December 21, 2023

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

Image: “Aerial II” by Scott Wiggerman. “Flying Back to England That First Time” was written by Rose Lennard for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, November 2023, and selected as the Artist’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)

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Rose Lennard

FLYING BACK TO ENGLAND THAT FIRST TIME

from above there was something so tender
about the detailed tapestry of roads
and homes and gardens, each one different
and loved and tended, and it was like
seeing inside a body, all the organs
large and small, each with their own
precious unique purpose
and each unknowable, complex
and essential; all existing in conjunction
with the other parts but separate
and distinct. England so stewarded
and ancient, patterned by all the lives
that shaped it once, now buried under stones;
and all the lives that make it their own
and so patiently mow lawns, wash cars,
bring groceries home, take kids to football
and lessons on piano. People going
to lovers’ trysts, hospital appointments,
working shifts, nodding to neighbours over gates.
As the light faded the roads were traced
with streetlights and headlight beams, and each
little ordered patch of earth outlined below
with trim hedge or fence, each house set
quietly back on its plot; and over the engines’ roar
I could almost hear the night-feathered blackbirds
on telegraph poles or high up
in the leafy crowns of apple trees,
spilling out their evening song.
 

from Ekphrastic Challenge
November 2023, Artist’s Choice

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Comment from the artist, Scott Wiggerman: “I created a series of six colored pencil drawings with the title ‘Aerial,’ imagining different landscapes as seen from the air. ‘Aerial II’ is the only one focused on what I picture as suburbia. ‘Flying Back’ also starts from the air, and through exquisite images develops the closer and closer telegraphing of what is below—from the ‘detailed tapestry of roads’ to the extended metaphor of the human body—‘all the organs / large and small’—to the mundane activities of the inhabitants of ‘each / little ordered patch of earth outlined below.’ And then the lovely closing: aural blackbirds as night arrives, ‘spilling out their evening song.’ I found this poem very close to my own sensibilities. I only wish I had written it!”

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November 30, 2023

Shadowland by Arthur Lawrence, painting of shadowy bird-like figures flying toward a mountain or volcano

Image: “Shadowland” by Arthur Lawrence. “Pilgrims of the Mound” was written by Conal Abatangelo for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, October 2023, and selected as the Editor’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)

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Conal Abatangelo

PILGRIMS OF THE MOUND

after Genbakukuyōtō

By the riverbank, where the herons
no longer fed, for lack of food
and lack of herons, they pulled bodies
from the water until the days began
to drop low in the horizon. If the sky
cleared, the cloud remained, and near
to the ground, the sun bloomed
dimmer than all the summers
before. There came a rain like night
which swallowed all colors, painting
in ash where ash had not been. Exhumed,
exhausted, returned to the land. The workers,
even as they buried, began too to drop
dead. In the coming weeks, the months,
the long years, a whole people became
a vault, a chapel, then the mound.
The line of ghosts unburying itself
each time a bomb speaks, even if no one will
listen for it.
 

from Ekphrastic Challenge
October 2023, Editor’s Choice

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Comment from the series editor, Megan O’Reilly: “I found the poet’s use of language so unexpected as to be mesmerizing–I kept rereading phrases to savor them, and to marvel at how artfully and accurately they capture aspects of Arthur Lawrence’s ‘Shadowland.’ The rich but muted hues of the image are reflected in the phrase ‘a rain like night / which swallowed all the colors,’ and I was moved by the description ‘a line of ghosts unburying itself’ in relation to the crowd of figures in ‘Shadowland.’ I think the phrase ‘a bomb speaks’ is the one which will haunt me most–the idea of a bomb having a voice and something to say is an unsettling truth. Truth is something neither poem nor image shy away from, and I think that’s why they create such a resonant harmony.”

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November 23, 2023

Shadowland by Arthur Lawrence, painting of shadowy bird-like figures flying toward a mountain or volcano

Image: “Shadowland” by Arthur Lawrence. “The Addiction Bird” was written by Agnes Hanying Ong for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, October 2023, and selected as the Artist’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)

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Agnes Hanying Ong

THE ADDICTION BIRD

In a dream
someone calling your name
from a far sea. A sign
from Allah. Says the book
of which, oriole, people.
To Allah, I pray everyday
that you will find the way and live
a life without the drink. It is
the only speaker of an
anguish, anguish of
idyllic geese. How do birds say good
bye to their chicks? When
the black birds came, they wore
colors of a rainbow and
the colors fell off on
everything. Live like a bird I keep
having this dream of
school shooting, no, it takes
 
place in a drugstore, where
the usual girl, who is there, says
Look, look, that guy is
coming. Do you hear gunshots. What’s
that? Flickering in the distance?
Wait, that’s gunfire. Okay, so
what now? Are we supposed to
run out? He is outside. So
should we run in? In this literal
drugstore rimmed with aisles
of bottles to be
walking, where you
might think this is holy
temple of genies, we are
running past: genies or, jinn
or jaan, sentenced
to life as numerous
drinks in bottles all full, same
 
