paradigm Shift” by Morgan Reed. “My New Dress” was written by Sarah Carleton for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, November 2024, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.

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Sarah Carleton

MY NEW DRESS

with bodice and gathered sleeves
kicks up a gust of colors.
Here I come, a freshly ironed wave
 
that scrubs the morning clean,
skirt swinging beneath a parasol,
waistline the fulcrum cotton rustles
 
around on a tropical day stitched
with yellow piping and white petals,
washed in turquoise seawater,
 
dabbed with terra cotta, edged in pink,
drenched in lavender—I stroll
the market like a paint-splashed
 
palette, not a woman but women,
plural, a flock, each of me
so dazzling all you see is sunshine.
 

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
November 2024, Artist’s Choice

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Comment from the artist, Morgan Reed: “What a difficult decision! There were many interesting and imaginative poems submitted, including a few that were remarkably parallel to my own thoughts in making the painting. ‘My New Dress’ takes the image in a different direction, but in the end, I was charmed by its freshness, sensory joy, and closing flourish.”

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November 28, 2024

“The Scene Is Set” by Rose LennardPosted by

Zaubererturm by Jennifer S. Lange, abstract illustration of a dark gray tower in the woods

Image: “Zaubererturm” by Jennifer S. Lange. “The Scene Is Set” was written by Rose Lennard for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, October 2024, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.

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Rose Lennard

THE SCENE IS SET

Time slows like ancient windows flowing,
reflections warp, horizons bend their bounds
and history is waiting to get going.
The trembling ash sing all the root-found
songs of hope they know; sound a warning
in shades of myth, the mauve around a wound.
Towers that fell have risen again this morning
vine-wound, cloud-capped, tall ships marooned.
 
Ravens hang forever turning overhead,
their blessed eggs lie cool in distant nests;
they dream of naked chicks with noisy gapes
to stuff with dug-up grubs until they fledge.
The screen awakes, the scene is set.
You cast the spell, the world remakes.
 

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
October 2024, Editor’s Choice

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Comment from the series editor, Megan O’Reilly: “‘The Scene is Set’ is masterfully composed in every way–the flawless rhymes, the fluid cadence, the depth of meaning. Lennard’s descriptions of Jennifer S. Lange’s piece are both visually and acoustically striking: ‘vine-wound, cloud-capped, tall ships marooned.’ The poet references ‘shades of myth,’ a fitting interpretation of ‘Zaubererturm’ and its soft, subtle invocation of fairytale and folklore. There’s an otherwordly quality to the image, interpreted by the poet as a different kind of reality (‘time slows … reflections warp…horizons bend …’). The poem’s ending, and its depiction of a temporal, illusory world, feels like a perfect homage to a gorgeously enigmatic work of art.”

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November 21, 2024

“In the Clearing” by Devon BalwitPosted by

Zaubererturm by Jennifer S. Lange, abstract illustration of a dark gray tower in the woods

Image: “Zaubererturm” by Jennifer S. Lange. “In the Clearing” was written by Devon Balwit for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, October 2024, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.

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Devon Balwit

IN THE CLEARING

No longer youthful, my skin crepes
walls, windows, and doors. Cracked,
I go mossy. The weather enters. Memories
wheel and alight in flocks. Passersby assume
I am lonely. I am anything
but. In the gnarled shadows, hosts
clamor: youngest sons prepare
for battle; widows sniff for mushrooms.
What some call grey, I call mother
of pearl—the full moon polishing the sky.
That screech is an owl or a board pried
from a window. Already, the kindling
catches as the curious lean in.
I make a space for story.
 

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
October 2024, Artist’s Choice

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Comment from the artist, Jennifer S. Lange: “I chose the poem ‘In the Clearing’ because, while it is like some other poems entered that use the tower as a person, this one spoke in first person and spoke well, seeing things from a tower’s perspective. I particularly liked the lines about the tower not being alone despite people assuming it to be, and the definition of grey being really mother of pearl—the ability to differ a great mass of small detail is a skill people seem to be losing, and I am glad about any reminder to look more closely. The most delightful however I found the last line, ‘I make a space for story,’ which to me as an illustrator is the best thing anybody can say about my images—weave a story, tell yourself what’s going on, interpret, play with it, it’s yours now.”

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October 24, 2024

“Tanka [construction cones]” by Cindy GuenthermanPosted by

Have you ever eaten breakfast here before? by Barbara Gordon, oil painting for two construction barrels leaning toward each other as if in conversation in an empty parking lot

Image: “Have you ever eaten breakfast here before?” by Barbara Gordon. “[construction cones]” was written by Cindy Guentherman for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, September 2024, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.

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Cindy Guentherman

TANKA

construction cones
tilted a little
toward each other—
how we lean forward
to say what matters
 

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
September 2024, Artist’s Choice

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Comment from the artist, Barbara Gordon: “It’s amazing how all of the poets constructed so many different stories about my painting. I’m down to these two. This tanks really captures the essence of the painting, I think: the feeling of the two barrels leaning over to talk: a little quirky, a little funny, a little tragic. The barrels and cones talking to each other, telling little stories.”

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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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