Ekphrastic Challenge

March 22, 2024

“WHY I Am / BECAUSE You Are” by Brendan Constantine & Andi MylesPosted by

Brendan Constantine & Andi Myles

WHY AM I / BECAUSE YOU ARE

ACT I
Questions by Andi Myles / Answers by Brendan Constantine
 
Why do birds love blackberries?
Because I never make decisions at night.
 
Why does the color green make me happy?
Because fire can be kept on a shelf and forgotten.
 
Why is the ladybug always alone?
Because no one is more beautiful than when you tell them they are.
 
Why are you sad?
Because my mother still carries me.
 
Why does fire entrance?
Because of a Sunday in 1975 when no one could find the sky.
 
 
ACT II
Questions by Brendan Constantine / Answers by Andi Myles
 
Why are there so many falls?
Because horses always know their way home.
 
Why can’t I see the castle?
Because it is impossible to see both sides of the moon.
 
Why do the dead talk all night?
Because the endling is on the precipice of death.
 
Why is a snake always needed?
Because I have a weakness for women named Maria.
 
Why are the stars still waiting?
Because even gods die without love.
 

—from Rattle #83, Spring 2024
Tribute to Collaboration

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Brendan Constantine & Andi Myles: “We both wrote our five questions/answers on our own before seeing the other’s and texted them to each other. First, Andi provided the questions and Brenden supplied the answers and then we switched roles. This was not edited to be anything more than it was—an exercise, a reaching out across thousands of miles sharing the answers without questions that plague us. It might seem like we cheated (the recurrence of fire in Act I? The dead and the endling? Stars and gods?) but we were equally surprised and delighted at the themes that emerged.” (web)

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March 21, 2024

“Things That Collapse” by Jonathan HarrisPosted by

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

Image: “Graphing Uncertainty V” by Christine Crockett. “Things That Collapse” was written by Jonathan Harris for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, February 2024, and selected as the Artist’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)

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Jonathan Harris

THINGS THAT COLLAPSE

Slumped in a lawn chair under a pink umbrella a hand fan on his belly
in a jackknifing heat that’s me I see now and those are my children
coming for me from our rose bed gone-under. They lay me
on the earth and fall in tight my son at my heart splitting
stones on my chest. On her knees and cell with 911
my daughter traces half/faces the wrinkles
on my forehead. She bends closer after
ending the call coos in my ear ruffling
her ringlets: orphans, origami, tents,
tables, tarantulas, hammocks,
accordions, waves. At least
those are the notes I’m
vaguely aware of
but find hard to
swallow.
A
slap on the cheek a shrug by my shoulders my children
cry out: Dad! Dad! Don’t leave us! Don’t you dare
leave us! Then together scoop me up
in their arms and won’t let go as if
everything in our top-down top-
heavy world hinges
on the screws
holding.
 

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
February 2024, Artist’s Choice

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Comment from the artist, Christine Crockett: “This poem handles the ekphrastic challenge with such craft and imagination. The concrete format of two ‘collapsing’ triangles not only mirrors the geometry of the collage, but also captures something profoundly human in its composition. The organic roundness of red at the center of the college is a pulsing, endangered heart. The first triangle tapers as the stricken narrator’s consciousness streams and ebbs into single-word utterances, each a play on triangular or folded forms: accordions, origami, tents. A heartbeat pause, then the poem pivots into the ‘slap’ and embrace of his son and daughter who revive him, ‘hinge’ him back into the widening world–bloodlines that stave off the ‘top-down-top-heavy’ world that threatens collapse.”

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February 29, 2024

“Portrait of My Father as the Count of Monte Cristo” by Joanna PrestonPosted by

Desperado by G.J. Gillespie, abstract portrait of a cubist-like figure in blues and pinks

Image: “Desperado” by G.J. Gillespie. “Portrait of my father as the Count of Monte Christo” was written by Joanna Preston for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, January 2024, and selected as the Editor’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)

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Joanna Preston

PORTRAIT OF MY FATHER AS THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO

They have made for him a mask, shaped of
face and chest and shoulders and throat, not
to protect him, but with seven long
black screws to lock him firmly down. He
goes into the machine and something
almost him comes out. Because this is
desperation, this attempt by force
to burn out every hyphae of this
thing burrowed in to his throat his jaw
his tongue into the voice and breath and
savour of my father, and so now
they will burn him.
 
My father goes into the machine, and
something almost him comes out.
For the burning they give
him morphine. For the burning
they give him morphine. For
the burning they give him morphine and
his skin peels into ribbons and he
goes into the machine, and something
of him comes out.
 
A chevauchée campaign. Some of his
hair has blackened as though scorched
to its roots. He goes into the machine, and
something of my father comes out. Kind
people pat him dry, press salve and clean
cloth and bandages against him. All this
they can do without looking. He goes
into the machine, and something almost
him comes out. But his mouth
is a charred cave, smoke-filled and
acrid, his throat a scoured-out gully.
His voice is a rumour of flame, carried
by the wind at dusk to where children
are sleeping. He goes into the machine, and
something almost him comes out.
 
