Image: “Worm” by Enne Tesse. “Identity Politics” was written by Drea for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, August 2022, and selected as the Artist’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)
Comment from the artist, Enne Tesse: “In this minimal and complex poem the possibilities of thought are left open while connecting visually with the unusual aspects of the image.”
“Driving in the Rain” by Christopher ShipmanPosted by Rattle
Image: “Blueprint of a Dream” by Jaundré van Breda. “Driving in the Rain” was written by Christopher Shipman for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, July 2022, and selected as the Editor’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)
Comment from the editor, Timothy Green: “Ekphrastic poems are often the most impressive when they manage to both clearly be inspired by the source artwork and also stretch the image far into a surprising direction. Christopher Shipman does that here, with a gorgeous poem full of memorable lines and more twists and turns than I can count. I didn’t see a face behind rain-soaked glass, but now I do.”
Image: “Blueprint of a Dream” by Jaundré van Breda. “Balancing Act” was written by Ajay Kumar for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, July 2022, and selected as the Artist’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)
__________
Ajay Kumar
BALANCING ACT
you are on your tiptoes to see your mother
in the ICU ward, her face in a heart of glass
made blue with nebulized breath, by confession
of the hospital floor in your eyes that the only nest
for a tired bird is air itself, cleaner than your conscience
that preferred her death over the fall again, and the fits.
a lone grain of dust coaxes from your eyes a confession
of unasked water held back for some other occasion :
when she sleeps there is a nightmare sleeping there
in a way you cannot even dream of : how an hourglass
looks like a brittle polygon of infinity and infinity
appears to be a balancing act of two teardrops.
when she returns and looks at you : a breathingtube
for a nosering, a hospital gown the color of fadedgrass
that splits nakedbrown at the back : you knew you had to
oar her drained boat of a smile to some shore where
she won’t lose herself to things you can’t understand.
say she wants a hole on her body where nothing happens
say her drool melts her chin into a smudged feather
her flesh pricked like a legostrip that fits in then falls apart
for a new design : more what’s broken than what broke it.
Comment from the artist, Jaundré van Breda: “I consider that a poem’s success, like a painting or piece of music, depends solely on the reader and what they get from it. Balancing act gave me more than I expected. It made me feel.”
“Poem with a Cloud and Frank Ocean Lyrics” by José Felipe OzunaPosted by Rattle
Image: “Kennedy Lake” by M-A Murphy. “Poem with a Cloud and Frank Ocean Lyrics” was written by José Felipe Ozuna for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, June 2022, and selected as the Editor’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)
__________
José Felipe Ozuna
POEM WITH CLOUD AND FRANK OCEAN LYRICS
August 2016 and the sky and lake bleed
into each other. I’ve spent the weekend
trying to download Blond on my phone
with shoddy WiFi at my friend’s cabin,
where I take my shirt off outside for
the first time in years and we use nets
to try to catch minnows shooting through
the water like scaled bullets. I don’t remember
catching anything. Or showering. I know it
can’t be true but in my head the sky was lower
back then, close enough to touch. If I had
reached my hand out I could’ve stolen a cloud
and crushed it in my palm small enough to fit in my pocket,
so I would always have that sky with me. By the end of the trip
my arms will be darker and my cheeks rosy, something I didn’t
know could happen to skin like mine. In the car ride home
I don’t cry when Frank sings we’ll never be those kids again.
I doubt I really heard it. I don’t know how to swim, but that summer
when my friends jump in the lake so do I, and I aim where I can
see the bottom so I don’t sink too far. So I can come up for air.
The sky isn’t pink and white. But it’s blue. And it’s there.
Comment from the editor, Timothy Green: “The poems were especially good this month—perhaps because the artwork itself provokes such strong memories—but I thought José’s poem did the best job of capturing the true complexity of nostalgia and the human predicament of being conscious creatures caught in the river of time. We’ll never return to the lakes of our youth, or experience the same great album again for the first time. To love something is to lose it, a fact that remains as happy as it is sad. And it’s there.”
Image: “Kennedy Lake” by M-A Murphy. “June 24, 2022” was written by Sarah Russell for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, June 2022, and selected as the Artist’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)
Comment from the artist, M-A Murphy: “There are several that I love a lot, but this poem gave me shivers as I read it, because I have been that girl, in the background wondering what was happening to my body as I became a teenager and started my period; feeling deeply uncomfortable and overwhelmed at this new reality, but also curious and excited. I love that the poet wrote about the two girls on the pier in the shadows, and not the focal point of the boy jumping off. I really appreciated that. Thank you.”
“Laparoscopy, or a Half-Birth” by Gabriella GraceffoPosted by Rattle
Image: “El Camino de Esmeralda” by Danelle Rivas. “Laparoscopy, or a Half-Birth” was written by Gabriella Graceffo for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, May 2022, and selected as the Editor’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)
__________
Gabriella Graceffo
LAPAROSCOPY, OR A HALF-BIRTH
At Pleasure Pier, two girls plunge
into the sea, the gulf swallowing
the pink-skinned little pills
of their bodies as I sand my calves,
watching the slash of polka-dot
tween bikinis disappear in gray water.
A little high on propofol, I explore
the arcade of myself, the paddles
and pinball lights and openings:
three keyholes a surgeon cut to reach
the cyst in my left ovary, a mouth
that traps sound like a billiard pocket,
that trapped the answer to Want to keep it?
as the nurse presented the clotted mass in plastic:
Comment from the editor, Timothy Green: “A painting as wildly vivid as this deserves a poem that can match it, and Gabriella’s manages to with the ‘arcade of myself’—what a great word. The poem is visually rich, full of excellent lines and line breaks, and discovers something profound in the process. Who could ask for more?”
Image: “El Camino de Esmeralda” by Danelle Rivas. “Camouflage” was written by Katie Kemple for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, May 2022, and selected as the Artist’s Choice. (PDF / JPG)
Comment from the artist, Danelle Rivas: “Although many of the poems were very evocative, I was was particularly drawn to ‘Camouflage’ because, like the painting, it’s a kaleidoscope, a tumult of words like the articles within the dress. I like the way the words of the objects feel tossed in the poem and the line ‘the hand of it all, kept painting to keep them in frame’ is perfect as it describes the elements hemmed in within the magic frock. There is a true understanding of the whirl of images captured in this poem and the last lines, my effigy enters—swirls leaves, and exits out the window with chopsticks is everything.”