place where I once witnessed a
bird die, having flown
into glass, less than a minute
ago. Here, we arrive at: an empty
room, which has a lock, on the
metal door. So we ought to
be safe here. Just lock the door, lock
the door. I lock the door, realizing
there is another room inside this room
which has no windows. The room is
walled with just cold, concrete
surprising in this town, like it is a miniature
medieval castle. It is like, nightly, we can
warm our hands here, stay low and close
to the ground, while setting a pile of
silverfish on fire and say: This is living. This is
peace, this is close, as close as,
as close as to
Allah any
one can ever be. Bullets of stale
-hard bread thrown upon window—
windowless, this is bird
on sugar water, this is twilight
dimmed in a flapping of wings, this is
bird scrambling for life, this is
malnourished—
Across swifts in the sky,
what kind of bird do you take us
for?
 

from Ekphrastic Challenge
October 2023, Artist’s Choice

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Comment from the artist, Arthur Lawrence: “This poem is chock-full of poetic imagery and delightful word play like ‘the usual girl, genies or, jinn or jann.’ The line spacing is purposeful and not stressed. The painting that I provided is somewhat nightmarish and surrealistic, qualities this poem elicits. The poem begs the question, what are we addicted to … guns, war, drugs, mindless violence, mindless adherence to doctrine? From the war in Gaza to the war in our schools, and on our streets, this is the nightmare our children and grandchildren live with every day. Just ask the young and they will tell you that you are too old to understand.”

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October 26, 2023

Yellow Flowers by Carla Paton, drawing of a robot holding a bouquet of yellow flowers

Image: “Yellow Flowers” by Carla Paton. “The Rote Stuff” was written by Gary Glauber for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, September 2023, and selected as the Editor’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)

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Gary Glauber

THE ROTE STUFF

Standing at your door with flowers:
one of love’s little rituals …
but a sense of sameness overwhelms.
Over the years such simple acts
have been repeated ad infinitum.
This is how it happened—
simple as a headline—
ROmantic BOy Transformed to ROBOT.
Habit deadens the soul, it seems.
And such rehearsed practices
dull the performance to reflex,
going through the motions
sans the emotions.
Vacant gaze betrays
a heart riddled with heartbreak,
disappointment and unmet expectations:
world-weary but beating on unbeaten
within a sullen crankcase
of mismatched component parts,
clinging yet to the firm belief
that the next attempt may uncover
the true love that has been so elusive,
the one to reverse the robotic curse
and invigorate, resuscitate, the mercy
and grace of a love requited.
Let passion decide it—beyond
the moon/June/spoon of trite cliché.
Let this be the exceptional exception
to end pseudo-love’s long dismay.
Come kismet, come karma,
come soulmate so blessed.
Standing at your door with flowers,
a silent prayer inhabits the breath
that quickens as the door swings open fast—
revealing perhaps what all dreams manifest,
curse into cure at long last.
 

from Ekphrastic Challenge
September 2023, Artist’s Choice

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Comment from the series editor, Megan O’Reilly: “I like the non-literal approach Glauber takes to Alison Bailey’s gorgeous image, the idea of repeated failed attempts at romance as robotic in nature–‘[h]abit deadens the soul,’ the poet writes. Bailey’s sympathetic robot, with its empty but somehow poignantly human ‘eyes,’ is easy to envision as an oft-jilted suitor bracing for one more attempt at love. I also appreciate the touches of repetitive contrast here–‘beating on unbeaten,’ ‘exceptional exception,’ ‘curse into cure,’ and how they reflect the paradoxical way a robot might think, with a superior intellect but also perhaps an inability to understand the nuances of human language. By the end, I found myself rooting for our robot narrator when the fateful door opens to reveal ‘perhaps what all dreams manifest.’”

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October 19, 2023

Yellow Flowers by Carla Paton, drawing of a robot holding a bouquet of yellow flowers

Image: “Yellow Flowers” by Carla Paton. “For a Robot” was written by Alison Bailey for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, September 2023, and selected as the Artist’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)

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Alison Bailey

FOR A ROBOT

to write a poem
first
it must survive a kindergarten schoolyard trauma, a sunburn on an overcast day,
bury, in a small paper box that once held a bar of soap,
the thumbnail-sized frog that was once a polliwog it caught at Mrs. Anderson’s
pond whose tail fell off and hind legs emerged like quotation marks & had
been kept in the rinsed Best Foods mayonnaise jar
 
must worry a tobacco-stained grandfather’s hand
run over a jackrabbit on I-40 in the Arizona desert
get divorced
burn dinner
confess its sins
suffer food poisoning
refuse to eat blue M&M’s
hang, on a sweet-breezy July, laundry in Fishtail, Montana—eye the distant Sawtooth
Mountains & hum “Waltzing Matilda” which it learned from Miss Vineyard
in second grade
 
must fear thunder
rush to focus its binoculars on the wintering Lazuli Bunting
tell white lies to be kind
shout “Heavens to Betsy!”
be part of a standing ovation
endure recurring nightmares
question the crossing guard about the origin of “fingers crossed”
develop calluses as it learns to play the twelve-string banjo
have its hair smell of campfire smoke
swat, during a humid-summer dusk, at mosquitoes on a dock full of splintered
cypress wood at Half Moon Lake in Eau Claire, Wisconsin
 