For the burning they give him morphine.
For the burning they give him morphine
and methadone. For the burning they give him
morphine and methadone and catch
each other’s gazes above his weeping
skin. He goes into the machine,
and something almost him comes out.
 
His face inside the cage is burnt and his
lungs are the desiccated body of a crow
wired to a fence as warning and his body
is scourged and bleeding and it is
Christmas and he has been made
into tinsel and he goes into
himself and he is dressed
in a jester’s motley but cannot laugh
the white gown of a patient but he
cannot take any more wears the memory
of my father but it is charred
around the edges and there are embers
in his mind and he goes into
the machine and something
does not come out.
 

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
January 2024, Editor’s Choice

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Comment from the series editor, Megan O’Reilly: “There is something part human, part machine, and part something else–something indefinable–in G.J. Gillespie’s bold, abstract image, and Joanna Preston’s poem reflects this combination in the most profound and brilliant way I can imagine. Though the subject matter is excruciatingly human, the poet uses repetition, metaphor, and a detached voice to emphasize the clinical, almost robotic nature of what her father is enduring. The result is a poem so weighty and haunting, I needed to remind myself to breathe after reading the last line. Coupled with the captivating image that inspired it, ‘Portrait of my father as the Count of Monte Christo’ will reverberate in my mind for a long time.”

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February 22, 2024

“Emergence” by Chris KaiserPosted by

Desperado by G.J. Gillespie, abstract portrait of a cubist-like figure in blues and pinks

Image: “Desperado” by G.J. Gillespie. “Emergence” was written by Chris Kaiser for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, January 2024, and selected as the Artist’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)

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Chris Kaiser

EMERGENCE

I remember you nude, descending
a staircase, the Times glued
to your hip. What was that four-letter
word beginning with “o”? Oh, I
 
remember your pentimento skin,
a collage of silent wounds that spoke
to my tongue in the pink moments
of dawn, your stitched body,
 
a patchwork quilt of stop-gap
bloodletting. But too often you
covered truth with hope: “Can I
escape the mechanized chime
 
of church bells that take their toll
on each dying day?” Oh, I wish I
had tasted the gasoline in your veins,
believed in the violence of hope,
 
drowned in the rich delta of tears.
Maybe I’d’ve risen like the salmon-pink
moon over the radius of your pain
and burrowed like a winter squirrel
 
into the geometry
of your sorrow and love.
 

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
January 2024, Artist’s Choice

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Comment from the artist, G.J. Gillespie: “While some poems evoked violence or disease, which wasn’t my initial intention, ‘Emergence’ resonated with the deeper layers of existential perplexity in my artwork. The poem’s rich and sensual imagery, like ‘pentimento skin’ and ‘the rich delta of tears,’ captures the emotional complexity I aimed to portray. The allusion to ‘Nude Descending a Staircase’ adds a layer of historical context and artistic dialogue. While other poems responded to the collaged nature of the artwork, none incorporated unique elements like the ‘geometry’ of sorrow and love, which beautifully reflects the fragmented yet interconnectedness of the figure. More importantly, the poem’s undercurrent of longing and the speaker’s desire to delve deeper into the subject’s pain mirror the sense of mystery and invitation I hoped to create in my viewers. It’s a poem that lingers in the mind and invites repeated exploration, much like my artwork.”

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January 25, 2024

“Watch This!” by Tristan RothPosted by

Cold Sun by Jeanne Wilkinson, sepia photograph of an abandoned shopping cart in a snowy landscape

Image: “Cold Sun” by Jeanne Wilkinson. “Watch This!” was written by Tristan Roth for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, December 2023, and selected as the Editor’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)

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Tristan Roth

WATCH THIS!

You captured the whole thing on the flippy-est dumb phone,
before you got smart. Fourteen felt like the un-freest zone
 
of youth: can’t drive, can’t drink, can’t rub two nickels,
can’t march to the beat of your harmonious own.
 
That winter of fourteen, you three trudged through snow,
pushing a Safeway shopping cart up the bunniest slope,
 
where the interstate goes under the canyon road. With temps
in the teens, you played Rochambeau, with the runniest nose.
 
Chomping at the bit, Jake always threw rock.
You always threw scissors. You were the cunningest one.
 
But Tristan was a lame-o poet, who lived life on paper.
“Me?” he said, voice squeaking in the jumpiest tone.
 
You were complete dicks back then, scared shitless of being
called chicken, charlatans strutting around the unknown,
 
your cockscombs uncolored by the foghorned winter sun.
Jake did a DX crotch chop. You were the scummiest clone,
 
You said Suck it! like Triple H and called him a pussy.
You mocked him like girls with your honey-est moans.
 
