Ekphrastic Challenge

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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June 27, 2024

“An Early Autumn Light that Unburies You” by Steven PanPosted by

Bird Ascending the Fire by Barbara Hageman Sarvis, painting in oranges and purples of a bird flying over a woodland lake

Image: “Bird Ascending the Fire” by Barbara Hageman Sarvis. “An Early Autumn Light that Unburies You” was written by Steven Pan for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, May 2024, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.

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Steven Pan

AN EARLY AUTUMN LIGHT THAT UNBURIES YOU

On earth, everything no longer
here is here in some variation
 
of light. An ice age
half-gone, all geography
 
shaved off youngest to oldest:
craters and lakes telling time
 
in reverse. Someday we’ll end
up there, you used to say,
 
pointing to the sun setting
over the strand. The season
 
and the leaves, starting
over again in a dream
 
with everything that lived
before this. Is it strange,
 
how a hurt that looked back
at you, looks like all of you
 
in the amber slowness
before evening. The detour
 
of your shadow
somewhere, casting a hook
 
over the water, perception
as imprecise as memory
 
or the autumn lingering
inside of it. Any year
 
straying no further
than the line of a robin’s
 
wings, the slight lean
of the trees that said life
 
held on. If I could call
you back, would this shore
 
be the one you’d wait on? How often
I mistake the sound of the wind
 
for the sound of your answer.
Your answer for a goodbye said
 
aloud. Goodbye for a matter
of time, or maybe a matter
 
of timing. Like a bird caught
mid-flight in the light
 
of the sky, brimming with everything
and nothing at once.
 

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
May 2024, Editor’s Choice

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Comment from the editor, Megan O’Reilly: “There are many aspects of ‘An Early Autumn Light that Unburies You’ that left an impression, from its smooth flow and musicality to its depth of meaning, but what stands out most, perhaps, is the way it’s peppered with gorgeous and brilliant turns of phrase–so many the effect could be overwhelming in the hands of a less adept poet. In the very same sentence, we find ‘The detour / of your shadow,’ ‘perception / as imprecise as memory’ (a stunningly insightful description), and ‘the autumn lingering / inside of it.’ One could read these lines many times and still be taken by the beauty and profundity of the poet’s language. When I first saw this image, I thought such a dramatic and striking piece of art would be challenging to match. I can’t imagine a better partner than this poem.”

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May 30, 2024

“Of California, the Wild” by Breonne StiglitzPosted by

Night Train by Gerrie Paino, train car deserted at night with stars in background

Image: “Night Train” by Gerrie Paino. “Of California, the Wild” was written by Breonne Stiglitz for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, April 2024, and selected as the Editor’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)

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Breonne Stiglitz

OF CALIFORNIA, THE WILD

There, on a midnight railway,
beyond the static
of the locusts,
a small, broken hum
from an old radio
blinks in and out,
in and out,
through Cuyahoga Valley
when Ohio was for lovers.
A golden sepia-toned starlet
leans on the glass
of the window
and wonders
as the steam blows
from the engine ahead.
A man in a frock coat
and a three-piece suit
tips his hat
as her wonder floats
into the aisle
where it collides
with his glistening glare.
Her rosy, peach cheeks pull
her mouth to her ears,
and she can hear
the distant voices
of California, the wild
calling her name. There,
where the cars drive
faster, the trees turn
to telephone poles,
and the lights burn
an afterimage
into the eyes of twilight—
puddles spilt
in the street, reflecting
the stoplights, the theater,
the neon signs
that curl fingers inwards
to lift skirts and seduce
prey, to convince onlookers
to buy lipstick and pearls
that bleed and coil
like snakes around the necks
of the Beautiful
and the Enlightened.
And it pulls like a venom,
pulsing,
a steam engine traveling
across the skin
of a Hollywood dream,
where it once whistled
like a biting catcall,
that now, sits amongst
the brush and thistle
to shelter the rabbits
from the foxes’ mouths,
an orchestra of crickets—
the sounds of the night
begging
the locomotive to move
again under God’s collection
of dying stars, wheels
that once turned as time does.
 

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
April 2024, Editor’s Choice

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Comment from the series editor, Megan O’Reilly: “There is a dreamy, cinematic quality to this image that I felt was perfectly captured by ‘Of California, the Wild.’ I found it effortless and satisfying to imagine this ‘golden sepia-toned starlet’ looking out the train window until the natural landscape fades and ‘the trees turn / to telephone poles.’ There is magic in the way the poet contrasts the glamour and glitz of Hollywood (“the neon signs/that curl fingers inwards”) against the still-wild California land. The poem ends with a haunting reminder that the train is an agent of time–once relentless and vibrant; now frozen, just a memory.”

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April 25, 2024

“The Space Between” by Amelie FlaglerPosted by

Alignment II by John Paul Caponigro, surreal photograph of boulders over a sand dune

Image: “Alignment II” by John Paul Caponigro. “The Space Between” was written by Amelie Flagler for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, March 2024, and selected as the Artist’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)

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Amelie Flagler

THE SPACE BETWEEN

Perhaps equidistance is a secret to be explored.
I suggest it’s not something,
I believe it’s not nothing,
But a perfect illusion of what comes in between.
The things that we miss at the height of a scene.
Not as grand as the sky, or as low as the sands,
The air that’s unnoticed as it flows through the lands,
The blank space.
The missed place.
The dirt between home and first base.
 
So the zone between up and down lies still,
Forever ignored by the human’s will,
Floating and frozen, barely windblown,
Unmoving, unrecognized, encaptured in stone.
 
We continue our lives, always looking around,
Condoning our nature to miss middle-ground.
 

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
March 2024, Artist’s Choice

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Comment from the artist, John Paul Caponigro: “‘The Space Between’ engages the art directly, transcending mere description, surprisingly and insightfully noting what often goes unnoticed. Never departing from the original source, the observations it shares feel both personal and universal, reminding us of truths we already know but often forget. I feel I learned something while reading this poem written in response to my art; something that was intuitively felt became consciously clearer.”

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March 28, 2024

“Shoulder MRI” by Elizabeth McMunn-TetangcoPosted by

Graphing Uncertainty V by Christine Crockett, abstract painting of lines and triangles in red and black

Image: “Graphing Uncertainty V” by Christine Crockett. “Shoulder MRI” was written by Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, February 2024, and selected as the Editor’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)

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Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco

SHOULDER MRI

It doesn’t hurt it is
abstract.
 
The pain
is toothaches, but
 
displaced.
A refugee. There is
 
a word.
It’s like a hammer
 
and a nail, how everything
 
becomes your
pain. It sleeps and wakes.
 
It wakes you up. It goes all
 
egg-shaped, tastes
of blood. You
 
picture pain
in little threads, tender
 
as clams. Papier maché. You see
 
the torn part. No
 
one knows that it is there. It hates
this too.
 

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
February 2024, Editor’s Choice

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Comment from the series editor, Megan O’Reilly: “Even the title of this poem alone seems to me to resonate with the enigmatically compelling image—the abstract, angular, black-and-white tone reminiscent of an MRI scan. As the piece unfolds, I see an even stronger connection between the two: There’s an objectivity, a detachment, to the way the speaker describes pain, and yet also a vulnerable rawness that comes through, a contrast that reflects the distinction between the black-and-white angularity and the rounded red shape in the center. I love the way the poet writes in mostly clipped, staccato phrases—‘A refugee. There is / a word. / It’s like a hammer’–that don’t bely any feeling, and then the last line is the first time emotion is explicitly introduced, a surprising ending that renders the poem suddenly personal. In image and words alike, there is a beating heart under all this abstraction.”

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