forever dislike Brussels sprouts because it overcooked them and they smelled like
rotten eggs
must watch wind
weep at a funeral
lose anything
imagine infinity
doubt God’s existence
die a little every day
then, perhaps—
 

from Ekphrastic Challenge
September 2023, Artist’s Choice

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Comment from the artist, Carla Paton: “‘For a Robot’ is intriguing and evocative, melding together the realm of human experience with the concept of machine cognition. What makes it so captivating is its detailing of poignant, sometimes mundane moments that cumulatively shape a human life. The poem ponders on the prerequisites for authentic creation, suggesting that a robot must undergo a multitude of sensory and emotional experiences before it can truly create something as intimate as poetry. The assortment of events, from the whimsical refusal to eat blue M&M’s to the somber note of watching the wind weep at a funeral, emphasizes the vast spectrum of human emotions and experiences. It also subtly hints at the idea that even with sophisticated technology, certain depths of feeling and understanding will likely remain exclusive to humans. The poem’s fragmented structure, jumping from one scene to the next, mirrors the fragmented nature of memory and experience, offering a powerful meditation on what it means to be sentient, to live, and to create.”

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September 28, 2023

Seamstress by Lily Prigioniero, oil painting of an elderly woman sewing by a window

Image: “Seamstress” by Lily Prigioniero. “To the Child Watching His Grandmother Sew” was written by Bradford Kimball for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, August 2023, and selected as the Editor’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)

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Bradford Kimball

TO THE CHILD WATCHING HIS GRANDMOTHER SEW

The whir of the sewing machine fades
Like a faltering metronome.
 
If you can imagine each stitch
As a note,
You can hear a lone melody.
 
But you don’t know that yet.
You are too young, and it is too dark.
 
She’ll wait until the lights burn out,
And when she thinks you are asleep,
She’ll play that tune again.
 
One day, you’ll hear
Some love song on the radio
And understand.
The music crescendos—
 
The lights burn out, one by one,
And you remember
The needle’s steady hum:
The first love song you ever heard.
 

from Ekphrastic Challenge
August 2023, Editor’s Choice

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Comment from the series editor, Megan O’Reilly: “There is a profound sense of warmth, both emotionally and visually, in this beautiful image, which is reflected in ‘To the Child Watching his Grandmother Sew.’ The simple yet extraordinary idea of a grandmother’s sewing as a child’s first music is elegantly executed, never overdone or heavy-handed. I also love the way the poet uses light: The grandmother waits until ‘the lights burn out’ to run the sewing machine so she doesn’t wake the child, which for me conjures a picture of the child listening to this ‘music’ while in a dreamlike state in another room—a deeply resonant image. There is a great deal of love in this poem—it makes me miss the ‘steady hum’ of my own grandmother.”

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September 21, 2023

Seamstress by Lily Prigioniero, oil painting of an elderly woman sewing by a window

Image: “Seamstress” by Lily Prigioniero. “My Wife, Sewing at a Window” was written by Eithne Longstaff for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, August 2023, and selected as the Artist’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)

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Eithne Longstaff

MY WIFE, SEWING AT A WINDOW

Spring wanes
and as is her custom
 
she pulls the dusty
cover from her Singer
 
and sits at the window
to fashion cotton,
 
sprigged with tiny
roses, into tiered
 
summer skirts
for whichever
 
grandchild wants one.
Time stretches like
 
the elastic she holds
and I recall a trip
 
to Rome where,
laughing, we fell
 
into a church
as raindrops slid
 
from bare arms.
In a dark side chapel
 
we clattered coins
into a metal box
 
and the space lit up
with a yellow glow,
 
revealing a Caravaggio,
just for us. She said
 
he has painted the light
 
and we stood
and marveled.
 
Then our ninety seconds
of illumination was over
 
and we stepped back
into lives that were all about
 
where to next, and
our house will be blue.
 
Now she is the old
master and as she works
 
light ripples her clothes
and crowns her head
 
with cirrus. The rose
fabric is stippled
 
with thorns and I see
only where the light
 
falls to make her perfect
and dare not look
 
to the room’s dark corners.
 

from Ekphrastic Challenge
August 2023, Artist’s Choice

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Comment from the artist, Lily Prigioniero: “Although the seamstress in my painting is my mom, I related to this poem in many ways, especially regarding the passage of time, a major factor in choosing this one among many. The images at the beginning are vivid and easily approachable in their present-tense setting; then there’s the transition into a past memory with the simile, ‘Time stretches like / the elastic she holds / and I recall a trip / to Rome …’ We are then brought back to the present by tying the Caravaggio experience of light to ‘Now she is the old / master ….’ This time around, however, the passage of time feels heavier and more mysterious, not only because the rose fabric is ‘stippled with thorns,’ but because we are given a glimpse into the future with the poem’s powerful last line ‘and dare not look / to the room’s dark corners.'”

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