He climbed in, then dropped, the doppler sound of his voice.
“Watch this!” Tristan said, before breaking his funniest bone.
 

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
December 2023, Artist’s Choice

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Comment from the series editor, Megan O’Reilly: “There are so many elements of ‘Watch This!’ that I enjoyed, admired, and was moved by. The voice feels true to the way teenagers actually think and speak, and this is reinforced by the repetition of creative ‘-est’ words throughout the poem: ‘the flippy-est dumb phone,’ ‘the un-freest zone.’ I had to read some of the phrases a few times because they were so unexpected and satisfying: ‘cockscombs uncolored by the foghorned winter sun.’ The scene works well placed into Jeanne Wilkinson’s bleak, evocative image–one can imagine a trio of directionless teenage boys, riddled with hidden insecurities and secret fears, scattered across Wilkinson’s desolate winter landscape, ‘pushing a Safeway shopping cart up the bunniest slope.’ And finally, there’s the encompassing fact that this is simply a gorgeous poem. It’s no small feat to write a ghazal that flows naturally and feels entirely authentic (believe me, I’ve tried), and Tristan Roth makes it look easy.”

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January 18, 2024

“Curriculum Vitae” by Dante Di StefanoPosted by

Cold Sun by Jeanne Wilkinson, sepia photograph of an abandoned shopping cart in a snowy landscape

Image: “Cold Sun” by Jeanne Wilkinson. “Curriculum Vitae” was written by Dante Di Stefano for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, December 2023, and selected as the Artist’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)

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Dante Di Stefano

CURRICULUM VITAE

When I was young, I wrote a long poem
about a shopping cart overturned in
the Susquehanna River and I called it
a psalm and I can still recall the sun-
light in that poem and how the muddy
green water eddied through it and how time
slowed down as I waded through its shallows.
 
I think there was an angel in it, one
of Blake’s, dancing on the rusty right front
wheel, pointing to the invisible moon
orbiting the distant planet of all
the poetry I would one day commit
to paper and windpipe and atmosphere
and intestine and aching knuckle bone.
 
And now, in middle age, I don’t know if
the sun rises or sets in my poems,
but I know it is there, way out beyond
the overpass, and I’m here at the edge
of the desolate parking lot, where stray
cart and mud and snow commingle and God
is in the chain link and the streetlight wires
 
that hopscotch my view of the horizon,
and I believe that one day, when I’m gone,
sparrowing deep underground, I’ll still be
spiraling in the center of my lines,
voyaging along the turnpikes of verbs
enjambed in black and white, constellated
in ink on a page, syllabled to life.
 

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
December 2023, Artist’s Choice

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Comment from the artist, Jeanne Wilkinson: “I have many favorites in this group of poems. Some of my friends read also, all coming up with different choices, making me go back and read again, again, again; this was a very pleasurable problem. Several of the poems gave me goosebumps, but I kept coming back to one that made me shiver every time I read it, and still does. It’s ‘Curriculum Vitae’ and I love the mood, which seems to me infused with luminous sepia tones, matching the atmosphere of my photograph: bleak, lonely, but not without hope. Bottom line, this poet had me at Blake’s angel.”

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December 28, 2023

“(Sub)Division” by Christine CrockettPosted by

Aerial by Scott Wiggerman, a collage of colorful shapes possibly representing an aerial view of a suburban subdivision

Image: “Aerial II” by Scott Wiggerman. “(Sub)Division” was written by Christine Crockett for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, November 2023, and selected as the Editor’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)

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Christine Crockett

(SUB)DIVISION

On a blueprint stark
as a lunar footprint,
 
my father signed up
for its perfect math:
 
plots of earth wedged
into open arcs,
 
arenas unmarred
yet by tragedy.
 
Even then, I moved
in exponentials. Things
 
blurred or bent in me,
wrecked the lines,
 
found romance in spandrels
where misfits played,
 
the spillover edges
of trapped space.
 
Broken is better,
inevitable as cells
 
that spilt, subdivide,
thin until frayed
 
tissues collapse
and seepage sets in,
 
the way children leave
on well-lit roads
 
out of the still dance
of perfect math,
 
those centers that
will not hold.
 

—from Ekphrastic Challenge
November 2023, Editor’s Choice

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Comment from the series editor, Megan O’Reilly: “Scott Wiggerman’s image is so thoughtfully abstract, it sparks a lot of imagination, and I appreciated how poet Christine Crockett took that imaginativeness in multiple directions. The image invokes ‘a lunar footprint,’ ‘cells / That split, subdivide,’ and, most profound, ‘the way children leave/on well-lit roads.’ Even when not directly describing it, Crockett’s sharp writing reflects the subversively geometric tone of Wiggerman’s piece: ‘I moved in exponentials,’ she writes, ‘Things / Blurred or bent in me.’ Exquisitely epitomized in the last couplet is what I interpret as a main theme of both poem and image: the dance between chaos and order.”

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